Acronyms for Those Like Me Who are Getting Older

 Having a little fun with aging today.

BFF no longer stands for best friends forever; it's best friend fainted!

FWIW - Forgot where I was

LMDO - Laughing my dentures out

BYOT- Bring your own teeth

CGU-Can't get up

WIWYA - When I was your age

LOL - Little old lady

TMI - Triggers my indigestion

ROFL - Really old and farting loudly

BTW - Bring the Wheelchair

DWI - Driving While Incontinent

TOT - Texting on toilet

BMH - Broke my hip

As you get older, three things happen.  The first is your memory goes, and I don't remember the other two!

Hope you had fun visiting my post today! Visit Thursday Thirteen!

Thursday Thirteen - What Have I Forgotten Lately?

 Visit Thursday Thirteen for more fun lists!

I could blame my age, but forgetting things is not new for me.  Actually, I have a pretty good memory overall.  I just sometimes forget to, let's see... put the clothes in the dryer, or make a phone call, or put eggs on the grocery list, or post a fun photo on Tuesday or Wednesday, or... you get the idea!

Here are some things that people forget that either matter or are funny!

1.  Forgetting the keys in the car with the engine running and the doors locked.

2. Forgetting to brush your teeth before going to the dentist.

3.  Forgetting to put the phone on mute (talking to an acquaintance)  when someone in the room asks you a personal, private question.

4.  Forgetting that you're talking to a person who is deaf, and instead you just talk louder

5.  Forgetting the date, time, and place of a final exam in college.

6.  Forgetting where you parked the car in a multi-level garage.

7.  Forgetting where you put your phone when you are actually talking on it!

8.  Forgetting your card at a restaurant in a town that you are just passing through and not realizing it for a day or two.

9. Forgetting your work badge at home so you can't get in, and you have to turn around, go all the way home to get it, making you late for work.

10.  Forgetting something is cooking in the oven... until you hear the smoke alarm go off!

11.  Forgetting to bring in the leftovers so they spent the whole night in the hot car and spend the rest of their afterlife in the outside garbage can.

12. Forgetting to check if my clothes were right side or wrong side out.

13. Forgetting potatoes in the pantry so long that they begin to break down, liquify, and develop a disgusting, putrid smell.

Have you forgotten any of these things?  I've actually done about five of these things. Which ones do you think they are?

F is for Forgetfulone!

Yes, I call myself Forgetfulone.  It's not that I'm really forgetful.  I have a good memory!  But I am the kind of person who walks into a room and forgets why she is there.  When my children were younger, I would walk into a room and say, "What am I looking for?"  Their answer was always a flippant, "I don't know.  I'm not your brain!"  Haha.  Funny.

I tend to forget little things, not necessarily unimportant things.  I can name all 140 students I teach.  I can recite our bell schedule.  I can tell you what meetings I have coming up in the next few days without looking at my calendar.  I can remember books, phone numbers, conversations, and so on. But, I can't remember the answer you gave for the question I just asked, and I will probably ask you to tell me again.

Image Credit

I guess that's how my blog name came about.  Here's my first post from way back in December, 2005, if you want to take a look.  My forgetfulness is not a disorder, thankfully, although my aunt who died recently truly had dementia.  That is the type of forgetting I want to avoid.

So, I looked up some causes of forgetfulness and some tips for adapting to absentmindedness.  I hope you will find some of the information useful.

Link up with ABC Wednesday here.

Subscribe in a reader

Thursday 13

Since I call myself Forgetfulone, over the years, I figured out ways to help me remember things. I actually have a pretty good memory. I just tend to forget what I had in mind when I opened the refrigerator door or whether or not I shampooed my hair when I first got in the shower. What works, and what doesn't?

What works:

1. If I have to remember a large chunk of information, I write it down and rewrite it, and maybe even write it again. Rewriting my notes is how I made it through college biology.

2. Mnemonic devices. For example My Dear Aunt Sally (for MDAS - order of operations, multiply, divide, add, subtract.)

3. Sending an email to myself.

4. Leaving a voice mail for myself.

5. I'm a list maker, and I use them.

6. Using a planner or calendar, especially my yahoo calendar that send me reminders of upcoming events via email.

7. If I have to remember a speech or presentation, I learn it in small pieces rather than trying to memorize it all at once.

