I am good enough.

Weekends. They're not always what you hope they'll be.

I often come off long weekends (so rare and far between, since we work a number of holidays when the stock exchange is closed) feeling disappointed. Like I've wasted it, somehow. They seem so rich and full of possibility at the beginning, and when I look back at the end, I never seem to have done as much as I wanted to.

No matter what I do, I'm nagged by that feeling of I-could've-done-it-better.

This happens in all aspects of life. It's why traffic drives me absolutely bonkers--because I have the sneaking suspiscion that if I were only good enough--smart enough, fast enough, clever enough, skilled enough, paying enough attention--I would be able to negotiate my way to smooth sailing.

If I were good enough, I'd always pick the shortest and fastest line at the grocery store.

If I were good enough, I'd pick the best route through traffic, the best lane for each segment of my drive.

If I were good enough, I would have a fresh meal on the table every night, my dogs would never run away, the DDH and I would never fight, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

But I can't be good enough to be any of those things.

Some things I can make active efforts to improve at--like meal planning and communicating kindly with the DDH--because improvement really does lie within my control. That's why I set goals and keep track of them.

But not meeting my goals doesn't mean I'm less of a good person than if I hit all my goals on schedule every time.

Some things I can try to account for--like filling in the dogs' holes with cement sand, or keeping an eye out for little old ladies writing checks at the grocery store, or checking a traffic report for construction--but are ultimately out of my control. I can't pave the entire backyard or cut off the dogs' digging paws or account for the stealth check-writers or sudden traffic accidents.

Except there is always something I could do. I could pave the backyard (or get rid of the dogs entirely, since they obviously don't want to live here anyway*). I could do all my grocery shopping online and end the tyranny of check-writers and price-checkers forever. I could refuse to leave the house (or at least refuse to drive) and thus never get stuck in traffic.

I'm stuck in frustrating situations because I choose to put myself there. Maybe that's where the feeling of not being good enough comes from, the acknowledgement that ultimately it is my choice (and thus my failure?) for being in the situation in the first place.

But when I look at the alternatives as being, not having chosen the shorter line, but having chosen to forego all grocery stores forever, I realize how ridiculous I'm being. I realize that beating yourself up over choosing the wrong lane of traffic is a silly way to live.

(The fact that if Tulsa's city planners had just done common sense things like include center turn lanes in their stupid roads, so many of my frustrations would evaporate, is another post entirely.)

I am good enough that a few extra minutes in line won't kill me.

I am good enough that I can be patient in traffic (and note to self: being impatient really could kill me).

I am good enough to set wise goals, to work on them, to fail and learn and try again and sometimes, to give up.

More importantly, I am not in any way and never will be good enough to control everything.

I'm not in control. I never was, and never will be, and figuring out the balance between personal agency (doing things) and personal subjecthood (having things happen to me) is, perhaps, the key struggle for this INTJ. They don't call us Masterminds for nothing.

I'm not in control. But I am good enough.

And for Pete's sake, it's time to stop raising my blood pressure over the dratted traffic four times a day.

The fewer cars, the better.

What makes you feel inadequate? And how do you remind yourself that frustrations are not personal failures or character flaws?

*Not really.

I am doing pregnancy wrong.

As soon as you see that positive result on a pregnancy test, everyone and their mother (and your own mother, and your husband's mother) wants to tell you what to do. They want to lay out The Rules.

Well, here are some of the ones I'm breaking:

• I'll be twelve weeks on Monday and so far I've lost five pounds. I'll admit some of this is probably due to muscle mass turning into fat. Most of it is due to the effects of a diet comprised mostly of Saltine crackers. I know eventually I'll be complaining about how much weight I'm gaining, but not yet!
• I still drink the communion wine. Apparently there are some women who flip their lids demanding grape juice instead. Ladies, it's a thimbleful of crappy wine once a week. Alternatively, the blood of Jesus can't hurt your baby.
• I still eat Sam's Club hot dogs that have been sitting in the warmer. Mostly because Sam's Club hot dogs are made by angels in heaven and sent winging earthward on potato bun wings and therefore could not possibly give me food poisoning.
• I participated in a comic medication back-and-forth with the doctor's office. "Stop taking that medicine!" "No that medicine's okay; stop this one." "Never mind, just keep doing what you were doing. Just don't do this." Sigh. Depending on who is actually correct, I possibly have caused or am continuing to cause irreparable harm to Critter.
• I didn't feel all that excited when we first saw Critter on its ultrasound. It was cool and all, but I'm just not that emotional a person. I wasn't too terribly stoked about my wedding, either.
• I don't have any cravings, at least so far. And I don't have aversions to specific foods, just to eating in general.
• I'm not freaking out about every twinge or rushing constantly to the doctor to demand extra tests and ultrasounds. I'm very que sera, sera about the whole thing. Apparently this is unusual.

The thing is, I always have and always will do everything wrong, according to someone.

