From The Past: February 21, 2008

I am a hurry-up-and-wait type of person. I have to be early anywhere I go and I cannot stand being late. When other people are late, it really grates on my nerves. To me, this is a common-sense type of thing. If you know you have to be somewhere at a certain time and you know how long it takes to get there, then why don’t you leave earlier so you can make it? Why are people rushing to get to work when they could have left ten minutes earlier and not had that strain? I don’t get it. I know things happen, but they don’t happen every day.

I always take a book with me so I have something to do while I wait. So, this is not wasted time. When I pick Ashley up from school and get there 40 minutes early, I read.

Waiting doesn’t bother me especially when I know about how long I will be waiting. When my appointment is scheduled for a certain time and I have to wait much longer, it bothers me. There is a pediatrician here in town that I took Andrew to when he was a baby. Every time we went in his office it was an hour’s wait or more. That’s ridiculous and I don’t know why I tolerated that. I would never put up with that now. I wonder if things are still that way at his office.

Being prepared for events is important to me. I like at least a week’s notice for birthday parties or special outings. When things are sprung on me, I can go with the flow, but inside I am thinking, “Why couldn’t they have told me about this earlier?” I do have time for other people and I enjoy being around people; I just like to know when and where things are happening in advance. I don’t think that is asking too much. I like to plan ahead.

Most of my time is taken up by the computer, reading, watching television, or walking. Reading and watching television are family times though. Normally when I read, Ashley and Kevin are also reading. I see this as a good thing. We also all enjoy the same TV shows, so when something is on, it is family time. We can all watch and comment or react to what we are seeing together.

I don’t believe I have ever forgotten an appointment. I am very good at writing things on my calendar, so that helps me out a lot. I have forgotten a person’s birthday until the last minute, but they were never aware of it because I immediately went out and bought their present the minute it occurred to me. My sister’s birthday is coming up in March. I had her gift chosen and paid for in early January.

I spend very little time getting dressed in the morning. I lay my clothes out the night before, so what I will wear is not a concern in the morning. I have a very basic hair style, so that takes almost no time and my make-up during the week is extremely minimal. On the weekends, I sometimes wear contacts which take another minute to put in, but on a typical day, I spend maybe ten minutes total getting dressed.

On average, I get 6 ½ to 7 hours of sleep a night. Kevin and I get up at 6:15 in the morning and we usually read until 11:30 before going to sleep. On Friday nights we stay up late and therefore sleep in until around 9:30 or so on Saturday morning.