9 Things I Used To Hate… But Now I Love

Do you ever have those moments in life where you find yourself doing something you never, ever thought you’d do?

I had one the other day when I ordered a glass of red wine. I’ve been drinking red for more than a decade now but there was once a time when I couldn’t think of anything worse to drink. When I was about 20 years old, I drank rarely but when I did, I drank alco-pops or vodka and diet coke. Anything to make the alcohol not taste like alcohol. I should have just left myself hating wine but like the trooper I am, I persevered and now I have a very sophisticated palette for the stuff meaning I will drink any and all wine, most of the time.

This got me thinking about all the other stuff I used to hate and now I love and I thought it would make a bloody good blog post. Enjoy.

Things I used to hate but now I love…

1. Sci-fi  

True crime, crappy romance, young adult fiction, drama, thriller, action. I’d read or watch almost anything in any genre when I was growing up except sci-fi. The second you put me in space, I’m out. Not interested. I was interested in actual space but fake space with aliens and spaceships  just didn’t appeal to me. I didn’t grow up on the steady 80s kid diet of weekly Star Wars viewings like other kids my age. I only watched the first (fourth?) Star Wars movie a few years ago and I’ll be perfectly honest, I didn’t love it so my exposure to sci-fi was on the light side. It wasn’t until a few years ago that Mr Smaggle sat me down and forced me to watch Firefly that I understood the true beauty of the sci-fi genre. I now voluntarily watch Star Trek (which I love) and I won’t immediately change channels if I stumble upon a show with a space craft in it. I’m growing as person. Can you tell?

2. Cream 

Hated the stuff. If I was having pavlova, I’d ask for it without cream. If I ordered dessert and it came with whipped cream, I’d grumpily scrape the cream off making sure to not leave even a smidge on my precious dessert. Sour cream? Forget it. Hated the stuff. Earlier this year I tried the LCHF diet (I’m not strictly doing it anymore) and weirdly out of nowhere I started to like cream in all its forms. What kind of weird sorcery is this? I blame whipped cream with berries. That’s what really sealed the deal.

3. Video games 

I never really hated video games but growing up with an older brother made it difficult to get a turn on whatever game console we had in our house so it just wasn’t really on my radar. Mr Smaggle and his brother play video games but most of the time I read a book or watch something on the iPad while they play. I’ve always liked Mario Kart and any platform games, you know the flat style ones where you run across the screen? Like Donkey Kong. I’d tried to play those fancy new fangled ones where it’s all 3D but I couldn’t stop running into walls. Mr Smaggle slowly persevered and now I quite enjoy a cheeky evening of video games. In fact I’ve completed two games this year – Inside and Until Dawn. Both are incredibly terrifying which I think was part of the appeal. I’m also slowly playing Zelda and I completed a ‘dungeon’ and killed a ‘boss’. I’m totes a gamer now. I might start filming myself playing and become like a lady version of Pew Die Pie. I know my genre of video games though. They need to be completely adorable like Yoshi’s Wooly World or totally terrifying like Until Dawn. There’s no in-between for me.

4. Popular music 

I never thought I’d be listening to what the cool kids are listening to but Apple Music has just opened a whole world of new tunes for me. It’s awesome, I have it on in the back ground as I work and the app is getting smarter and suggesting things it thinks I would like. I really think I needed a sophisticated algorithm to pick my music for me. It’s working very well. I like The Chemical Brothers and Propellerheads for when I work. It’s really get shit done kind of music.

5. Kirsten Dunst 

I try not to put down other people, even celebrities (unless they’re in a terrible but fabulous TV show, then all bets are off) but there was just something about Kirsten Dunst that rubbed me up the wrong way. I used to avoid films she was in. To be clear, it was my weird thing. She’s perfectly fine, she just annoyed me for some reason. In the last few years, she’s gone from being someone I kind of tolerated to someone I fucking adore. She was amazing in Fargo, and I’ve even started loving her in films I previously didn’t like her in. Go figure. Public take back and apology on anything negative I’ve ever said about Kirsten Dunst. I love you girl.

6. Pinterest 

As a blogger you need to be on all the social media and doing all the things and that includes Pinterest. Unfortunately, Pinterest just didn’t make any sense to me. It seemed so passive just pinning other people’s stuff. I couldn’t see the point. Until I started crocheting. Now, I love it. I’ve heard of people hating Pinterest until they plan a wedding so I have a theory that in order to ‘get’ Pinterest you need something really niche to get you over the line.

One caveat with my love of Pinterest though is that it has destroyed the Google search function. I might search for ‘crochet dress pattern’ and the first ten results are all from Pinterest and none of the images lead to an actual pattern. Pinterest is very pretty but it’s kind of useless if you want proper information without clicking through a billion links to get to it.

7. Wine 

Note the first paragraph. There was a time in my life where I thought vodka and diet coke was preferable in taste to a cab sav. I don’t even know who that person is anymore. These days, I’d ever ruin a delicious diet coke by putting vodka in it. Blasphemy.

8. Doing nothing on the weekend 

It used to send me into a full on panic. This is one of the reasons why I over commit to things all the time because I like to be busy. Now? I love doing nothing on the weekend, in fact I often plan my weekends like that.

9. Mending things 

I used to put it off, and put if off but now I like nothing better than settling on the couch with a glass of wine and my sewing kit and fixing up all the buttons that have fallen off my dresses and tacking up those fallen seams. I think this one in particular has a lot to do with buying higher quality clothing and owning less stuff. I only have a small wardrobe that I really love so mending things is all a part of the process these days.

Things I still hate…

1. Kettlebells 

Hate kettlebells and most gyms have spent the last decade worshipping them. Weights are fine but kettlebells totally throw off my balance and I swear they’re labelled incorrectly. I can easily squat holding 10kg weights but 10kg kettlebells? Forget about it.

2. Showering 

Still hate them. So boring.

3. Music festivals 

Still no desire at all to go to one. Although with my new found love of popular music, I may have to attend one eventually if I want to see my fancy new favourite bands.

Do you have anything you used to hate and now you love? Or anything you’ve always hated and still hate?

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