Perfectionist

Dear Blog,
I. Am. A. Perfectionist. Seriously. It's disgusting. While discussing this with my mom today, we determined that we are 100% sure we have absolutely no idea from whom I got this trait. We definitely know it wasn't either one of my parents. Neither of them were fantastic students, although they're both brilliant in their own respects--my mother in compassion, forgiveness, and motherhood; and my father in common sense, fix-it knowhow, and fatherhood. Do you want proof of my perfectionism? Well, even if you don't, I have a story (or three) for you.

Story number one. As you well know, my dad gets home from Iraq in just a few short days. To welcome him home, my family is creating a large banner on a blank white sheet we bought at Wal*Mart. My mom hinted that I would be the designer behind this project, so I dragged Chewie along to Michael's, where we bought red and blue paint, as well as yellow ribbon and some military camouflage print duct tape Chewie insisted upon. Upon arriving home, we spread the sheet out onto the dining room table. Chewie immediately got out two paper plates and dumped the paint onto them. I, on the other hand, snatched a ruler from the kitchen and began determining the height and width of each letter in each word we intended to paint onto the sheet. My mother and Chewie stared at me blankly before deciding that I was out of my mind for trying to make the letters so neat. After that, every time I tried to make a suggestion or raise a concern about the plausibility of the ideas they were proposing, I was shot down for "being too complicated." As a result, I became very frustrated and decided to walk away from the project for a little while. I felt like an utter jerk for having made something that was supposed to bring us all together tear us apart instead. I just couldn't work with the idea of not trying our absolute best to make the banner perfect for my dad. When I came back to see what my mom and Chewie had done so far, it looked pretty darn good, and they'd even taken some of my suggestions, such as alternating letter colors between blue and red and mapping out the space required for each letter. Funny how they're willing to take my suggestions after I walk away, hm? ;) So in any case, I sat down with the banner a little while later and began to add my own perfectionist touch to it, tweaking smudges into straight lines and lining the letters to give a 3-D pop to the words. I just couldn't leave well enough alone. SIgh.

Story number two. As an RA, I have to make name tags for each girl who will live on my half of the hall this semester/year. We are charged with the responsibility and given the freedom to come up with our own ideas and designs for said nametags. WELL. I was originally going to do something simple, like quality printed images of cartoon characters or the like. Then, that not being good enough, I changed my mind to designing individualized rubber duckies on foam cut-outs. Today, I finally settled on the idea of crocheting a smiley-faced fried egg for each girl's name tag. It's absolutely bonkers. I have at least 36 girls under my domain, which means 36 hand-crocheted fried eggs. Not to mention I planned to hand-embroider each girl's name to her egg. Umm. WHAT. I've done TWO so far (without even having stitched on the faces, and my hand is utterly exhausted. Really. What am I doing to myself?

None of this is helped by the fact that I think I've changed my mind about my design...yet again. I'm thinking Care Bears now, as a play off of my unoriginal nickname Kara Bear. Each of them can have a different bear, assuming there are at least 36 different care bears. Heck if I know. Hahaha. I'll have to do some research! But ONE thing is for sure: I am NOT hand-crocheting care bears. ;P Who knows if I'll even switch to this idea. I'm a mess.

Today, I heard: some of the most ridiculous stories come out of my siblings' mouths. I'm going to miss them.
Today, I smelled: acrylic paints. Not unpleasant, but odd just the same.
Today, I touched: so much yarn my hands feel dry and achey.
Today, I saw: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe paired with French subtitles that I read aloud while making fried eggs.
Today, I tasted: fresh-from-the-oven brownies. Yummm. :)

Until tomorrow, lovelies!