Ever the (im)perfectionist

When I was young, I think it was after we'd started homeschooling, my dad cried out in frustration that I could be good at anything if I would only decide to be. I'm not sure exactly how true it is, because there are some things in life that make me feel utterly hopeless, but I have a suspicion that he's more right than not. I am a pretty smart "kid", and most of my failings do somehow stem from the sheer lack of 'wanting' whatever it is.

In school, I was not good at math. Part of me believes that it might just be that I brainwashed myself into thinking that. My worst two subjects in high school were math and science, specifically chemistry. Ironically, the parts of chemistry that I found interesting, I did very well in. The stuff I didn't, I put just enough work into to get by. ("Get by" for me, by the way, is like a B+)

Our apartment frustrates me on a regular basis. I want it to be clean, but I won't put the time and effort into making it such. I justify it with things like "well, I'm busy with xyz", or "as soon as I get it clean, Matt comes along and messes it up" or something like that. Truthfully, Matt and I both struggle with the execution of housework, largely I think because neither of our parents forced us to be clean children. My mom would throw up her hands in exasperation throughout my adolescence and cry, "Your house will be a pig sty someday!" and I proclaimed that it would not. Indeed, my house is not a pig sty. But it could be cleaner. I would like it to be cleaner. There's a lava lamp sitting on the kitchen table - where it's been since we moved in back in March - and I haven't moved it yet. I don't know where to put the darn thing, and it needs a new bulb, regardless.

I joke occasionally that I want to be organized very badly, I just can never quite get there. It frustrates me so badly. I am getting better at it, bit by bit, but argh. It would be so nice if we both didn't have selective memories.

But yet, when I want something ... I'm almost unstoppable.
I'm very anxious about giving Denny and Adrienne their wedding pictures. Rational me knows that I did a good job, that they turned out lovely and that they'll probably be very happy with them.
IR-rational me, perfectionist me, keeps saying "oh my gosh, there aren't enough!" (I think I've got almost 220), says that they aren't good enough, that some of them are embarrassingly grainy and that I should be ashamed.
Well, for one, they are good enough, I got some really excellent stuff. Yes, some of them are grainy, but it's not that bad, it could be much much worse (remember that first wedding, after all...), and you did the best you possibly could, given the lighting. They asked for the family pictures to be inside, so, you did the best you could.
So irrational me is going through these pictures like a freight train on steroids, panicking that I need to do more. I guess I could turn up the contrast a bit on some of them, but other than that, they look fine.
Another thing for rational Sarah to remember: You did them an enormous favor. There are people who are worse photographers than you, and they charge over $1,000 for what you did. It. Is. Fine.

So, another cake class tomorrow. I think I'm going to be taking a break after this one. Not that they're not fun, I'm just getting a little tired of all the frosting making. Depending on my schedule, perhaps I'll go back in the fall.