Pardon the onion

I tend to get down on myself a lot for mistakes I make around the house. Like yesterday, I tried to make enchiladas with a sour cream sauce and mid-way through the recipe I realize I'm missing a key ingredient (of course, this is about 2 hours after I just ran to the store to pick up some other things) and it's much too late at this point to run out and pick it up. So I saved what I had and put it together tonight. It came out OK, but I used way too much onion. And I like onions,  we all know what too much onion is like. I can't imagine this taste in my mouth going away any time soon. But I find myself apologizing constantly for my little errors. "I'm sorry there's no dinner ready tonight," "I'm sorry I didn't make it to the store today," or "I'm sorry that I didn't get a chance to clean up the kitchen."

I think one problem I have is I'm constantly comparing myself to my mother who never seemed to make these mistakes. But then I realize two things:

1. She'd had 10 years (or so) of practice before I even start remembering things! I'm sure she went through the same stupid mistakes that I make and, if they had cell phones back then, probably would've called her mom a million times in the grocery store when she couldn't find what she was looking for. (And Mom, if you didn't, then don't tell me and let me live in my little delusional world). I guess this is my time to have a go at it and make those mistakes now so I know better for the future.

And 2. She wasn't perfect at everything while I was growing up (Sorry, Mom). I remember this one Thanksgiving where we almost didn't have any turkey gravy because she'd gotten a new roasting pan and the teflon started flaking off in the gravy. What she did best was stay calm in the scenario. I would've been freaking out about how Thanksgiving was ruined and everyone was going to be so disappointed. But we kept it quiet and strained it out the best we could and served the teflon-laced gravy (If anybody asks, it's just some extra pepper and spices). Nobody knew the difference and nobody died of teflon poisoning.

I think I need to start handling things more gracefully and have a bit more of a "c'est la vie" mentality. I think it's the whole newly-wed ideology that I'm supposed to be Donna Reed and have the house spotless, hot dinner on the table (while already having cleaned the kitchen, I might add) and not a hair out of place. I hope to change this idea and just realize that next time I'll know to use less onion and more cheese. I'll see that I'm not a failure at life just because I forgot to pick up some more chicken broth at the grocery store. And I'll realize that I'll get the hang of things one of these days.