Week One Report

We've arrived at the end of week one of my six month journey to success. Only one minor meltdown today - I found myself around midafternoon wrestling a slimy raw turkey while Offspring played Wii and OtherHalf played Angry Birds (ok, ok, he MIGHT have been working on the church financial report, potaytoes, potahtoes) and suddenly I just felt really sick of cooking and hoarding freezer foods and was ready to throw in the towel. I may or may not have thrown turkey bits around and wailed about my frustration. Of course, mid-rant, I was stricken with guilt as I realised that my snivelling about having to be "save-y" by hacking up a whole turkey (at $0.89/lb) instead of being able to just buy turkey breast and ground turkey (at goodnessonlyknowshowmuchitcosts/lb) could possibly be interpreted by OtherHalf as criticism of his ability to adequately provide for the Family. Of course this was not my intent, but guilt generally provokes feelings of anger and this fueled my verbal diarrhea to a new peak. At some point I actually spewed "make the children stop having fun! Everyone should be as miserable as I am!" or something along those lines. Happily, I was so over-the-top that OtherHalf ended up laughing, came to my rescue and even washed the dishes.

On another note; I have a new item to add to my "things I really can't comprehend" list. Does anyone out there play card "trump" games? Tonight we went to have Relaxing Fellowship with Friends. This involved playing the game "Wizard", which calls itself "the Greatest Card Game of All Time". I beg to differ. There is something evil lurking deep within trump games. And I know I'll lose, I know I'll lose big time. But games are fun. I like to play games. Something about this one game, though, gets right under my skin and I get so anxious! Here's how Wizard works: you get a hand of cards, and one suit is the "trump" and then you go 'round the table and bet on how many "tricks" you'll take during that hand. You take a trick by playing the highest card, and a trump card is higher than the other suits, and a Wizard card is highest of all. Unless you play a Wizard card AFTER someone else has already played one, in which case THEIRS is higher and they take yours thankyouverymuchsocalledBestFriend. And then, if you get the number of tricks you thought you'd get, you get some points, plus points per trick. And if you FAIL you lose points. You fail by someone else sneakily playing a higher card than yours even though they knew full well you needed to take that trick thanksalotOtherHalf.  Really and truly, I think it's only BestFriend's husband and eldest son that are playing, the rest of us are just there to contribute extra cards and comic relief. And I KNOW this, I KNOW this! but that doesn't stop me from getting heart palpitations as we go 'round and 'round and I try to comprehend what on earth is going on and how do they know what everyone else is going to play so that they play the right card and win?! There is some kind of serious mental block that prevents my understanding this game. Which is no big deal, after all, someone has to lose, and I can do it splendidly. I think the thing is, I want so badly to just get it, you know? Not even to win, just to finally have the light come on, that "ah ha!" moment, to be able to enter into the spirit of the strategy.  It's not so much the losing, it's the having no idea what is making me lose, and having no control over whether I'll improve or not.

I guess I should really be grateful that this phenomenon is most prevalent in a simple card game. There are other areas of life where this sort of feeling would be terribly overwhelming, and something tells me I could be walking a fine line here and there. Best to leave this concept on the edge of conscious thought, and postphone further analysing.

So, all in all, Week One hasn't been to much of a crash and burn. I have two freezers full of pop-in-the-oven meals, I've gutted and organized the under-the-stairs storage area, Offspring are loving their new math curriculum, OtherHalf is still smiling and my future looks bright. Dragon's Den is not holding auditions right now, but that's fine, it gives me time to work on a proto-type for my latest invention. I have done some preliminary research into what I'll need to get my espresso pod running... I'll keep you posted on that. I think in the next week I'll go through my seed stash and see if something could be planted, test some recipes for the espresso pod, and gesso some canvasses so I'm ready to paint.

'Til next time, then.
CG