Susie Homemaker Hates Me

I tried to tackle my first "real" sewing project yesterday. The table runner. Let's just say I've become well acquainted with my seam ripper. I think I'm going to name it. It's red, so I was thinking Ruby. Ruby the Ripper.It was awful. I can't sew a straight line to save my life! I tried and tried but it was horrible. I salvaged the fabric by folding it in half to hide the seams and using it as a runner on one of my bookshelves. It actually looks quite nice. But I'm so disappointed. I  took a class, bought gorgeous fabric, measured, pinned and pressed. I pressed it people! I haven't touched my iron in who knows how long! And it was ugly.

I've always wanted to be crafty, to produce pretty things that are practical. I can't paint, or draw, or sew.  I take mediocre pictures. I crochet everything into parallelograms because I add stitches at the ends of my rows. I'm a so-so cook, and have yet to keep a houseplant alive for more than three months. I feel that simplicity involves a lot of domesticity and though I've been learning a lot and trying my best, today was full of failures and left me highly discouraged. Not only did my table runner flop, my homemade pizza dough did not rise, I forgot a load of laundry in the washer and it mildewed, and I nearly sent our garbage disposal to an early grave because of some aquarium gravel I accidentally let slip from the colander when I was cleaning the tank. Susie Homemaker would have kicked me out of her house today for sure!

I have a kind of self defeating attitude. A series of failures, heck ONE failure, and I'm convinced that I'm hopeless and that everyone is good at something but me. Perfectionist syndrome at it's worst. It's something about myself I don't like but don't quite know how to get over. Do you ever have those days when it seems like everyone can do something well and you can't? Sometimes I feel like everyone has a skill or a hobby that they excel at and I was somehow overlooked when the talents were being handed out. I've tried my hand at many and truly succeeded at few. 

I was flustered and upset, still recovering from my flu so I decided to end my day with one of the only things I KNOW I'm good at. Something I can't mess up, something that works every time. Baking. I'm really good at baking. One batch of chocolate sugar cookies later and I'm feeling like my old self again. And while I was waiting for the mixer to cream the butter and sugar into fluffy goodness, I realized that my self-made pity party was unnecessary.  Today was a bad day, domestically speaking. It doesn't mean I'm not good at anything. It doesn't mean I'm a bad wife or mother. My husband said he likes the new runner on the bookshelf, the kids liked the pizza even though the crust was dense and crispy, and the laundry and the garbage disposal situations were remedied with a little time and effort. It doesn't mean that any of the things I failed at today will continue to fail me in the future.  It just means I need more practice....and more patience. Patience especially. 

Amazing what making a batch of cookies can do...