Don't Chaperone Your Best Friend's Dates

By Donloree Hoffman

High school is one of the most awkward and pressured seasons of everyone’s life. It is when you look like an adult but you’re nowhere close to being one. People expect you to make life altering decisions and be responsible but you’re too busy worrying about the mean girl in Chemistry class, who to sit with during lunch and the hot boy in Phys Ed who makes fun of you to make any solid life decisions. What you look like, your dating status and how to balance homework with an afterschool job all matters more than what you are going to do with the rest of your life.

Donloree knows what it is like to be awkward, feel alone and wonder if she is the only one suffering in the midst of mean girls and hot boys. You aren’t alone; everyone is suffering even if they don’t admit it. Laughter is the best medicine for getting through the rough patches. Laugh with and at Donloree as she shares 10 random things she wish she had known during her high school years, including not to chaperone her best friend’s dates.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Donloree Hoffman
• Release date: Dec 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9780987955128

Donloree Hoffman

I have been known to go about life without reading instructions. In my not so humble opinion, it is the most sensible way to get things done. The instruction manual is consulted only in dire situations, which are most likely a direct result from not reading instructions in the first place.I realize this a rather unique approach to life.I attract ridiculous and crazy adventures. While still in utero, my mom tripped and ended up rolling down a somewhat large cliff at a beach on the west coast. We both shook it off like champs, but random things have been happening to me ever since.Over a decade of my life was spent pursuing the ‘dream job and dream life’. After working my way up the corporate ladder and living the life everyone else wanted, I came to realize I wasn’t living at all. Finally, I admitted I wanted more out of life, so I went on an epic journey from being overweight and unhappy to healthy and fulfilled and started to live with purpose and passion. My greatest discovery was that I am better than I thought I was, and so are you.Along with being a leadership coach and author, my proudest accomplishments include working with Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, competing in a Figure Competition, and renovating our first home.

Book preview

Don’t Chaperone Your Best Friend’s Dates

10 Random Things I Wish I Had Known In High School

Donloree Hoffman

Copyright 2013 | DonloreEbooks

Edmonton

Smashwords Edition

ISBN 978-0-9879551-2-8

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedication

For Kim Gibson and Cindy Smith.

Thank you for pouring into my life during the most awkward time imaginable in any young woman’s life – junior high and high school.

You were both instrumental in helping me understand that I wasn’t a mistake and that I was made on purpose for a purpose.

Table of Contents

Author’s Note

The Rest of Your Life?

1. Do Your Algebra Homework

2. Pick Yourself

3. Never, Ever Go To The Bathroom Alone

4. Don’t Chaperone your Best Friend’s Dates

5. Avoid Getting Skin Cancer

6. Don’t Fret the Football Players

7. Embrace the Ridiculous

8. Cankle Spotting Is A Waste of Time

9. Always Say I Love You, Even When Its Awkward

10. Find a Tara, Be a Tara

A Few Tips for Living an Extraordinary Life

You Only Have One Job

About The Author

Author’s Note

I wrote this book for you.

It is easy to believe the lie that you’re awkward and not enough. Not pretty enough, smart enough, popular enough, athletic enough, rich enough…the list is endless.

You are more than enough just as you are.

I want to tell you a secret. Everyone is awkward and struggles with feeling like they aren’t ‘enough’, even the most popular girl in your school.

I remember high school; remember it vividly.

It is possible I was one of the most awkward girls in high school, but it turns out my awkwardness was fabulousness in its infancy.

You are fabulous; you just can’t see it yet.

I promise.

Back to Table of Contents

The Rest of Your Life?

I distinctly remember my first day in sophomore English class. The teacher decided to give us an ‘inspirational talk’ about how we each need to pick what we want to do with the rest of our lives so we could choose the correct track of classes to get into the right university to earn an expensive degree in order to work at our ‘dream job’ until we retire and die.

The woman who was giving the less than inspiring soliloquy finished off with a jolting statement. "The classes you take now and how well you do in them will make or break the rest of your life. The courses you select and what kind of grades you achieve matters. Choose wisely."

Needless to say, I felt stressed.

I couldn’t even talk to the cute boy sitting next to me without sweating profusely and stuttering like Porky Pig. How was I supposed to choose what to do with the rest of my life with only 16 years to go off of?

And how does a girl even know what the options are?

Apparently it was time to set some high achievement goals and become an advanced placement class superstar. Also add to the list becoming the Homecoming Princess, making it to State for track and field, and working part time to save for the expensive university years, which were suddenly looming.

I required remedial help to pass Phys Ed which included staying after school to swim lanes, was the size of two Homecoming Princesses put together and preferred to take Pottery over Physics any day.

Did I mention my name was Donloree Dickau?

I was doomed.

In that moment, I decided by the time I made it through high school it would magically become clear. After all, the grownups appeared happy doing their jobs and working literally to their death; they had it all together. It looked easy. I desperately needed hope that becoming a successful, beautiful woman was attainable and I would be happy when I grew up.

If only I had known then that most of them were lying…

There are so many things I wish I had known in high school and more than how to parallel park and keep my eyes open at the same time.

High school is not easy; it is possibly one of the hardest times of life. Sometimes it helps to know you’re not the only one experiencing painful, crazy and awkward adventures. You are more, so much more, than a GPA, job or relationship.

Back to Table of Contents

1. Do your Algebra Homework

I am 99.9% sure my sophomore algebra teacher, who we will call Mr. Popolopolous, hated math as much as I did. Whenever he taught us new concepts he was confused and