It's midnight and I just felt a surge of energy.
The kind you have to record somewhere, somehow before it turns from creative energy to dead energy.
Addie-baby felt it too and started kicking like crazy (see how she's beginning to poke out?)
I have been mulling and mulling over what sort of cook I actually am, what my goals for eating and living well are, and whether or not I'm clearly portraying that in this place.
Here's the deal: As much as I would like to, I cannot afford to get my meat directly from a butcher who only feeds his cows grass. I cannot stretch my budget to only include organic, eco-friendly, local everything. And as much as I would like to, sometimes I cannot stand to pass up sugary confections or a fat, juicy burger (they just taste so good!).
I was reading this post over at Marta's place yesterday, wherein she discusses blogging jealousy and the ideal blogger image she sometimes compares herself to. I chuckled as I realized my "super mommy monster blogger" equivalent.
I sometimes compare myself to an ideal blogger who has everything figured out and is, consequently, far cooler and lovelier than I am. She home schools her lovely children, all of whom are always dressed in homemade yet highly fashionable sweaters, socks, and shoes. She never follows a recipe, but instead creates original creations for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day, never repeating a meal and never using cream-of-something soup, canned vegetables she didn't jar herself, store-bought bread, or anything she did not make from scratch earlier that day. She has an immaculate house decorated solely with decorative items she either made out of recycled materials or purchased from Anthropologie. She has a master's degree in creative writing and completed her fifth novel while backpacking through the Alps and eating only the berries she picked herself and cheeses she churned from milking cows she met along her way. She speaks every European language and has bosom friends who live throughout the world, all of whom she visits regularly...with her husband and all five children.
I'm beginning to get carried away, but you get the point.
I am not this woman. No woman is this woman.
And gosh, once I'm honest with myself, I never want to be this woman.
Why then, do I compare myself to her so often?
Why then, do I feel inadequate when I don't measure up to her?
Consider this my vow to always show you my true self.
I will be pleased with my best effort. I will accept the imperfections of my photography or recipes or whatever. I will be a real human being who loves Jell-o cook and serve pudding, white dinner rolls, Pasta Roni, and cheese danishes.
I will continue to do my best at living a healthy life and, with pleasure, share my successes and my pitfalls along the way. This is real life, after all. We're all living real lives, however hard we try to profess otherwise on our multiple social media profiles.
Here's to real living, for real!
See you Thursday for a special treat to kick off the Christmas countdown.