8. Outlines help me remember critical information. I'm a left-brained, structured person, so this method works for me.

9.And having other people in the house to remind me of things helps, too!

What doesn't work for me:

10. The number/rhyme method. Basically, this is listing numbers and something that rhymes with each number that will help you remember an item on a list.

11. The alphabet method. This is listing the things you have to remember in alphabetical order as the name suggests.

12. Drawing a mind map or concept map. I'm much too literal, left-brained, and structured to make any sense of these.

13. Relying on my memory not to fail me!

But I still don't see how this is going to help me figure out what I'm looking for when I walk into a room and inevitably can't remember!

Check out other Thursday 13 posts here.

Subscribe in a reader

IRL?

With the exception of the person who got me started blogging when she moved out of state, I have never met another blogger... ever! But... I'm so excited because I might get to meet a couple of my blogging buddies IRL Saturday. That's IN REAL LIFE! I'll say no more right now, because I don't want to jinx it, you know, Friday the 13th and all.

That got me thinking, though. Maybe I'm just a big nerd or something, since I know absolutely no one else who blogs, and I'm so addicted to it. Wait. That can't be right! All of you aren't nerds. Are you? Of course not! Regular, normal people blog. Right?

But how come no one I know blogs? Last year during lunch one day, I mentioned that I had a blog (I don't remember how it came up in the conversation), and the looks I got seemed to ask, "Are you from another planet?" My co-workers have no idea what the whole blogging experience is like. And they're missing out! Many of them are just so completely anti-technology.

Some of my co-workers have Facebook pages. I guess I must be "so old" (I'm only 43) that I have heard one-too-many-times from my 20-something co-workers, "You have a Facebook account?" What's up with that? Yes! Of course I do. And Twitter. And StumbleUpon. I'm "with-it!" I'm "hip!" I'm keeping up with the times, baby! In fact, I beat most of them to the punch with the whole Internet/technology/blog/Facebook thing. (I used to have a Myspace, but honestly, I hate Myspace!) I even met my husband on the Internet in 2001, long before Match.com was up and running. But, unlike Al Gore, I didn't invent the Internet!

My husband knows I have a blog, but he doesn't read it. Not to my knowledge, anyway. I've shown him a few things I've written, but he is really not interested. If he blogged, he would be a lurker. He wouldn't write or respond in comments. Which is FINE - I love all the lurkers out there who read my blog!

My mom knows I have a blog. My sister knows I have a blog. Neither of them knows what a blog is, though.

My children know I have a blog. They often remind me who I am, Forgetfulone, when I ask them the same question three times in a matter of fifteen minutes. Yep, five minutes is my max retention on short term memory! But my kids don't read my blog, either. Which is probably for the best.

I just wonder, how many of you - not you PRO-bloggers who know everybody - but those of you who are normal, every day, regular bloggers like me... do you know other bloggers IRL? Do your friends and co-workers blog? Do you wish they did?

Subscribe in a reader

Random Worries

Heads or Tails - List any three things.

1. I worry that people (who should know my name) will forget my name, like people I work with or parents of my friend's children. I may be forgetful, but I'm pretty good with names, so I have always worried about this.

Even when I was a little girl, first or second grade, and I was away at summer camp, I worried that my parents would forget my name. I remember making something for my dad during Camp Fire Girls, and I signed my last name to it because I was afraid he wouldn't know who I was otherwise.

2. I worry about being forgotten at the doctor's office. It's happened before!

They put you in a room with your chart on the door and tell you the doctor will be in soon. Then they forget to flip the lever that says a patient is waiting in that particular room, so you sit there, and sit there, and sit there.

3. I worry about running appliances when I am not home such as the dishwasher or washing machine.

We have had wooden spoons fall to the bottom of the dishwasher and get scorched and nylon serving utensils fall to the bottom and melt, and let me tell you, it does NOT smell good! It's a wonder the house didn't burn down.

