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Lula Harp

~ one girl's journey into cooking, crafting and self discovery

Lula Harp

Tag Archives: toolbox

the unknown tools

26 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by Lula Harp in family

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

buttons, family, life, poll, toolbox, writing 101, Yom Kippur

I am constantly surprising myself, especially when I find tools in my toolbox I didn’t know I had.

I just spent over an hour on the phone with my mother after spending 2+ days doing in-home tech support.  I’m not sure which one of us exhibited more patience during this process.  She keeps saying she wants things to happen NOW, and hates waiting.  Ultimately, that is what I am trying to do for her.  While she is convinced I’m trying to drive her to an early grave, I am really trying to make her technology experience more “one click does it all”.

I’ve mentioned before that I teach kindergarten (figuratively, not literally) and in my day job, I create all sorts of job-aids and tutorials.  I have begrudgingly come to the realization my brain works differently than your brain, or her brain, or my students brains.  As such, I have to speak a little differently, a little slower, come up with analogies that are a little easier to grasp, and make different associations.  Sometimes these come to me like a flash.  I’m always surprised and delighted when it happens, and it works.

We had a little family issue this week and I surprised myself with how I was able to just roll with it, quietly move things in the direction I wanted it to go, and it ended without a huge row.  We all have our buttons, and I know how to push my mothers.  My sister has spent 60 years mastering how to push our mother’s buttons.  My mother falls into the trap every time.  Having me there, I was able to sidestep the traps.

As we age, hopefully we learn something from all that life throws at us.  I have never been very patient, and I have never been very understanding of those whose thought processes are vastly different from mine.  Living in Oregon for the last 25 years, I was surrounded by like minded folks, who were technologically adept, and socially left.  Being back in the south… Every one of my buttons is being pushed on a daily basis.  I just go back to my students, and think about how I deal with them.  I do this professionally every day.  I can certainly apply this to my life and personal relationships.

 

This week has been Yom Kippur, and there was a paragraph in the service that really spoke to me:

Forgiven the past, renewed for tomorrow
May we go forth with rejoicing,
To a year of great goodness.

What happened in the past is the past.  This new year will be a good year.  All my tools are tucked in my tool belt and ready to be accessed at any time.

 

Now, I’m giving y’all one last chance to tell me how you want to help my dating process.  Please click on your vote below and on Monday, I’ll be posting the results.

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Always a student

11 Friday Sep 2015

Posted by Lula Harp in Blogging

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

analytical, college, learning, liberal arts, quotes, school, Study, teaching, toolbox, twitter, writing101

To say I was a poor student when I was in school, would be an understatement. I’m certain now I had ADD. I was bored. I wasn’t interested in anything they were teaching. I couldn’t focus on any goal despite all the prizes and bribes my parents offered.

When my mother was here recently, we had some good chats. I don’t recall how this particular conversation came about, but we talked about how much I didn’t enjoy school. She said something about how I was always reading. My response was, I was reading what I wanted to read and not what I was being made to read.

There was never a question if I was going to college. It was implied, assumed, a given. There was no option, as there seems to be now. I went. I drank. I went to football games. I occassionally went to classes. I never studied. It wasn’t until my junior year I made some decent grades because I was finally taking classes that were interesting, not just mandatory to make me a well rounded human.

For years, I fumbled around professionally. What in the hell are you supposed to do with a liberal arts degree? English and art. Sure, I can carry on a conversation with a wall. Great! You’ve just been pigeon-holed into sales! I hate selling. No. Ok. But I will admit, because I have the gift of gab, I was kinda good at it.

It has only been in maybe… the last ten years or so, that I’ve discovered some things about myself. Evidently I’m quite analytical. I’m really good at research. I’m a good project manager because I’m task oriented. I had NO FUCKING IDEA!!! Really… The first time I friend of mine said he liked how I worked, I had no idea what he was talking about. Then when he explained, I was stunned. What are you talking about?! I am not organized. People are doing this just because I asked/told them to?! What?!

It’s amazing the things we learn about ourselves when we aren’t looking, aren’t being force fed the status quo.

I have a woman in my circle of friends. I won’t call her a friend despite the fact I have regular interactions with her. She really is a sweet woman. But holy moly, she is dumber than a box of rocks. In my day job, I teach kindergarten (not really… but sort of), and I will say the same thing to this woman 3 or 4 different ways and she still can’t figure out what I’m trying to communicate. This is where I step back. Take a deep breath. Analyze what I am saying. Try and figure out where the holes are. It’s always the same answer. Her.

To quote Meg, I have to learn where to put this bag of fertilizer, so as not to stink up the whole place. I have to learn how to cope with this situation. Learn one more skill. Find another tool in my toolbox.

Now where is that darn toolbox?

Today’s #writing101 assignment was to pick a tweet and run with it. What did it make us think of?  My last few posts have been more stream on consciousness. Just pulling a thread and seeing how it unravels.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, so please leave a few.

https://mobile.twitter.com/thisisEJKoh/status/420362403180597248

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