Thursday, May 15, 2008

Trial & Error with a Silver Lining

“Most species do their own evolving, making it up as they go along, which is the way Nature intended. And this is all very natural and organic and in tune with mysterious cycles of the cosmos, which believes that there’s nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fiber and, in some cases, backbone.” Terry Pratchett

Today I decided to wake up super early. I had two small writing assignments to complete, sugar cookie samples to bake for a new client and I wanted to make my lemon cake for the farm. I am heading off Cape Saturday and I wanted to get the tasks complete.

The morning went smooth enough. I finished cookie samples before Sophia even went to school and I made green starfish and blue whale sugar cookies as a birthday gift for her preschool teacher.

After that the day took a turn downhill. My lemon cake and I were simply not clicking . I had to go through three batches of cake before I got it the way I wanted. Somehow one batch got a little burned (maybe it was because I was writing at my desk and overlooked the timer) and another simply didn't want to come out of the pan.

After trial and error I finally produced a good batch of my lemon cake for sale. I guess I just need to see the silver lining here-the kids were happy to eat the batches that aren't quite going to make it to market.

Beyond that my daughter was being challenged by some friendship stuff at school. I tried to share with her what I'd learned from the botched lemon cakes in case it might help.

Not to give up. Try again. Look for the silver lining. As a mom to three I hate it when something isn't going right for my kids.

In the past two years I have made close to 150 lemon cakes without any trouble at all. I guess some days are going to offer room for trial and error-maybe that's what leads to silver linings in the first place.

Now that I am done what I had to do I am free to have some fun over the weekend-it's another silver lining.




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