Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Spectacularly imperfect


I am not perfect. I am remarkably, amazingly, spectacularly imperfect. This truth continues to plague me, as I wish very much to be perfect.
Here are examples of my imperfections:
In writing a story about the Salt Lake Astronomical Society I called it the Salt Lake Astrological Society. They were not amused.
When doing a layout about my cat in the sunflowers, I forgot to put the “f” in flower, so the word read “sunlowers.”
After washing, folding and hanging all the laundry, I went into the laundry room to discover the clothing rack had toppled over into the cat box.
Let’s not even talk about the mess that is my house.
But, yesterday I did a perfectly wonderful job of cleaning the spice rack. I soaked the bottles, scrubbed off the labels, printed new, correct, matching labels, dried the bottles very carefully and replaced all the spices. The job took me all day.
So now I have a kitchen covered with spices, smelling like a combination of oregano and cinnamon, and a refrigerator empty of everything except a few spills.
Alas, one of the most annoying thing about not being perfect is so many things in my life go unnoticed if I do them, but are glaringly obvious if I don’t do them.
On a daily basis I wipe fingerprints off door jams, pick socks off the floor, throw away food packages left on counters, and wash the gummy goo off the lid of the garbage can. But, it is clear I don’t dust the mini-blinds, wash the windows or clean out from under the bed on any more than a semi-annual basis.
I am in awe of people like Bree of “Desperate Housewives” fame who have matching flatware on a well set table every night. I would very much like to send my children and husband off every morning in freshly ironed clothes, a breakfast of banana-nut waffles resting in their tummies, clutching nutritious, delicious home-made lunches. But the thing is, I like to sleep, I like to scrap, I don’t like to cook and iron and I don’t have all that much self control.
So I just muck along, doing the best I can.
Maybe I use “astrologer,” rather than “astronomer” but I got the other 287 words in the story correct. Not perfect, but not bad, either.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a great blog entry. I can so relate! You put that into words beautifully. I wanna be just like you when I grow up.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like me. I never seem to get anything done but go to work. I'M "sick" today. come home completly worn out and in a more or less cranky mood (usually more). I sit down. drink a Dr. Pepper. Turn on the TV. Read the mail (IF I can still see out of my contacts then) and then Zonk. I'm out. Maybe dinner at 8 or none if I can convince myself or Husband to make something. Then get up and go to bed feeling guilty for not getting anything else done. Repeat next day.

karen said...

Hillarious! You just wrote about me too...except I would never wipe the goo off the garbage can lid:)

Anonymous said...

Ya gotta focus on the important stuff, like kids and spouse. let the laundry fall where they may.

Cindy Lee said...

sounds pretty normal if you ask me, lol! how boring it would be to be "perfect" - nothing to aspire to, know what I mean? and anyway "perfect" is in the eye of the beholder - I'm striving to be "perfectly" happy just the way I am! hugs, Cindy Lee