All About Kimberly

Sailing Along the Life of Single Parenthood

Category Archives: Monday Morning

Monday Morning

Monday Morning Meme is hosted by WriteFromKaren and is always a set of questions that really get you thinking, and I think that reveal a lot about you to your readers.

This week’s questions are:

 

1. How long have you been blogging? Who is your target audience? How often, if at all, do you think about quitting or taking an extended break? What do you do when you start feeling burned out with blogging? 

I started blogging in December 2007. I started blogging mainly for family and friends, but have now evolved into writing product reviews and broadening my target audience.  I don’t just think about, but I do take extended (by extended I mean 3 or 4 days) from blogging from time to time as I don’t want my family to be neglected by my online time.  I try to schedule posts for those times though so that I’m not missed much online.  I actually think that a break from blogging cures that burned out feeling and you come back with fresh ideas and ready to improve your blog.

2. What’s on your mind now?

All the things I have to get done this week.  Isn’t that always the story on Monday morning?

3. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the body or the mind of a 30-year old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want? Explain your answer, please.

I would choose the mind.  I hate to have a poor body, but I’ve witnessed multiple people who start to lose their mind and it’s such an awful experience – especially during the process of actually losing it – when you know that you are losing it.

4. What would you constitute a “perfect” evening for you?

Time with my girls doing anything.  I love when the 3 of us spend time together whether we go out and do shopping or nails or we stay in and do movies and popcorn.

Happy Monday Morning (Meme)

Monday Morning Meme is hosted by WriteFromKaren and is always a set of questions that really get you thinking, and I think that reveal a lot about you to your readers.

This week’s questions are:

  1. If a new medicine were developed that would cure cancer but caused a fatal reaction in one percent of those who took it, would you want it to be released to the public? Why or why not? Do you think we’re close to curing cancer? Have you ever lost someone to cancer? If so, please write a short tribute to that person.
  2. You discover your wonderful one-year-old child is, because of a mix-up at the hospital, not yours. Would you want to exchange the child to try to correct the mistake? Why or why not?
  3. Do you think that the world will be a better or a worse place 100 years from now? Explain your answer, please.
  4. How many pictures do you have on your living room walls? And what are they? (paintings, photographs, sketches, abstract, family, etc). Feel like taking us on a tour of your home? If so, post your video or photos!

And My Answers:

  1. Yes, I think I would want it released, but I would want everyone that considered it to be fully aware of the possible fatal reaction. I think cancer patients are well aware of their situations, and they should be given the option of choosing a cure; however, I do feel that they should be stressed over and over about the possible repercussions and maybe have to go through some type of education course to really know what they are getting into.  (No, I’ve not lost someone close to me to cancer)
  2. This is a tough one.  Part of me says yes, I’d want MY child – the product of myself and the man I loved, but then I also recognize that there is a lot more to a parent/child relationship than blood or DNA, and I can’t imagine losing “my child” after that first year.  To be perfectly honest, I just don’t know on this one.
  3. If we continue as we are, I think it will be worse.  I do not feel that we are on the right track, and unless something big happens, I don’t see us turning it around. Our citizens (as a whole – not everyone) seem to think more and more that they are “entitled” to a good life and all these great things and not that they need to get out there and be willing to work for them – even if they must take minimum wage jobs (or even higher paid jobs that they just don’t want) to have the things in life they feel they “deserve.”  This becomes obvious early on in the school system when they expect teachers to give them good grades, give them longer to do their work, give them, give them, give them.  I’m not sure who is to blame (if anyone) or how to fix it (if it’s possible), but I hate the direction we are going.
  4. My house is covered in family pictures – mostly of my girls.  I’m sitting in the dining room right now and looking at 13 pictures. There are even more in my living room.  The bathroom is probably the only place in my house picture free.  Some of my closer friends joke that my house is “wallpapered” in family pictures.

Manic Monday/Monday Morning March 9

It’s Manic Monday time and today’s questions are:

  1. What would you do with an extra hour each day?
  2. Do you wear a watch? If so, tell us about it. If not, how do you keep track of time?
  3. If it was possible, would you want to know how many days you had left to live? 

A pretty easy set this week, huh?  So now for my answers:

  1. What wouldn’t I do? I’d be working on my to do list – probably doing a lot here online with my blogs.
  2. Yes. I have to wear a watch daily or it drives me crazy.  I’m currently wearing a silver Mickey Mouse watch.
  3. Absolutely not.  I would not want to live with that knowledge hanging over my head.

Want to get to know some other bloggers?  Go to your blog and answer these questions and be sure to go back to the Manic Monday official post for today and share your link.

I normally write two posts, but decided this week to combine this one  - mostly for time sake, I have to be to work early this morning.  So moving on to another of my favorite memes – Monday Morning Meme hosted by WriteFromKaren.

1. You’ve been invited on a talk show (which talk show?) to explain your job to the hosts. What would you say you do on a daily basis? (And yes, stay-at-home mom IS a job!)

