7 Quick Takes about Unflattering Photos, Vietnamese Food, and Animals I Don't Particularly Want to Resemble

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

My 12-year-old just discovered the .5 zoom wide angle lens on the cell phone that we use as our home phone, and she's been going around taking the most unflattering portraits possible of everyone in the family:

This is going to be my new profile picture for everything from now on.

—2—

One time in Young Women's (the teen girls' youth group I lead), we did a guessing game to get to know the newest members of our class. For the question "What is your dream job?" one of the girls answered answered "mom" and someone in the room exclaimed "That's not a job!"

Which we all know is 100% true. After all, if caring for kids was a real job, then wouldn't day care providers get paid? Hey, wait a minute...

Anyway, I think about these things a lot. So when I saw an email from the leaders of our children's church youth group asking for volunteers to come present for 3-5 minutes at career night, you'd better bet I jumped on that and went to talk about the work I do as a stay-at-home mom.

I loved having the chance to do that, because I really do love my job and think it's the most important thing I'll ever do.

—3—

Speaking of parents, I also think dads are pretty cool. The other day, I came across this short clip from Master Chef Jr. and watched it an embarrassing amount of times because it's just too sweet:

Knowing reality shows, the producers probably superglued the lid on for extra drama, but little did they know that dad love is stronger than superglue. 

—4—

The other night I tried to wind down before bed by grabbing the book I'm currently reading, a nonfiction book about sleep science called Dreamland, but it kind of backfired.

The chapter I was on was about sleepwalking, specifically people who commit crimes in their sleep. It wasn't extremely graphic, but there were enough disturbing details about men who abused or strangled their wives while they both slept that it was not exactly the relaxing experience I'd hoped for.

Luckily, though, Phillip was on a work trip so no need to worry about that. He doesn't sleepwalk anyway. Sometimes he talks in his sleep, but it's fairly harmless and nonsensical. A few weeks ago he sat up in bed in the middle of the night and told me, "There aren't any spiders."

Half-awake I asked, "Are you worried about spiders?

"No," he answered.

"Did you have a nightmare about spiders?"

"No." 

Then we both went back to sleep.

—5—

Taking the entire family out to eat is expensive and complicated so we don't do it very often, but once a year or so, the kids beg us to take them out for pho. It's a Vietnamese soup and it's pronounced like "bruh," for those of you with elementary-schoolers.

I don't know why they love it so much. And actually I worry that they're going to build the experience up in their heads so much that one day they're going to get their long-awaited bowl of pho and be disappointed. But so far, that hasn't happened.

Skillwise, I'd say we're in the bottom 10% of chopstick users, but we try anyway.

—6—

Frequently we go over to our elderly neighbor's house to help her with random things, and this week she mentioned wanting to get rid of a massive CRT TV from the 90s. Not knowing how heavy it was, I volunteered to bring my 15-year-old son over so we could bring it to the dump and dispose of it for her.

Had I known better, I would have waited for Phillip to get home so he could do it instead of me. 

For one, he's stronger and that TV was an absolute behemoth. For another, he's an engineer and would've figured out that flipping it over and carrying it out face-down would've been way easier on our backs. That only crossed my mind after we'd already lugged it through her house, down the front stairs, and out to the car. 

But Phillip was out of town and one way or another, my son and I got the job done.

—7—

My kids informed me that "skin care" is a thing in middle and high school now. Twelve-year-olds shop at Sephora and have the 20-step nightly skin care routine of menopausal women. 

They also tell me that one of the hot (read: expensive) skin care brands right now is "Drunk Elephant." Keep in mind that elephants look like this:

Photo courtesy of Pixabay.

I don't quite get it, so I think I'll stick with my usual skin care regime, which is wearing sunscreen, not smoking, and washing my face before bed with the same soap I use to wash my hands. 

Worst-case scenario, I end up looking like an elephant but I'll still have a lot more money in my bank account.

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