This week’s prompt is a strange or useless talent I have. Which is a bit of a tough one, because I don’t really consider myself talented…. at anything. So I’m going with random things about me that may or may not be strange and may or may not be talents, useless or otherwise. I like making things, and I was lucky enough to be taught different skills by my parents when I was a kid. My Dad is excellent at fixing pretty much everything, and even if I lived to be a hundred I’d never know half of what he does about how to make, mend or analyze things. He knows about everything – electronics, household issues, building things, making pretty much anything by hand, understanding what’s going on in the world and just general knowledge of… well, most things. It’s rare that I ask him a question he has no input on, usually he knows the answer, and nearly anything I can’t figure out he can. He makes beautiful woodwork things, takes evocative photographs, can draw and paint and can turn his hand to pretty much any type of making or mending.
Both my parents are good at cooking and baking, though with different styles, both enjoy walking and nature, and both have gardens.
My Mum can also draw and paint, and is particularly good at delicate watercolour landscapes (that she thinks aren’t up to much, but that are absolutely beautiful). My Mum is very crafty, creative and resourceful when it comes to making things. When I was a kid we made beeswax candles, sewed our own tablecloths and she has always been busily working on projects of one description or another. She still makes chocolates from scratch that she gives to neighbours and any present she gives you will have the most intricate wrapping and usually a hand made card. She’s more into hand crafts, and she taught me all kinds of wonderful skills in that area throughout my childhood. Thanks to her I can sew, knit, embroider (a little bit, not well) and know the basics of how to mend clothing. I taught myself to crochet a couple of years ago, but I know that my foundation in fibre arts came from her and enabled me to pick up crochet much more easily. I love making things – I find the rhythms of knitting and crochet a great mindfulness activity, and it helps my ADHD brain to relax. I also enjoy it because, while it is a mindful activity in and of itself, it also makes something useful, so I feel like there’s a point to it and not what I tend to think of as a waste of time (I’m working on re-wiring my brain to accept that taking time for thinking or just relaxing is NOT a waste of time, but it’s a work in progress).
Aside from this, probably the only other dubious “talent” I can think of is a larger than typical understanding of medical issues and terminology for someone who has absolutely no background in medicine or adjacent fields. I’ve just had so many issues with my own health and family members’ health issues that I’ve learned through that all kinds of things that I probably would rather not know, but I guess it’s kind of interesting.
That’s it for me this week! What about you guys? What strange and interesting talents do you have?
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