It’s been almost 6 months since I started this journey to make The Wandering Nurse Blog a success! If you know me in real life, you know I am a bit of a dichotomy in a lot of areas of my life. You should probably know by now that I am a travel ER/Trauma RN, I have an amazing family, I love to travel to new places and I recently lost my mom. You also know I care about people deeply, absolutely love my job and, yep, I cuss a little. In celebration of the blog’s [almost] 6-month anniversary, I have compiled a list of little-known facts about me that I’ve lovingly titled:

My List of Unpopular Opinions:

Entertain me:

I would literally give away free Bruno Mars or Beyoncé concert tickets even if the show was happening in my back yard.

I HATE getting Snapchats of peoples’ dogs. I never look at them and if they’re eating something, it makes me mildly angry. It is just so disgusting and MAJORLY grosses me out!!

I have never seen [and have absolutely zero desire to see] any Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Avengers or Star Trek movies.

I don’t discriminate with movies though; I’ve also never seen Clueless, A Christmas Story, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Godfather, Shawshank Redemption, ET, Jurassic Park, Pulp Fiction, Schindler’s List, Avatar, Planet of the Apes, Back to the Future, The Goonies, Ghostbusters, Rocky, Terminator, There’s Something About Mary, Anchorman…this list could seriously go on and on. I don’t like movies and I’m not going to watch them but will emphatically lie to your face and tell you I’ll add it to “my list”.

Taking pictures or videos of you doing a good deed cancels out the fact that you did a good deed in the first place. Posting it on Facebook live or YouTube or whatever makes you a complete asshole. Don’t teach your kids to do good just for the “likes” and shares and “validation” provided by pandering to the social media community. Furthermore, stop exploiting people when they’re at their most vulnerable. Imagine being at your lowest low and someone video tapes themselves doing a good deed for you and then shows an endless amount of people all over the internet? How mortifying. This is a HUGE pet peeve of mine.

I don’t like listening to music while I’m trying to get stuff done, however, podcasts and TV for background noise are a must-have for me. I think this stems from my mom always having QVC or the movie Twister on when I was little for background noise.

Concerts where the band or artist only sings songs from their new album are the WORST. People go to concerts to hear songs they already know and love with a small sprinkling of new stuff. That’s what most people paid big money to see anyways!

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Eat this, not that:

Snickers, Milky Way & 3 Musketeer’s bars are just straight up not good.

Portillo’s also sucks; I’ll tolerate it if someone else wants to go but would never choose it for myself. You can keep the soggy ass Italian beefs.

Fruit flavored candy has zero appeal to me, and I don’t even consider them when I want something sweet.

Corn on the cob from Selmi’s in northern Illinois is one of the most delicious foods on the planet.

Sheet birthday cake and ice cream cake [specifically from Dairy Queen] is NOT good. Give me from-the-box golden cupcakes and milk chocolate frosting from a jar over the fancy stuff ANY day!

Cookies-n-cream is the BEST flavored ever created and I would choose it over any other flavor every time.

People who require special food considerations (diabetic, Celiac disease, Crohn’s, vegan lifestyle, etc.) should not expect others to cater to them.

McDonald’s is delicious. I REALLY want to find it disgusting, but I just can’t. I love it. I don’t, however, love how it makes me feel.

Pumpkin spice lattes smell 100% better than they taste but I forget that at least once every fall and order one only to be disappointed.

Different brands of bottled water have very distinct tastes and are NOT all equal.

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I’m offended:

Sleeping in the same bed with your dog is gross.

Your relationship with your spouse/partner should come before your relationship with your children. I find this to be in the same vein as the concept of companies putting their employees before their customers; if your employees are happy and feel well taken care of, they will work harder and go the extra mile because they feel valued and appreciated like what they do truly matters. Similarly, if kids live in a home where their parents make each other a priority and mutually respect, support, and love each other, they will turn into better humans and have an amazing example of how healthy, strong relationships work. I think the habit many women fall into post children of making them their world and their husbands [who were very highly participating parts of making said children] into second class citizens is a fatal mistake that ultimately leads to the end of what could have been great relationships.

