Bravery

Things I have a hard time being brave about

1. dogs (any size, any distance)…okay, most animals. (This one deserves it’s own blog entry in the near future.)
2. italian dressing, and other vinaigrettes (For all those cloth diaper families out there: My mom used vinegar to minimize the foul stench that inevitably accompanies a diaper pail. Thus, to me and my sisters, vinegar=dirty diapers. That’s a hard association to overcome.)
3. needles (non-craft variety) I had a hard time watching people inject oranges with needles in Physiology.
4. putting my head anywhere near the base of a toilet (Pregnancy is a great excuse to pass the buck on the cleaning of the toilet. Unfortunately, our toilet is in dire need, so it might be time to get pregnant again.)
5. fish (touching our live goldfish when I clean the bowl, fish with head still on, eating some kinds of strong-flavored fish)
6. heights
7. basketball and some sports (I loved sports growing up. In high school, I broke my arm and dislocated my shoulder—missing two YW basketball seasons—and after that, I didn’t have the guts to go back because I didn’t think I was good enough.)
8. asking my neighbor for one of our garbage cans back (the one she borrowed 2 months ago.)
9. using the verb to lay/to lie in front of my dad, Kim, and Lupe –for fear of using it incorrectly, which is pretty much inevitable.
10. testing food for potential staleness or moldiness [I’d rather just throw it out, contrary to my upbringing.]
11. using a rectal thermometer to take my kids’ temperatures

Things I don’t have a hard time with:

1. vomit (This comes after a week of the stomach flu having circulated around our, Mark’s, and my families. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t love puke. But I can be pretty level headed about dealing with it.)
2. belting out songs in front of the primary kids each Sunday. (And this is not because I have a good voice.) Two years of being the chorister will do that to you, I guess.
3. trying a new kind of dessert. Or an old kind. Like I said, I'm pretty courageous about this.
4. [Danielle insisted I add this one. In her words:] Another significant thing Janel is brave about: opening tasty looking things in Mom's food storage room. She is the only one in our whole family brave enough to attempt this (although the rest of us are happy to join in once it has been opened).

That’s a very short list. In a last ditch attempt to preserve my self-esteem, I will call this second list a work in progress. To be continued…if--I mean when--I think of more things.