A dozen things I learned this spring

Linking up with Emily P. Freeman again...



1.  Capeesh is a real word.

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Except it's spelled "capisce," and it's actually Italian.


2.  How to choose a restaurant.

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Jason and I, being of similar temperament, are endlessly plagued by the indecision that results in "Where do you want to go?"  "I don't know; where do you want to go?"


Until now!  15 years into the marriage, we've finally figured it out:  we take turns "giving parameters."  One of us sets parameters they're happy with--like "within a 15-minute drive; not Mexican; casual dress; good beer selection"--and then sits back while the other makes a selection and drives to the surprise destination.  Everybody's happy and the pressure is off.


3.  Jason is a Questioner....and I'm an Upholder.

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I love the Happier podcast with Gretchen Rubin.  She often talks about her Four Tendencies framework, so I finally took the quiz, and Jason was willing to take it as well. 


I was less surprised that Jason turned out to be a Questioner than that I apparently am an Upholder.  Jason was 100% confident that I am, however, and over some time, I've come to agree it's probably true.


4.  My toothbrush wasn't the green one.

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Our toothbrushes got tossed in together when we returned home from Jason's birthday trip in April.  When I pulled them out, I judged from the two colors and was pretty sure mine was the green one.  Until I put it in my mouth.  Mine definitely wasn't the green one.  The green one felt really different.  But now?  Mine's the green one.


5.  You can add fonts to Pages.

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My goal in homeschooling is to produce children who are better-educated than I am.  Consider that goal met, because Jeddy showed me how you can download fun fonts from the internet and then add them to Pages on your computer, so you always have access to them.


6.  Tea makes me a normal human.

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A year ago I learned that I can drive after lunch if I drink a cup of coffee.  I guess it did take me a whole year, but I've extrapolated and realized that if I drink tea after lunch while sitting at home, I can (usually) stay wide awake to finish school and whatever else I want to do in the afternoon.  It seems that 8,000 years of human history has resulted in a nugget or two of common wisdom.


7.   Pastors get an honorarium for guest preaching.

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I had no idea. 


8.  You can double-click the shift button on your phone for caps lock.

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This I learned by looking over someone's shoulder who was typing on her phone.  I made a secret mental note (so as not to be naively excited) and tried it out later.  And then became naively excited.


9.  Allied resistance put bombs in dead rats.

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The Allies had a bunch of other weird sabotage ideas, but we learned about the exploding rats by watching this lovely Scotland documentary.  They would put the booby-trapped rats in boiler rooms, where the Nazis were supposed to find them and dispose of them by tossing them in the boiler--and boom.


10.  My cholesterol is still too high.

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Probably due to a combination of genetics and an inordinate love of cheese.


11.  If your stuff tastes like smoke, you could have a pizza or two in the oven.

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So every time we turned on the oven, it got smoky and smelled like something burning.  I finally remembered to clean when the oven was cold--and lo, there was a slice of pizza back there, completely black, that had fallen off the edge of an overloaded pan when I heated up leftovers one day [see #10, above].  Well, that explains that.


Unfortunately, although the haze cleared, everything I cooked for a while after that came out tasting smoky.  I thought I must have missed some crumbs so I poked around in there again.... and lo, a second piece of black pizza.  Points for cutting back on the amount of pizza I actually ate that day.


12.  I know why someone would want to kill a mockingbird.

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Sorry, Atticus Finch, but when you are awoken at 12:46am by a blasted bird singing outside your window?!  I'm not convinced it's a sin to kill a mockingbird. 


And I'm not crazy either--apparently this is a thing. 

Photo by Robbin Huang on Unsplash

What did you learn this spring?