Religious mission trips to other countries are a waste of time, money and resources and are strictly for the benefit of the people going on the mission trip and not the people they are pushing the Christian ideology of God onto. This is so disrespectful to their culture and heritage; you are essentially a privileged human who has the extra means to take yourself on a trip to a struggling country and tell an entire group of people who are nothing like you that they are living their lives wrong and you are there to share salvation with them. I think there are an infinite number of paths to whatever version of Heaven you may believe in and things like supplies, infrastructure, medicine, etc. is what would actually benefit these people. It’s a simple look at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs…if these people aren’t even able to eat when they are hungry or have access to clean water, they aren’t even close to TWO levels up where intimate relationships like they’re being told they should have with Jesus are located. A bible isn’t going to stop the tragedy they often deal with every day.

You choose how you react to every single thing in life and you should be held responsible for those actions.

You get back what you put into the world.

Littering is the ultimate form of biting the hand that feeds you and I have zero respect for those who do it. If you throw your garbage out the window while driving, you extra suck in my book.

Hiking in itself is not a good time; seeing all the beautiful things along the way and getting to a jaw-dropping location at the end makes it worth it. Hiking is just trendy walking.

People need to stop telling little boys not to cry. Let them express their emotions and guide them into how to express those emotions productively. They’re human and will always FEEL emotions like sadness and hurt. Teaching them that it either isn’t okay to feel that way or just denying their feelings as real is not healthy! Teach them to deal with it, not hide it.

Anxiety is simply an inability to cope with a certain situation and can often be fixed with better coping mechanisms. The glamorization of anxiety in today’s culture drives me nuts. It cheapens what can be a truly crippling reality for some.

Mom shaming is the dumbest thing ever and nobody should ever comment on any woman’s parenting unless it is positive. Commenting on another woman’s social media post and “just letting them know” all the things they’re doing “wrong” speaks volumes about YOU and not at all about the mother you’re belittling, intentionally or not. They did not make an Facebook post hoping and praying you would bestow your infinite mommy wisdom on them. Unless they asked for your feedback or opinion, kindly STFU.

There’s an exception to the above opinion and that comes in the form of anti-vaxers. If you don’t vaccinate your children based on your Google medical degree or bunk “scientific” articles/mommy websites/extremist scare-tactic websites, you seriously suck. Educate yourself with reputable and reliable resources and stop putting other people’s lives in jeopardy because of your negligence.

Speaking of negligence, people who smoke with their kids in the car deserve a special kind of punishment. This isn’t 1960; what are you even doing??

I think there is immense value to beginning and ending each day with a conscious intention and gratuity. Teach your children this practice early on! It changes your perspective of everything and adds so much to your day to day life. YOU WILL FIND WHATEVER IT IS YOUR LOOKING FOR IN YOUR LIFE. Look for things to be grateful for and you will find things to be grateful for. Spend your energy looking for things that upset you and, trust me, you’ll find those too. Choose to be happy.

Cruises and resorts are NOT traveling. Those are vacations. Vacations are designed to eliminate all inconveniences and relax you. Traveling is designed to acquire new knowledge/experiences and enhance you.

Baths are super gross and the idea of my bare butt on a tub floor makes me gag. RARELY I will take a bath, but the tub MUST have water jets and I still wear swimsuit bottoms AND put a folded up towel under me!

As the wise Tom Segura once said, some people suck. Learning to just accept this instead of finding reasoning behind other people’s shitty decisions is a gift from above and free to everyone. Claim yours immediately!

I don’t believe the saying “Everything happens for a reason.” Lots of BS things happen for absolutely no reason at all and nothing can be said to explain or rationalize it away. HOWEVER, I also believe that good can come of every single crappy thing that could possibly happen in your life if you choose to let it be a learning/growing opportunity instead of an atomic bomb to your soul. 

Which opinions do you agree with? Which do you disagree with? I would love to hear your feedback! ‘Cause even if you disagree with me, I’ll still love ya. This world takes all kinds of kinds to operate and not liking a person because they don’t agree with you is absolutely not my style.

Open-minded travels <3