Every Day in May - Fears and Education

What do you fear?  Shirt sold here.

Continuing the theme of Blog Every Day in May (see button in sidebar).  Today - what do you fear?  I'm not really sure... I considered skipping this one, because who wants to talk about FEAR? but eh, I'm going to stick this out!

Fear.  I have the usual fears:  spiders, snakes, bugs, tornadoes, heights, roller coasters, ... I have other concerns, maybe not fears.  Like will I ever meet Mr. Right and will I know that I'm making the right decision? Will I totally fail at whatever it is I'm currently trying? Are people making fun of me behind me back or talking trash about me? Am I a really annoying person and I don't even realize it? Am I actually not a very smart person at all?  Is my work not good enough for... well, for whatever?

I suppose those are my fears. Not very exciting.

OH MY GOSH: I just read Jenni's post on this and THAT IS MY GREATEST FEAR- having something happen to my parents, my siblings, my NIECES, oh my gosh, I don't know how I would handle that. As a family, we have and are currently facing medical fears, but just the thoughts of something happening - something painful, tragic, evil - I just can't take it. Let's not think about it.

So cute. Find it here.

And since I missed the beginning of this fun blog party... I'm supposed to write about something I'm good at, sharing my knowledge or whatever.  And that caused me a lot of fear because I don't think I excel at anything.  I enjoy several different things, like scrapbooking, and photography, writing letters, writing in general, but would I dare say I'm at the point I could teach someone else? Umm.. no.

So here is the best I can do --- how to write letters.  It's kinda like talking in person but instead you are putting the conversation on paper!

I like to have the person who wrote to me, their letter in front of me when I go to write back.  That way I can at least try to answer the questions they may have sent to me. Although you probably should date letters, I never do.  (bad Bethie).

The first paragraph is usually about the person I'm writing to - I'll comment on the story they sent to me, or ask questions for more information, follow up on their letter.  Then I try to answer questions they may have asked me and then introduce new information towards the bottom.  Of course I don't manage to do this all the time, but most of the time.

And I love writing thank you notes, too.  I think it's soooo important to thank people for any and every thing.  Of course for gifts - we all know that - but also for doing something nice, for allowing my organization to come speak to kids, for allowing us to use their facility for something. And I try to make it personal -" your students were so attentive and showed such a great interest in the subject" or "your facility really helped us serve the people in your community and your staff were so helpful to us while we were there." I love letting people know how much they are appreciated, that someone did a good job, or just because they were nice.

So it's much the same in conversation.  People generally enjoy talking about themselves, so just ask a few questions, find what you have in common (or whatever subject you can bear to listen about) and get the conversation ball rolling. :)

I really don't feel this was very helpful to anyone (sorry) but hey, I did it anyway! :) Now I'm going to go check into other people's posts so I can learn something new!