Sometimes we don’t just want to do something well, we want to hear someone say, “Well done.” We spend our lives trying to live up to the expectations of others. We do our very best in an effort to gain approval or praise. I was raised by parents who expected nothing less than our best effort in everything we did. There was no pressure to be the best among our peers, but to be the best we could be. I tried to raise my own kids to compete only against their own best effort. There was no need to feel bad if they didn’t win at swimming, all they needed to do was continue to improve their efforts and beat their own best time. To show improvement was all I asked. When the kids graduated with a four-year college degree in just four years, I was so proud of them. They accomplished something no one on either side of our families had done since their grandfather. Well done, I am so proud of both of them. There are plenty of college degrees in both mine and hubby’s family, but we don’t all get the chance to complete the degree in the time it is meant to take, it is important that they completed at least that much higher education. We expected it of our kids from the day they were born. We think they have both done well and know they will be able to stand on their own long after we are gone. Well done, you have done well and for that, I am so proud, grateful and pleased. Thank you both for being so well behaved. It is an honor to be your parent.

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Well
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

The prompt this week is name. Your name is everything. Your name is your badge of honor. No one wants their name to be dragged through the mud. I have wondered several times if I would use a pen name if I ever got a publishing contract. Part of me thinks no way! If I get published I want my name on the book cover. The other part of me, the not-so-confident part, says yes, a pen name would make it less obvious that it was me if the book was a huge flop. I’m still undecided, but then at this time in my writing life, it is really a moot point.
Another thought came to mind when I saw the prompt. You know how you have to give the person a name when you go to a restaurant and have to wait to be seated? I always give a different name, because our last name is too much trouble to spell and pronounce/sight-read. I usually give our daughter’s first name, even when she isn’t with us because it is easy to spell and say and uncommon enough that nobody else is likely to be using it. It works as long as we don’t forget which name we gave at the hostess stand.

Names are important because they are our way of identifying ourselves. What does your name say about you?

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Name
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

This week the word prompt is culture. Hubby used to say that I was “culturally deprived”. I didn’t grow up going to the ballet, symphony, opera, or fancy restaurants. We grew up poor and were only exposed to the “arts” when we went with school field trips.  The fanciest restaurants we went to when we were growing up were places like MCL Cafeteria, Ponderosa Steakhouse, Gray Bros. Cafeteria, and Famous Recipe Fried Chicken. I don’t blame my parents for this. They had two adults and four hungry kids to feed and we didn’t go out very often, probably not even once a month. There certainly wasn’t any extra funds to pay for cultural events. If we wanted things while we were growing up, that was fine, but we had to earn the money to cover the cost ourselves. I began working when I was about ten years old delivering the afternoon newspaper six days a week. We went on very few vacations because dad was a barber who worked Monday through Saturday and delivered the morning newspaper seven days a week. It was too expensive to pay someone to run the routes for a weekend and then it was difficult to find someone who cared enough to do a good job as a substitute carrier.

Yes, I grew up poor, but I didn’t realize it at the time I was living it. I asked hubby again just now if he would still consider me “culturally deprived” and he said, yes because I still haven’t learned to appreciate the finer things in life. For what it’s worth, I think he is right about me being culturally deprived but not about me not appreciating the finer things in life. I do appreciate them, but perhaps what I consider the finer things isn’t that same as what other folks would consider them to be. Perhaps culture is over-rated.

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Culture
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.