10 Things I Learned From My Dad

Fathers Day is coming up and its a perfect time to reflect on my dad.  I am happy to announce that I have the best dad in the world.

He has taught me many things in my life, but my teenage years were not the easiest.

But.. he was patient and stood by me knowing that one day I would get my act together.

And I did.

So, the 10 things I learned from him (in no particular order) that I have carried with me into adult hood.

1.  Always be on time.  I personally was never late and being late as an adult is utterly unacceptable.  Luckily, this is a life lesson I learned watching my older brother.  One time  my brother was 1 minute late and my dad threw his keys were into a corn field (true story).  My dad said, "Even though he was one minute late, it was one more minute I had to worry about him."   Now that I have kids.  I get it.  I worry and think about my 10 year old when shes at a friends.  If I say be home at 8 I do not mean 8:01.  One extra minute of worrying.  Not cool.

2.  The dishwasher is not a miracle worker.  My dad would sit down and lecture my brother and I about how to make a proper peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Scrape the peanut butter off on the inside of the jar.  The dishwasher is not going to get off all the excess peanut butter.  I carry this with me, but I do not practice it, but I do think about this every time I make a pb&j which I am pretty sure was his goal.

3.  How to wash a car.  When the car is soapy, you need to rinse it from the top to bottom, not bottom to top.  Makes sense.... now.

4.  Baseball and Football.  He is a huge fan of both. I was instructed as I child that I will pull for the NY Mets and the NY Giants and pulling for anyone else could result in my departure out of the house or world, depending on his mood that day.

5.  Communication.  Communication is important, not only does it keep you up to date as to what is going on in each others lives, but it makes you feel better.  My dad lives 6 hours away and we talk at least 2 times a day.  At least.

6.  Ice cream is one of the basic food groups and should be included in your everyday diet.  Everyday folks not once a week, but everyday.  I do love me some ice cream but dad LOVES his ice cream.

7. How to drive a car (both manual and automatic).  My dad always said that every female should know how to drive a manual because you never know when she may need to drive one.  Good point.  That get away car I drove last week was a manual (kidding)

8.   Honesty.  Being honest is important.  No making things up, no lying about anything.  It makes you look stupid and people lose respect.

9.  Be a hard worker.   He is probably the hardest worker I know.  He was always an excellent provider and worked all the OT he could get to make sure we had.  

10.  How to be a good parent.  As I said, my teenage days were no walk in the park.  I look back and PRAY my kids are NOTHING like I was.  He stuck in there and no matter what he was there when I needed him.  If I needed him to come get me and he was 12 hours away he would be on his way as soon as he hung up.  I would do the same for my kids.



So.. HAPPY FATHERS DAY TO THE BEST DADDY IN THE WORLD!  MY DAD!