Idiosyncrasies

Andrea over at hulaseventy has a post up about em, so I decided to take a stab at it. Here goes:

idiosyncracy : structural or behavioral characteristic peculiar to an individual or group. write down 5 of your idiosyncracies


1. I have trouble shutting things. I leave cupboard doors, drawers, bathroom cabinets, closet doors, etc open. I really dont have any idea why I dont close them all the way, but it is one of those things that my husband cannot figure out for the life of him. If I do get the door closed, there is quite possibly some sort of item hanging out like half a t-shirt, the plastic from the bread bag, something. I think it is a mix between laziness, and a feeling of never fully accomplishing it anyway so why try.

2. When someone makes a comment about someone else (making fun or being mean) and the person being spoken about is anywhere in the vacinity I get extremely awkward about it. For instance, if we are in the car and my husband comments on the car next to ours looking ridiculous, or if he starts commenting on the music they are listening too, I literally want to crawl out of my skin and lay on the floorboards of the car. I have such a fear the person will hear him! I know it is virtually impossible for them to hear a whispered conversation in our car, but it still makes me incredibly nervous. My husband says this is because i have "bionic hearing" and I assume the rest of the world does too. My "bionic hearing" has made me quite the freak around the house, forcing others to listen to the tv at levels only a dog could hear because the baby is sleeping, using a fan and a towel across the bottom of my bedroom door when we have guests because I wake up at the slightest sound. I have even, and this is tough to admit, forced my husband to open a bag of chips in the other room because my daughter's bedroom is next to the kitchen and she was sleeping. Look out Jaime Sommers.

3. There are certain parts of my daily routine that are done exactly the same every day because of my own perfectionistic behavior. Each morning I get out of bed on the same side, go straight to the bathroom, take out my retainer (yes, I still wear it: ) rinse it off, put it away, wash my face, turn down the fan, leave my room, get my daughter, open her shades, walk into the kitchen. Maybe not a great example, but the point is the routine never changes...I wouldnt be surprised if the same number of steps were taken every time! Bedtime is the worst. I literally walk to the bathroom, wash my face, brush my teeth the exact same way every time, take my medicine, get one more drink of water, climb into bed facing the same direction. It is quite bizarre if you ask me. And I cant ever, EVER go to bed without washing my face or brushing my teeth.

4. I make piles. Rather than clean up the mess entirely I make piles to conquer at another time. I make piles on my dresser drawers of bill remnants, magazines, and useless pieces of information I cant get rid of. Piles of clothes on my bedroom furniture, piles of stuff to take back to the bedroom that I leave in the front room, piles of anything. These piles are all separated materials needing to be sent back to their dwelling place, but I havent gotten the urge to finish the process yet. Again this baffles my husband because of my orderly, systematic, detail oriented way of doing just about everything else, but I really believe it is due to a feeling of (like I said above) never feeling quite like I can get it all the way I want it so I just give up and dont do it at all. There was this woman on Oprah once who was diagnosed with perfectionistic tendencies, yet when they visited her house she had tons of animals doing their business all over the place and no order to the chaos within. The psychologist said this is a common problem with people who place such a high level of perfection on themselves--they cave and just dont even try to accomplish it because they will fail again and it is easier to feel guilty about not doing it than to fail at making it perfect. Im nowhere near that woman, but I can understand the logic in her madness.


5. I have become a germ-o-phob. I am ghastly afraid of sickness germs. Part of this stems from having a baby and the crazy things you read about needing to keep your newborn away from. Part of this is due to being pregnant and feeling queasy all the time anyway, and part of it is my personality. I just hate being sick, and unfortunately, I hate being around others who are sick. When my husband gets sick, as much as I would love to be the caring wife who caters to his needs and nurtures him through it, I am more realistically the wife who seals off that part of the house and communicates with him via morse code taps on the walls. When my daughter was ill this past week it was all I could do to eat my own meals and behave normally...not so much because I was worried about her (which I was) but because it made me queasy too. I carry the antibacterial gel in my purse everywhere we go and she gets a squirt every couple of hours just because. Im also forever asking my husband if he's washed his hands (not such a crazy thing to ask a guy who digs around at thrift stores for records) and have noticed Im washing mine more frequently as of late. Everything just seems so dirty sometimes!

And there you have it, probably not my top 5 idiosyncracies, but 5 I could come up with off the top of my head. I would love to hear about some of yours! Post them if you feel up to it!