What 2014 Has Taught Me So Far

Here it is already in February and I've been meaning to write a post since the start of the year! My procrastination is starting early this year! But I would like to use this blog to write a little bit about what is happening in my life and what's going on with my family. Kind of like a journal I guess. :)

First off, I wanted to give a little recap of 2013. Here are a few things that happened:

• I graduated from Brigham Young University-Idaho
• I was pregnant
• Brad got accepted to Optometry School
• We moved to Fullerton, California

And the MOST EXCITING:

• I gave birth to our baby girl: Penelope Ann

Now for the New Year 2014!

I was trying to think of some goals I wanted to work on this year when it hit me: I need to learn to love cooking! I can cook - I just don't really like to. That's what it comes down to. Eating is such a chore for me. Deciding what to eat first, making it, and then finally eating it. Ugh! Takes forever! I'd much rather just sit on my butt and not eat because lets face it I'm lazy.

Lets be clear - by cooking I don't just mean cooking dinner, but making other things as well - like bread. In a nutshell, I just wanted to learn how to cook everything and to love doing it. My thought process was that if the pioneers could take care of their babies, do all their chores, and make everything from scratch then I should defiantly be able to do the same! Especially with all our technology like washers and dryers, dishwashers, phones, kitchen aids, etc that are suppose to make life easier. Needless to say, I had made an enormous goal!

I was determined though so I gathered recipes from homemade mayonnaise (success) to bread (success-but dense) to tortillas (success) to english muffins (never attempted). I diligently strove to make something every few days as well as make dinner every night. It was going surprisingly well. I was exercising daily, playing with Penny, sewing for work, and cooking! WOW! I felt great! but also a little overwhelmed! It was so hard to do with a little baby. I wanted to play with her all day and would feel bad that I wasn't when I was cooking but would also feel so accomplished for making something from scratch.

Then I got sick for a week....and it totally killed my motivation for everything! Cooking, exercising, being productive, etc. What a drag! I felt kind of defeated!

The feelings of failure really sank in for me when my husband said that so and so was a really good cook and kept telling me to go talk to her and get help with cooking (and this girl is a friend and is very nice). I felt terrible. I was trying SO hard to be good at cooking but I still couldn't make anything that my husband liked more than anyone else's (or so it seemed). *SIDE NOTE* my husband is really sweet and eats everything I make even though I am not the world's greatest chef. Anyway, I broke down crying! My husband (bless his heart for trying to make me feel better) felt bad so he told me that he really does like my cooking, but that sewing was my strong point.

After thinking about it the whole next day I came to this realization: I can't be that mom. At least not right now. I will probably never be that mom that makes gourmet dinners. But I can still learn new things about cooking to develop that talent. I can't do every thing right now and I realized that I don't have to. It will come with time. I also realized that even though I'm not the greatest cook, I can still make good, healthy meals for my family. After all that's really what a good mom does right? Feeds her family as best she can. As long as I am trying my best that is what matters! What I can do is good enough!

Therefore, I am amending my goal to this: learn to make good, wholesome, healthy meals for my family by starting slow. Plan for a weeks worth of dinners instead of a whole month, collect recipes here and there instead of all at once, get wholesome food items even if it is a bit more expensive (I say this because I've been reading Eat This Not That Supermarket Survival Guide and have been learning the difference between what really is healthy and what isn't and how to tell the difference). It will take time and a whole lot of patience, but I know that as I continue to learn I can eventually be able to do everything I want to. I can, one day, be SuperMom!