Conversation in our home on Thursday night after I'd done what was for me a big grocery shop.
DH: Did you get any marmalade?
Me: Was it on the shopping list?
DH: No. Half the time I don't even know where the list is. [Um, same place it always is.]
Son #4 also happened to mention that we had no powdered milk. I didn't bother asking him if it was on the list because I knew it wasn't. The only items on the list were ones I'd written there.
Despite this, I am grateful for shopping lists. If I don't eat it, I don't know we're out of it. If we run out and someone writes it on the list, I buy it. Easy. I AM NOT a mind reader.
This reminds me how sometimes we expect a spouse, children, friends, to know how we're feeling, or what we're thinking. I am guilty more than most of expecting others to know what I want or am thinking. I expect them to be mind readers because I figure they know/love me. We live in the same house, after all.
Except it doesn't work that way. Four adults living in the same house this past week and I still didn't know that we needed marmalade and powdered milk. Perhaps I should write lists for my family of what I expect? The only flaw in that way of thinking is that they probably wouldn't be able to find the lists!
DH: Did you get any marmalade?
Me: Was it on the shopping list?
DH: No. Half the time I don't even know where the list is. [Um, same place it always is.]
Son #4 also happened to mention that we had no powdered milk. I didn't bother asking him if it was on the list because I knew it wasn't. The only items on the list were ones I'd written there.
Despite this, I am grateful for shopping lists. If I don't eat it, I don't know we're out of it. If we run out and someone writes it on the list, I buy it. Easy. I AM NOT a mind reader.
This reminds me how sometimes we expect a spouse, children, friends, to know how we're feeling, or what we're thinking. I am guilty more than most of expecting others to know what I want or am thinking. I expect them to be mind readers because I figure they know/love me. We live in the same house, after all.
Except it doesn't work that way. Four adults living in the same house this past week and I still didn't know that we needed marmalade and powdered milk. Perhaps I should write lists for my family of what I expect? The only flaw in that way of thinking is that they probably wouldn't be able to find the lists!
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