Pandemic Woes – FPQ #140

This week’s topic for Fandango’s Provocative Question is how the pandemic has affected our shopping habits and the reliance to online shopping to get the things we need.

Here is the question:

During the height of the pandemic, to what extent did you avail yourself of online shopping for meals, groceries, and other goods and services? If you did use online shopping and delivery services, now that things have eased up a bit, has your reliance on or use of such service continued at the same rate, increased, or decreased. To what extent?

My answer is:

I became almost completely reliant on online deliveries for most things. Amazon, Instacart, and GrubHub were my best friends and still are a bit since the onset of the pandemic. While I will still go out for a few of the things I need, like medicine and special things I want, I tend to still rely on the delivery services. Before the pandemic, I always used Amazon because of it’s convenience, so it was really nice when places started delivering groceries and other goods that you would not think you could get delivered.

However, I am ready for a normal life because I hate mask mandates and all the nonsense around vaccination vs non-vaccination stances. I see both sides of the debate, and I hate seeing further divide of our country over a poke in the arm. I miss comfort of being able to cough in public without someone eyeballing you with “the look”. I am just ready for Covid to get handled and under control because life really is so restricted right now for people. Land of the Free is not what I call this America.

xoxo, E.M.

E.M.’s Answer to #FPQ #139

Fandango’s Provocative Question this week is:

Do you consider yourself today to be more of a spontaneous person or more of a stable person? Which characteristic in others, spontaneity or stability, do you prefer? Why?

My answer is:

I am what some would call a hot mess at times and stable at other times. Sometimes I am very spontaneous when it comes to going on trips or making a romantic night out (in the past…since I am flying solo these days). I hate when I have a day planned out and something comes up spontaneous that makes me miss out on the plans that I have made. Drastic changes that come up immediately make me very uncomfortable and anxious. I guess the easy answer is that I like to have control of my life at all times because it’s the only thing I have that is my own.

I would rather be stable all of the time, but spontaneity does happen against my better judgments lol.

A good example is the drastic decision to move to Arkansas from California. Everything broke as we planned the move, and now I am staying put and trying to put my best foot forward. The move was spontaneous and made me uncomfortable, but it was one of those situations where I had to choose my battles. I lost both of those battles, and I am still here writing in order to feel stable.

When it comes to other people, I prefer stability because I am such a hot mess all in my own respect.

xoxo, E.M.

Settling vs Accepting: My #FPQ Answer

Every week, Fandango hosts a provocative question for all of us to answer, and this week’s question is:

Do you see a difference between settling for things and accepting the way things are? If so, in what way are they different? If not why do you feel settling and accepting are the same?

Here is my answer:

There is a difference between settling and accepting, but I think both are not achieving your best self. Settling is taking what you get handed to you, and it does not matter what you want. You take it and learn to live with it. Acceptance of a situation in your life is looking at all of the paths to that point and saying, “Ok, this is who I am, and I am going to make the best of what I have been blessed with”. The difference is that in acceptance, you could already be the best version of yourself and accept it, whereas in settling, you know you can be better or do better; however, you have given up a little bit in achieving your best.

Fandango’s Provocative Question #137 from E.M.

This week, Fandango’s Provocative Question, is asking:

Have you ever been to a clothing-optional (nude) venue, such as a beach, resort, club, party, etc? If so, what did you think of the experience? Would you do it again? If not, would you ever consider going to a clothing-optional gathering? Why or why not?

My Answer:

I have never been to a venue where clothing is optional, but I do not know that I would ever feel comfortable going to such a venue due to my own viewpoints about myself. My self-esteem is not strong enough to strut across a beach or sit at a table naked and feel normal. I would find myself worrying about everyone else judging me because that is how my life has been my entire life. “You need a diet” or “Putting on a few extra pounds there, eh?” Those are the normal things I grew up with. My dad was very body conscious and never was out of shape. When I started putting on pounds, he began being critical of me. I still feel the effects.

E.M.’s Answer – #FPQ 136

Fandango’s blog sponsors a prompt called Fandango’s Provocative Question, and this is my first time participating.

This week’s question is:

If you were forced to chose, would you rather live without the internet or live without air conditioning and heating? Why?

My Answer:

As much as I love, desire, want,, and need the internet for daily life, I cannot stand for my body to be too hot or too cold. I think it is worse when things are too hot rather than cold, since you can cover up when you are cold.

Just last week, I actually lost my air conditioning for a little over a day in the Valley of California. While it is on the cooling down stage of our season, it is still too hot outside to open the windows and let in the breeze. We had a bit of chaos with the toxic ones, and they played around and pretended something was wrong with the wiring (they shut the A/C breaker off at the box…). It was really stuffy and humid in the house, and it got so warm that my old, withering body got sick, literally. The positive side of it is that my daughter, granddaughter, and me gathered in my room with every fan we had and got through the night a little less hot than if we would have stayed in our own areas. It was nice to have a little slumber party.

However, concerning the cold, there was a time when I lived in Arkansas that we had a terrible ice storm, and it killed the power for 11 days in the wintertime. I remember the lowest the temperature got in my house was 52 degrees Fahrenheit, which felt very cold for everyone in the house. The positive side to this incident was, like with the air conditioning episode, that we all gathered together for those days with whatever heat source we had and made it work out for us.

Basically, I have a phone to access the things I need outside of my computers that require internet. Temperatures are important to me too *smiles*. Data is different than internet *giggles*