Bonus Random Worry - If I leave my dirty shoes in the garage, I worry about a creature getting in them. This, too, has happened. I was putting on my shoes to mow the lawn (because you can't bring those filthy shoes into the house), and there was a huge toad in the toe part (Get it? I was toe-d)! I didn't have socks on at the time, and it was terribly disgusting!


Join us for Heads or Tails!

I am NOT Forgetful! (Well...)

My blog name is misleading. I actually have a very good memory! I remember names, birth dates, people. I'm great at memorizing verses or passages. I'm a champ at Concentration/Memory games. I'm a whiz at spelling - which is mostly memorization. Not surprisingly, I remember every bad thing my husband ever did! tee hee! And I am always the one who remembers where other people put their things. "Mom, where's my....?" I hear that several times a day!

So, why Forgetfulone? Well, as I grow older, I do tend to be forgetful about some things. The first thing was the basis for my very first blog post.

1. When I take a shower, if I don't wash my hair before I do anything else, I forget whether or not I've washed it by the time I get out. I've actually had to get back in the shower to wash my hair because I forgot. Pathetic.

2. I know most of you who are at least my age (over 40) will relate to this. I walk into a room and forget why I went in there. I'm often heard saying, "Why did I come in here?" Unfortunately for me, I say it out loud to which my kids respond, "I don't know. I'm not your brain."

3. Not only do I sometimes forget why I went in to a certain room, I've often been known to utter, "What was I looking for?" Again, I get, "I don't know. I'm not your brain." My kids are such comedians!

4. If I don't put my keys in the front pocket of my purse, I cannot remember where they are. And, God forbid that I use a purse that doesn't have a front pocket! I have to be methodical about this. The results are never good if I don't put the keys in the front of my purse right away.

5. I have to email myself reminders about doctor's appointments, music lessons, sports, and other activities, as well as writing them down in my planner and putting them in my yahoo calendar.

6. Have you ever forgotten what you were going to say? Of course. Have you ever done that while you were in mid-sentence? I'm guilty.

7. I forget to when television shows are on, so I usually miss them. It'd be okay if I'd remember to set the DVR. But this might explain why I'm one of the only people in the universe who has never seen American Idol or So You Think You Can Dance.

Why can't I forget to eat?

Want to subscribe to my blog? Just click the orange button at the top left of the page.

If you liked this blog post, you may want to check these out:

Eccentric, or Just Different

My Very First Blog Post, Dec. 2005

The Date

My First Blog Post Ever!

In honor of my first scrolling Saturday, I am re-posting my original post from December 13, 2005. I've come a long way since then! Except, I still forget whether or not I washed my hair after I get out of the shower, unless I do things in the same order every day. Call me forgetfulone!

Well, here I am in the world of bloggers, although I have no idea what I'm doing or why I'm doing it. Of course I have heard of blogs, but do people really read them? Or do they just read them if they're on a site they like or if their friend writes one? I'm really curious about that. Who actually reads these? How do you find them?The title of this blog refers to my forgetfulness. Often, I'll walk into a room and forget why I went in there. I can usually back track a little and figure it out, but it's really annoying! But, I can never do this without saying out loud, "What did I come in here for?" or something along those lines. My 9 year old twins respond with, "I don't know. I'm not your brain." You'd think I'd learn not to say it out loud, but it is virtually impossible. So... I guess that's all I have to say right now.

What was I looking for? Why am I in here?

Well, here I am in the world of bloggers, although I have no idea what I'm doing or why I'm doing it. Of course I have heard of blogs, but do people really read them? Or do they just read them if they're on a site they like or if their friend writes one? I'm really curious about that. Who actually reads these? How do you find them?

The title of this blog refers to my forgetfulness. Often, I'll walk into a room and forget why I went in there. I can usually back track a little and figure it out, but it's really annoying! But, I can never do this without saying out loud, "What did I come in here for?" or something along those lines. My 9 year old twins respond with, "I don't know. I'm not your brain." You'd think I'd learn not to say it out loud, but it is virtually impossible. So... I guess that's all I have to say right now.