The only talk show I watch is Oprah so I guess that is the one I’d have to say – I don’t even know what other ones come on anymore.  What do I do? Well I’m a high school teacher so everyday is a new day.  You never know what will happen each day, but every day I see 85+ teenagers through my doors and attempt to teach them a little about grammar, writing, and reading.

2. What words do you hate? Why do you hate them?

Besides some of the stronger curse words, I hate the words – can’t, never, eventually and shut up.  I hate can’t because once my students really get it in their mind they “can’t” do something, then I have the harest time changing their minds.  Never and eventually are just words that always mean unhappiness to me.  Shut up is a phrase that I just think is ugly.  I hate it.

3. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received. What’s the worst advice you’ve ever received.

The best advice was to always be a mommy – always make that important – but to remember there’s more to me than that.  The worst advice? I don’t know….there’s been guys my friends recommended over the years that they told me I really should give a chance that I wished I hadn’t pretty soon – does that count?  I really don’t know that  I’ve been given much bad advice in my life. I surround myself with some great people.

4. Bailout shmailout! What this country needs is __________. Why does it need this specific thing?

To restructure our education system so that we don’t leave any children behind, but we don’t prepare them ALL for 4 year universities.  We need to understand and respect that many will go to technical and vocational schools and prepare them for that.  We need to teach them all real life skills (like basic cooking, balancing a checkbook, etc) instead of forcing them all through chemistry, physics, and calculus).  Why do we need this? Because as we continue to raise expectations and try to mold our children into university bound students, we are in fact leaving a lot behind because they shut down, give up, or drop out. 

Monday Morning Meme


It’s another Monday morning and time for another Monday Morning Meme at WriteFromKaren. 

What is something that you forgot once, but will never forget again? What happened when you forgot it? To pay my electric bill.  I had turned off auto deduction while I was changing banks, but it had been so long since I had to actually write a check, that I forgot the first month and came home to no electricity.  It was awful, and of course because I always work late, the co-op was closed and I couldn’t have them turned back on until the next day.  We had to go stay with my uncle for the night.

How do you handle hateful comments or emails? How do you handle someone who annoys you in real life? If they are from only online people, I just delete them and move on.  If they are from someone I know, then I get hurt and probably will cry, but then get mad, and from there, I’ll move on with life and forget about it.  When people annoy me in real life, I usually keep my calm and don’t let them know as these tend to be people in my life for professional reasons, and I don’t believe in acting unprofessional.  To get out that annoyance, I go to my best friends, and they always let me rant and rave to them.

How often do you change the furniture around in your living room area? How often do you rearrange other rooms in your house? Tell us about the last time you rearranged a room – were you by yourself? Did you have help? Was it a pleasant experience or did sparks fly? Were you satisfied with the end result? I used to rearrange our living room all the time, but then we got the Wii and to leave room for us to all stand and play, there’s really only one floorplan that will work.  I am currently in the process of rearranging my classroom.  I do some of it by myself and at other times have some of the male students help me with moving furntiure around. Since it’s still so new, I am satisfied with the result, but in about 6 to 8 months I’ll be ready for a new look – again.

Is it better to never be married, or married badly and divorced? Why? Personally I think you are better off to have never been married than to live a bad marriage. Marriages should not be bad – period.

Want to answer these questions for your readers? Be sure to go by and post your link at Write From Karen.

Monday Morning Meme February 23rd

It’s time to start a new week.  I almost dread Monday’s right now as it seems like the weekend is always just too short.  But with the new week also comes a couple great memes – one being Monday Morning Meme hosted by Write from Karen. This week’s questions from Karen are:

1. Does blogging make you fat? Do you find yourself sitting around and eating more since you started your blog? Or do you get so caught up in the whole blogging routine that you forget to eat?

I tend to fall in the latter category.  Once I sit down at the computer. I sit here and lose track of most everything. 

2. The one topic I will not touch on my blog is __________. Why? What sorts of topics do you receive the most comments on? What sorts of topics do you receive the least number of comments on?

I really don’t know if there is one.  There’s some I’m not going to put much faith into as I want this to stay family friendly for the msot part, but I’m also willing to share most anything with my readers.

3. Spring is coming. How is your wardrobe? What sorts of clothes do you usually wear in the spring? Where do you normally shop for your clothes? How successful are you in finding clothes for yourself?

I tend to wear a lot of capris and summery high heels.  My current wardrobe is in pretty sad shape and will stay that way this year as I’m trying to put money into paying off debt and such.  I’m also wanting to lose weight and really don’t want to buy a lot of clothes in this size.

4. We should treat every day as a special gift – we’re alive, right? What made this past week special for you? (And if you’ve already talked about that special something on your blog, then think of something else – something little perhaps, but had a big impact on you or your loved ones).

The item that had the biggest impact on my week was that I worked my last weekend until April.  I can’t wait.  I’ve worked every Saturday in January and February so it will be nice to have a few weekends off.