So, allow me to clarify, in my previous post I confessed my obsession with cooking. I attempted to wax poetic about how it has been a running theme in my adulthood and has really matured with me and helped me in many ways.
I said I love to cook, but that in no way means that I am perfect at it. In chatting with The Man in my Life recently I have gotten the impression from him that I give off a sort of "everything I do turns to gold and nothing I ever do stinks" kind of vibe. This is something that I detest about myself but that I am sort of chained to. I am a perfectionist. I put my all in everything whether it is raising my children or doing laundry. Why bother doing anything if you aren't going to try your best? That being said, I am convinced that just because you try your best does not mean that you will always succeed.
Just because I make a lot of pies does not mean I have quite perfected my crust technique. Just because I bake a lot of cookies doesn't mean that I don't sometimes open the oven and see flat as a pancake ovals and think to myself 'WTF?!' Shit happens, my friends, and sometimes our best just is not good enough.
The trick is to not give up. To look towards those moments when you put forth your best effort constantly every day to no avail and then one morning just as you are getting to the brink of total discouragement you hear your children arguing. You stop mixing up your muffins and you listen before intervening. Then, just like that, your three year old son says 'Sister, that hurts don't bite me.' and your two year old daughter replies in her cutesy voice ,'sowy' and your son replies 'I forgive you, give me a hug.' That one brief shining moment of perfection when you smile so big you feel like the top of your head might open up like a PEZ dispenser and start doling out candy coated pellets of sunshine. That's what it's all for. That's what the struggling is about. For that warm glow that seems to surround you as you realize that you managed to do something right and as you take those piping hot muffins out of the oven you look at them and think that even they look extra perfect this morning. Life is freaking GOOD!!
It's also a roller coaster because that high only lasts about as long as it takes for you to put those muffins on a cooling rack. Because by then someone is yelling that the cat pooped on the bedroom floor again, and the phone rings with someone reminding you that you missed a doctor's appointment, and you reach in the fridge for milk for your daughter and realize to your chagrin that you just use the last of it for the damned muffins.
Being a perfectionist isn't about being perfect...it's just about striving for it, but realizing that it's okay to be flawed. That's what bothers me sometimes. I am told so many times that I give off the very same vibe that The Man mentioned. I am told that I am a mannequin. An emotionless, housekeeping drone that thinks she can do no wrong. In reality I curse like a sailor, have a penchant for blurting out exactly what I am thinking at inopportune times and in not so nice ways, and have been known to get caught up in the Law and Order: SVU marathon vortex (curse you TNT) in which the pile of clothes I was supposed to be folding sits untouched on the couch next to me while I stare mindlessly at the screen for an hour and my children run wild.
Sometimes I find myself hating those things about me...but really those are the things that make me me...it's the need to hide those things that I don't like. The need to always have my ducks in a row.
On a side note I made the mistake of making baked potatoes last night. I asked The Man to pick up potatoes at the store on his way home and he brings home a bag of monster spuds. Huge. I thought why not have a baked potato? I never make them because by the time a potato is baked I usually don't want it anymore. But it was still early and I was planning on grilling a flat iron steak on the cast iron skillet so why not?
Those mothers took forever to cook. After an hour and a half at 375 degrees I said to hell with it, if they aren't done they aren't done but this woman is hungry. The Man then proceeds to drive me crazy at the table by peeling off the skin and mashing them with his fork, after asking where the foil went (I bake my potatoes in the buff, sorry). I laugh and ask him why he didn't just request mashed potatoes and he replies that they taste better baked. I smash mine up on my plate and take a bite and say I have to agree. Touche, my darling.
I think I'm gonna fry pork chops tonight...and thanks to the peeler, slicer, coring gadget I bought yesterday I may make apple sauce too!
I also want to make this cake
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