You know I like to be as real as possible, right?
This post is going to be one of those posts. A bluntly transparent, unedited view into my world.
I’m sure I’ve communicated once, twice, or a dozen times my annoyance with the social media world, regarding the unknown that is hidden behind pictures of perfection.
Today you get to see the chaos that lurks behind such photographs.
If I wanted to be one of those picture perfect people, this is what I would be writing to you about:
I made more cookies than I’ve ever made in my entire existence a few weeks ago. The process ended up being a soul searching, hip widening, endurance testing, yet, ultimately rewarding experience.
I love baking, I think you know that by now. So, naturally, when asked to throw a Christmas party, I challenged myself to the task of baking Christmas cookies, rather than buying desserts.
Of course, I couldn’t simply make a few cookies.
No.
There is a strand of extreme hospitality that runs in my blood. I don’t know if it is due to my Italian/Hungarian heritage or if it simply the women in my family.
Come to my Gram’s house and she is going to feed you, even if you have just eaten. She isn’t going to give you one option either. You’ll have meatballs, chicken, pasta, steak, fries, and popcorn shrimp crowded on one plate.
Growing up, whether it was for family dinner or a holiday party, my mother served enough food for double the people in attendance.
So planning and preparing to make twelve different kinds of cookies was only natural for me. I finalized my cookie list, organized my needed ingredients, shopped, and then readied my kitchen for baking.
Somewhere at this point, when I was really feeling like I had everything together, that’s when I crashed and burned.
Remember the peach incident? Someone once asked me, as I was in the midst of relaying the story to them, if I took pictures of the incident. My response was bug-eyed bewildered confusion that pondered aloud how a person in such a situation could possibly bring themselves to think of taking a picture of such an occurrence.
Somehow, my wit was still about me when this most recent incident occurred. On a scale of one to peach, it is not quite a peach, yet it certainly isn’t a one. And it is for your pleasure, and your pleasure alone, I took pictures:
What you’re seeing is an entire five-pound bag of King Arthur flour…
…on my kitchen floor.
Thinking I could manage prepping the dough for a few cookies before going out to run a few errands and then meet up with a friend for lunch, I rushed about my kitchen pulling ingredients, measuring, and mixing, eyes cautiously watching the clock.
Don’t judge my horrible, terrible, disgusting counter top. It’s on the list of things to soon be replaced…if only I knew the actual time of ‘soon’.
I reached the finish, my last task simply to refill the empty flour canister, when the flour bag jumped out of my hand and poured itself onto the floor.
This was not one of my better moments, people.
Yet, as soon as it happened I knew I needed to share it with the world.
Because, while you’re being torn into a million different directions this holiday season, inevitably you’ll face your own five-pound bag of flour on the floor.
Smile. Sweep it up. And move on.
This season isn’t about stressing over flour.
It’s about eating the cookies, laughing with family about the flour covered floor, and being thankful a Savior came who shows us continued mercy for thoughts that occurred the moment the flour began to pour onto the floor.
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