Sunday, January 9, 2011

Time to get over it!

One of the curses of being a perfectionist that is far from perfect is having a hard time getting over things that went wrong, whether they matter much or not. Here's hoping that by blogging about my silly mistakes I can stop beating myself up about them.

I don't think I have ever done this before, and I certainly hope I don't do it again. I played the piano in RS today (not uncommon), and for three verses in a row, I played the same two measures incorrecly, all the time knowing that I was playing them incorrectly. It was one of those weird occurrences where I picked a song that I thought was fairly well-known (hymn 148), but when I started playing almost no one sang. It felt weird. And then I started playing wrong things and felt weird and embarrassed. And then I was in a rut and played the same part wrong over again. And then I thought about it all day. And now I'm over it.

Christmas Eve was delightful (more on that later) until I realized that the cheesecake I had made for all of my guests was weird. The texture was not what it should have been because the last block of cream cheese I added simply wouldn't incorporate. It just kind of cumbled into little specks of cream cheese. It had been out on the counter softening for just as long as the rest of the cream cheese had, but it wasn't as new as the others (I guess it was starting to dry out, but I don't think it was terribly old). I've never had such a thing happen in all of my years of baking cheesecakes. I don't think it was any big deal to anyone else, but, silly me, I had a hard time getting over it. But I'm over it now, because my husband still loves me, my friends still seem to like me, the last time I checked I was still capable of making edible food, and I now know never to use cream cheese that may be somewhat old when making a cheesecake.

So, perhaps I'm silly, but I think I'll sleep well tonight!

1 comment:

amanda said...

oh, you remind me so much of me. i, too am a perfectionist. one thing i've learned is that most people are too concerned about themselves to judge others. no one cares that the cheesecake didn't turn out perfectly. we were just grateful we had somewhere warm, inviting, festive and friendly to go for christmas eve. and even more, we were happy to have such good food, even the cheesecake tasted good. i certainly don't think any differently of you by how your cheesecake turned out.

and i never even noticed the piano mess-up at church. i was too concerned about my horrible singing voice trying to find the right note for a hymn i had never sung before. see? i was too caught up in my own perfectionism to notice anyone elses. :) love you, emily. you're great.