Perfection(less)

 During our senior year we were given the opportunity to choose practically anything we wanted for our senior project in English. I chose to make a cookbook because I love to bake.  However this wasn't just a cookbook with random recipes.  Instead I spent the time to talk to members of my community and get recipes they really love and that have a story attached to them. Therefore my cookbook turned into a storybook at the same time. I then decided to try (almost) all of the recipes so I could include pictures and give recommendations to people as to which recipes I really liked!

However no matter how excited I was to make all of these recipes, not all of them turned out very well. The cookies you see in the top left spread out and looked more like I was making a whole sheet of cookies!  Just below that is my wonderful attempt at these famous kolache's that everyone loves. As you can see I didn't even make it to the kolache stage as my dough turned out like a ten pound weight.   Although these recipes turned out wonderfully when they were made by the ladies who gave me the recipe, my first attempt for these recipes was a flop.


But I am oh so glad that I decided not to give up on making any more of the recipes because I would've missed out on the recipes that did turn out deliciously.  Arlene Kleinschmidt's crescent rolls beat Pillsbury out of the can crescent rolls any day and Arlene Carlson's cinnamon rolls have become a new family favorite recipe.

While I may have had some difficulties with a few of the recipes, there were many more than turned out wonderfully.  With practice I'm sure that the other recipes would have turned out just as great, even if they didn't the first time.  But all in all if I hadn't kept trying recipes after my attempt at kolaches or tea cookies, I would've missed out on making and eating a super moist frosted chocolate cake and a delicious peach cobbler.

My question to you is; How many times are we so afraid of failing that we don't even want to try the first time?  Is there something we really want to do, but maybe we've tried and haven't had success before?  Or maybe it's like when we're staring at our computer screen trying to think of what in the world to write our 5 page paper on because we want it to be perfect to we're too afraid to even start it because we crave perfection.


Whatever it is that you want to do, don't be intimidated or afraid to start a project because you want so badly for it to be perfect.  When we realize that we probably are going to have some things that turn out less than perfect, that's when we can really start trying new ideas!