Let go

I am a book junkie. I'll admit it; I have an addiction to books. I have a list of books I would like to read that is ALWAYS growing. The list grows every time I go to Costco (I would hate to see what it would all add up to if I actually bought every book that I thought looked interesting or worth reading), read the newspaper (I love reading the book review sections), flip through a magazine in the checkout line . . . pretty much anywhere. More often than not, I will go and request the books through our local library so I can see if they are worth it without breaking the bank (I bet Jeremy is grateful for that). There have been more than a few times I have taken a book back without getting past the first 50 pages, glad the only investment I made was my time.

One of these recent reads I got from the newspaper book reviews, I think. It's called "Confessions of a Slacker Wife" the follow-up to "Confessions of a Slacker Mom". They looked intriguing, so I put in a request and picked them up a few weeks later. They are both incredibly funny and, I think, incredibly insightful into the lives of women as both wives and mothers. The author, Muffy Mead-Ferro (how can you not love someone with the name "Muffy"?), is a total straight shooter and says things that I would bet most women are thinking but don't want to say because they don't want to be thought less of (or maybe it's just me).

The one thing that really stuck out to me was that we, as women, feel that if we are going to do something, we have to do it to a level that will wow the socks off everyone. I feel this way COMPLETELY! If I am going to make a birthday cake, it should look like it belongs on a Food Network Challenge. If I am going to sew a dress for Kylee, it should qualify to be in the next Children's Place catalog. If I am going to scrapbook, then the work I do should be getting published all over the place. If the things I do don't meet this criteria then what's the point? Sadly, I get way to caught up in this frame of mind and drive myself INSANE trying to be amazing at everything. I completely forget why it is that I do these things in the first place; because I enjoy them!!! I love to bake because I enjoy the mixing and measuring and exactness of it all and I certainly don't mind eating the delicious results. I enjoy sewing for the same reason; the measuring and matching pieces and coming out with a finished product that I think is cute and original. I enjoy scrapbooking because I can look back on all our great memories and make them even more beautiful for us to enjoy again and again. With this perfectionist veiwpoint, these activities are creating more stress than they are relieving it (which kind of defeats the purpose of them).

So I have decided to try and talk myself down from my ledge and remind myself to just LET GO. I don't have to have matching hairbows for each of Kylee's outfits and Kadin will love a cake frosted with plain old frosting just as much as one covered in fondant. If I do choose to tackle any of these projects, it will be because I want to, for fun, and not because I am trying to be Super-Mom and show everyone just how amazing I can be. I need to make the commitment now because I know, as we roll into the holiday season, my over-achieving, perfectionist tendencies will kick in and I will go bananas trying to make the perfect centerpiece for my table to coordinate with my tree decorations, and the new throw pillows I am sewing. Just repeat over and over . . . . let go, let go, let go.