Five Question Friday

Today I've decided to participate in Mama M's Five Question Friday.  Why, you ask? Why not? I like Fridays, and five is a great number-just enough, but not so many that you get bored, right? (Hopefully.)  Also, questions are good, too-unless it is one of my kids asking me to repeat myself for the zillionth time.  Seriously, everything I say lately (whether I'm talking to them, or not) is met with a "huh?".  Annoying.  Anyway-I have a few questions for you, in this post from yesterday.  Check it out if you haven't already, and give me some blogging ideas feedback.

Ok, back on track.  I do love me a tangent.  Click on the button below to visit Mama M's blog and to find more Five Question Friday responses.






1. What is your favorite thing about summertime?
What isn't?! I love summer! The warmth, the sunshine, the flipflops, the relaxed pace that life takes on-it's all good! It's nice having the kids home from school, although I do miss having time alone.  It's great not having to worry about them getting piles of homework done, or going to bed early for school.  Softball and baseball season is almost over, so it will be even better soon!

2. What is your ideal retirement location (if money didn't matter)?
We would probably live the cliche and move to Florida, at least for winter and spring.  We love Florida.  Winters in Indiana? Not so much.  Most likely, though, we will probably live wherever our children end up-you know, so we can hang around and pester them all the time, ala Frank and Barbara on Everyone Loves Raymond.

3. Do you live in the same town you grew up in?
Same county, but one town over.

4. What nervous habit did you have as a child that you kicked to the curb before becoming an adult?
I had loads of nervous habits as a kid, and I'm not sure I've grown out of any of them yet!  I was afraid of everything, I was timid, and I was a major worrywart.  I suppose I don't worry as much as I used to, and I force myself out of my shell more now, and I actually sleep with my bedroom light out now. Imagine that.   Of course, I've manage to replace those nervous habits with all new ones....

5. What is the most embarrassing thing that happened to you while on the job?
The only ones that come to mind are goofy wardrobe malfunctions, because I'm smooth like that.  One day when I taught Kindergarten,  I was wearing corduroy Winnie the Pooh overalls.  (No, wait-believe it or not, that's NOT the embarrassing part-it was, like 1999, and that stuff was in style! Seriously! Sort of.) I had to teach a lesson that was part of a very restrictive, scripted curriculum that was timed.  (Because they assumed that teachers were brainless, untrained circus monkeys instead of educated professionals, I guess.) If I didn't start and stop at exactly the right minute, I could get in trouble-no exaggeration.  (Don't get me started on how much I hated that developmentally inappropriate, educationally unsound crap....)  I was being observed by someone from central office, so I was nervously going through the lesson, praying that no one would take the opportunity to puke or pee their pants (that seems to happen a lot in Kindy) and throw off my timing.  I was moving along well, when the button for my overall strap flew off.  The kids giggled as I caught the button in midair, glared at the kids until they stopped laughing, and continued on, all without missing a beat.   I was newly pregnant at that time, and fairly emotional, so I was trying to hold in tears as I finished the lesson.  The administrator told me later how impressed she was that I was able to remain control of the class and my outfit, and just keep going. 

Another day, at my current job (I'm an Assistant Director of Education for a tutoring company-fancy title that basically means I do whatever needs to be done and they don't have to pay me very much), I was training a brand new teacher.  She was very quiet, and hard to engage in any type of casual conversation, but I noticed she had a slight smirk on her face as she followed me to another room to do some training on the computer.  I just figured she must be nervous-new job, and all, so I walked back to my desk after getting her set up.  When I got there, I happened to look at my chair-there was a big, smooshed in lump of bright pinkish-red lipstick that had fallen out of the tube the last time I had reapplied.  Horrified (and amused, actually), I turned around and looked at the seat of my light khaki pants.  Yep.  That's why she was smirking.  I walked into my boss' office, turned around and said "Does this lipstick make my butt look big?" Oh yes, I did.  We spent the next 20 minutes or so giggling, making bad lipstick/butt/butt kissing jokes, and Googling how to remove lipstick from pants.  Ah.  Good times.

So there we go.  (Heck of a conclusion, huh? Sorry, that's all I got.)