Have you ever just lost it? Over what? A bad day at work? Hurt feelings? Something totally trivial and stupid? I would consider myself to be pretty even-tempered. It takes a lot to get me to "lose it." Yeah, I can engage myself in a heated argument, depending on whether I'm passionate about the subject or not, but I hardly ever completely lose my cool. In fact, when a tiff arises between the husband and me (yep, we have fights), I use a very calm voice. My hubs has difficulty not raising his voice when he's frustrated, and it angers him even more when I say things like, "Let's talk about this calmly and rationally" or "Let's take a break." He really doesn't like my "calm" voice and says sometimes he wishes I would just yell. Well, let me tell you a little story about the day I lost it. A few months back, I was baking cookies. Part of the problem was my choice of cookie cutter.
I thought it would be so lovely to make flower-shaped cookies for a special neighbor on a special blessing day. I hadn't made sugar cookies in quite some time, and I was naive to the fact that sugar cookies are a total pain and take FOREVER. After baking an overabundance of delicate flower-shaped cookies and spending too much time making my own icing, I began my frosting pursuit of flawless flowers and had visions of compliments on my extraordinary cookie efforts. Every time I started frosting one of those blasted lovely flowers, at least one "petal" would break off. Despite my efforts to "frosting glue" them back together, I continued to throw all cookies with missing appendages in the garbage (poor little guys). Let's pause for a second. When it comes to crafting, gift giving, baking, etc., I am an unhealthy perfectionist. I want everything to look and taste perfect. I only like to present my best work. (Yeah, I should get over it.)
At this point, a lot of things become fuzzy to me. I remember that it was getting pretty late and Baby E had been up to his usual bedtime shenanigans. He was finally in bed. hubs was really tired, which usually makes for a really bad mood. Without knowing what was ahead, he made a few comments to me. Something about leaving things until the last minute, making way too much work for myself, possibly something about the dishes, and a few other things I really don't remember. What I do remember is the burning sensation that began to take over my body. After spending all day (literally) taking care of E and doing my best to bake the cookies at opportune nap times, I hadn't even had a shower. I was covered in cookie dough and staring down a garbage can full of broken cookies as well as considering a sad total of complete and undamaged flowers. This is when I snapped.
Cookie lovers may not want to proceed. The next series of events might disturb you.
With a spatula in hand, I proceeded to smash all the cookies that were innocently cooling on the cookie sheet in front of me. I then picked up another sheet full of cookies and dumped them all over the kitchen floor crashing the pan itself behind them. (Phew! My heart rate just picked up a bit remembering the unfortunate series of events.) Hubs had left the room before all of this transpired and came running when he heard the crash. He took one look at the pile of broken cookies on the floor and stared at me in utter disbelieve. I really don't think he thought I was capable of such a thing. He tried talking to me with sincere concern. I didn't say a word. I just walked directly to our room and sat on our bed, staring at the TV (it was turned off). I sort of put myself in time out. Over the next hour, hubs must have come in to "check" on me at least 4 times. He seemed to be really concerned for my mental health. I truly never do things like that, and I'm considered the calm one of our household. In the end, I told him why I thought I must have freaked out, and he helped me finish what was left of the cookies.
I'm a real person. I make real mistakes, and sometimes I get upset. This is my public pledge to be less hard on myself and less concerned about baking perfect cookies and all other things I try to do “perfectly”.
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Sarah Jane is a cosmetologist turned mom who is a lover of too many things, including: crafting, frugal fashion, and decor. You can catch up with all things she loves on her blog "For the Love", or email her about what you love at sarah.forthelove@gmail.com