For instance, my doctor told me to keep exercising but just make sure to keep my heartrate under 120. My mom told me I shouldn't raise my body temperature by working out too hard or taking hot baths. A friend said her doctor said all of that was old wives' tales and she could do whatever she wanted, which she proceeded to do, and her healthy son is now two.

When different authorities give you contradicting advice, you just can't please them all.

And it's just going to get worse once Critter is born. No matter what I do--crying, no crying, spanking, no spanking, infant baptism and feeding and diapering and sleepovers and extracurriculars--someone will tell me I'm doing it wrong.

You know what else? They'll be right. I will be doing it wrong--for them. What I choose to do during this pregnancy and in rearing Critter and its eventual theoretical siblings could be the completely wrong things for other people to do.

But barring gross negligence and inevitable learning experiences (aka mistakes), what I do is and will be the right thing for me. And the DDH and Critter and theoretical future siblings, etc., who get a certain amount of say in the situation.

Because one size fits all, doesn't.

Just live.

What are you doing wrong in your life that's actually completely right?

Reality Bites at Reality Chef

I know it's an internet phenomenon, to complain about how un-real our internet personas are.

I hear people complaining about it--how they get depressed because everyone's life seems better than theirs when seen through glowing status updates. I myself am prone to shameful raging fits of envy when I see other people's beautifully decorated houses (and then those people complain about them, ugh!), their seamlessly organized and totally fulfilling lives.

Exhibit A: This used to be the view from my bedroom window.
When I lived in Freiburg, Germany.

It seems to be all the blogosphere rage to insist you and your blog will "keep it real," that you're "all real," but all the while we post a carefully edited presentation of our lives. Even our troubles can be giftwrapped and prettied up to seem artfully tragic.

I hate that.

I mean, I am the Number One Fan of the curated personality presentation. I don't mind people presenting me the Best Bits version of their lives--that's more or less what I'm presenting you. I like a juicy secret and I like to know that your lives really aren't perfect, but people go to the internet for the same reason they go to the movies or watch television or read books: for entertainment.*

And mundanity is anything but entertaining.

That's why no one loves the friend who tweets every day's tiniest event: Woke up, had coffee. Heading off to work, blah. Think I'll get Chipotle for lunch. Stuck in traffic and found some spinach in my teeth.

Yawn.

Somewhere, though, there's a balance. There's a balance between the kind of real that tells you what time I brush my teeth every day (right before bed. Yeah, just once a day, don't tell my dentist) and the kind of editing that makes you think I eat nothing but free-range meat and homegrown produce cooked in my four-star kitchen (I wish) to exacting standards for my Hollister-model husband and my 2.5 kids.

Somewhere in there is the version of life that's entertaining without making you (too terribly) jealous. A version of life that's relateable. A version of life--of self--that is a friend.

I've got a series in mind for this little blog, but I'm starting with Reality Chef, because I named the damn thing with this whole concept in mind yet lately have been only posting recipes and meals that make me look good like a skinny-bitch Paula Deen with a smitten kitchen chaser.

Every day from now until Easter (so basically for Lent), I'm going to post what I had for dinner. Sometimes, and in keeping with my New Year's goals hopefully at least three times a week, this will be a recipe that you might want to try. But maybe more often than I'd like, it's going to be leftovers or fast food or whatever reality meal Americans eat these days.

I won't be posting all of these here, because that could be totally boring. I'll just link to the recipe ones the way I've been doing. But if you're curious, keep an eye on the food blog for a taste of reality. Hopefully, it will encourage you and show you that real food lifestyles are doable, without overwhelming you with the impossibility of living them perfectly.

'Cause heaven knows that I'm not perfect, and Day 1's dinner proves it.

*Ok, so that's drastically oversimplified. REALLY mostly people go to the internet to Google stuff on Wikipedia. Also for porn. And to nurture human relationships or buy stuff on Amazon or whatever. But entertainment is certainly a primary purpose. No, I'm not linking to porn with that link, geez, but to the Avenue Q song.

I am cooking up a storm: Bacon and Egg Tarts

The DDH revolted against my healthy dinner plan on Tuesday, and we ended up with these.

Bacon and Egg Tarts

I mention this briefly in the recipe post, but I'll note at a bit more length here: This is, for all its seeming unhealthiness and whatever sort of vibe you get from something consisting entirely of bread, eggs, and bacon, a very local meal.

I made the bread myself, with wheat from a local farm and butter from a local dairy. The eggs came from one of the DDH's coworkers. The milk and bacon came from a dairy and farm in the area.

Only the cheese (and the other ingredients in the bread: sugar, salt, yeast) came from a store. Something has to give in our food budget, and we eat far too much cheese at this point in our life (nachos being our standby I-don't-feel-like-cooking meal), and the local cheese selections are so limited, that we still get Sam's Club cheese.

Given that Oklahoma is such an agricultural state, sometimes I'm surprised at how limited our local food opitons can be. We don't have a year-round farmer's market, for instance.

But the options are there.

