Fighting Perfection

My moms birthday was yesterday and for some reason I waited until the last minute to finish everything. This is totally not my style, I'm usually the nerd finishing up her crafty homework weeks before the test. Maybe it's because I have control issues or maybe it's just because I like to avoid the stress of having to cram it all in at the last minute. For me procrastination usually robs me of the fun of the event. I find myself stressing and agonizing over details when I would much rather be sitting back and enjoying the fun. Anyways, due to intimidation of both the project and my mothers reactions I ended up putting off finishing her present, wrapping it, and baking a 3 part cake from scratch, and making dinner reservations until the day of. This is how I found myself making a cake at 7 am in my pajamas and my hair badly in need of a flat iron.

As the day progressed I saw myself in an even more unflattering light. L was having "a day", she was cranky, sassy, bossy, and while trying to use all my patience of the various birthday tasks of the day I didn't seem to have enough for her. In trying to obtain perfection for someone else, I ended up falling flat on the face of mine.

When I was an adolescent one of the things that bugged me most about my mother was her need for perfection. The view from the outside always had to be different from what was on the inside. If the inside was shinning then let em' in, but dull and dusty was when you had to shut the doors. While others were rebelling with drugs and curfews I rebelled greatly against the ideal of perfection. Anything I could do to burst the bubble of what everyone wanted to see.

So in today's disastrous events I was reminded of what I used to be about. The ideal that perfection is never what it seems and to truly be happy you have to be anything but perfect.


Here is her cake, in all it's imperfect glory. It did however recieve rave reviews from everyone, although it wasn't really my cup of tea. Everyone really liked the purse I made her, which I didn't get a change to take a picture of before I wrapped it. My mom turned 45, and I do believe she had a great time. For a mother of 8 children she doesn't get a whole lot of fuss over herself , but I hope yesterday let her know how much we all care.