We have an every-other-week online order food pickup in the winter, from which we get all that dairy and the eggs (usually; this is the first time we've had coworker-eggs) and bacon.

We have a local butcher/rancher from whom we get most of our meat.

And during the growing season we have several different markets from which I get all of our produce that I don't grow myself.

A lot of this food is more expensive than conventional supermarket versions (in-season produce often being the exception), though not necessarily more expensive than all-natural or organic supermarket versions. We eat less meat than when I bought it all at Sam's Club, and as I said, we still get our main cheese there because it's so expensive otherwise.

And while I firmly believe in the principles of supporting local businesses and responsible farming and ranching practices, I totally understand not being able to afford those things. I've been there. Trust me.

But there's usually something you can do, if those values are important to you.

Growing your own produce is cheap and possible even for most apartment dwellers.

Maybe you pick one item that matters the most--eggs, or milk, or meat--and make an effort to buy that one item locally.

It makes a difference.

And when you're able to make an entire meal and think, not only did I make this for my family with my own two hands, but I have met, personally, all of the people involved in producing this food--well, that's a wonderful feeling.

I know this comes across as a self-righteous or look-how-awesome-I-am feeling, but that's not what I mean. It's just a feeling of belonging to a community, of being an active participant in a system rather than a passive one, of taking charge of what is an integral part of all our lives: food.

We all have to eat. Let's make what we eat good, in as many senses of the word as we can.

So this is heartwarming.

Did anyone see the Target ad this week? Since Target ads still come in that creaky old dinosaur the newspaper, we don't get them.

But, if you do, perhaps you noticed that one of the children's models was a boy with Down Syndrome.

Or perhaps you didn't. Because Target didn't call attention to the use of a "special" model. They just stuck him in there with all the other kids, looking happy and having a good old time.

Someone posted this link on Facebook, which is how I saw it. I don't necessarily have much to say on the topic. I know a number of people with Down Syndrome, of various ages from a little baby through to adults, but I'm not exactly qualified to speak to the topic other than to say that people are people.

Oh come, oh Key of David.

An antiphon is a short sentence sung or chanted before the psalm or canticle in certain liturgical traditions. The seven "O Antiphons" date back to the ancient Church and are used to celebrate the final seven days of Advent, the last week before Christmas. Each O Antiphon is a name of Christ or one of his attributes described in Scripture. You probably recognize them as from the verses of the popular Christmas hymn "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel."

O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel;

qui aperis, et nemo claudit;

claudis, et nemo aperit:

veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris,

sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis.

O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel;

you open and no one can shut;

you shut and no one can open:

Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house,

those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

Isaiah had prophesied:

"I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and no one shall shut; he shall shut, and no one shall open." Isaiah 22:22

"His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onwards and for evermore." Isaiah 9:7

"...To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house." Isaiah 42:7.

The Key.

Who among us hasn't promised as a child, "I'll never do it again!"?

Heck, I still promise that. I promise myself, my husband, my boss, my friends. I'll never put off to the last minute prepping for my meeting. I'll never not plan our week's dinners again. I'll never gorge myself silly on candy cane Hershey's kisses again.

And then--I do. I do all of that. I break my promises over and over again. The door to all those things I'm never going to do again?

It just opens right back up.

Don't you wish you could stop repeating your mistakes? I mean, maybe you've figured out the secret, but I sure haven't.

I'm so glad I'm not in charge of making sure the door to heaven stays open and the door to hell stays shut. I would be terrible at that job. I'm a prisoner of my own repetitive idiocy.

And that's just me and my own first world problems. So many doors in this world are shut that shouldn't be. So many people are prisoners: of addiction, of illness, of injustice, of hatred, of oppressive regimes, of circumstance.

I try and help open as many of those doors as possible. I try to be the Key of David in this world. I send money to the Charis project and Lutheran World Relief. I bought some bunnies through World Vision as presents this year. I bring hats and gloves for the homeless shelter and blankets for Emergency Infant Services and food for the food bank. I serve dinner at the day center and carol at the nursing home.

But it's never enough. It all just needs doing over again. We send money and some are helped and some places heal from this year's disasters--but disasters will strike other places next year. My bunnies will grow and multiply and feed one family, or two, but how many more families go hungry still? We collect hats and blankets and food every year, and every year there are more in need. The homeless need dinner every day, and every year there are new dying faces at the nursing home.

It's too much. I can't do it all. Even all of us, together, we can't do it all. "The poor you will always have with you" rings so, so true no matter how hard I slam the door on as much poverty as I can.

Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house,
those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

Come, O Key of David. Lead forth your people and shut these doors, the doors of poverty and injustice and pain and addiction and sorrow, shut them so they will never open again.

Until He comes, I'll do what I can. Well--not ever all I can. My efforts are never good enough, and far too often I choose my own comfort and pleasure over the well-being of others. But sometimes I try. Won't you join me?

Oh, come, O Key of David, come,

And open wide our heav'nly home;

Make safe the way that leads on high,

And close the path to misery.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to you, O Israel!