breathing deeply

The last several days have been a challenge. Macey had a small sleepover for her birthday. Lucky for me, the girls were incredibly well behaved and had a really good time (judging by the enormous amounts of giggling that came from Macey's bedroom!) But, truthfully, six kids in one house is a lot no matter how well things are going. Then, of course, we had a small-ish birthday party. Grandmas, grandpas, Japanese hibachi, presents and cake. The night before, I had the "Big Cake Debacle of 2011" in which I made a cake... and then it promptly crumbled into a million pieces as I was decorating it. Whoa, boy. I've made what seems like a million cakes and I've NEVER had that happen before. So, there was much freaking out. And there was VERY late night baking. And then there was even earlier morning decorating. And I had to completely change the design for the cake because there just wasn't enough time. *sigh*

So, while this cake doesn't look absolutely terrible, it certainly wasn't what I had wanted to do. I'd planned on a lifelike karaoke machine. Totally doable if I had more hours to work on it. Oh well. Macey survived. There were no tears (except mine.) She totally lived, and the cake was actually very tasty. So, we'll just chalk it up to Murphy's Law and push it all back into the recesses of my memory. You know... until Carter's birthday on March 2nd and I'll have to make another cake. Oy vey.

This morning, I was doing my daily blog reading with a cup of joe and my laptop. It's one of my favorite times of the day. I see what other people are up to. I hear about their successes... and their disasters. I see pretty before and after pictures of beautifully decorated homes. I see 101 ways to recycle toilet paper rolls. I get ideas and more ideas... and then even more ideas. I love it.

While perusing the internet, I visited a couple of my regular blogs and kept noticing a phrase that showed up over and over and over again in differing formats. The phrase?

There is nothing wrong with you.

It was on cute letterpress posters. It was on daily affirmations. It seemed to be everywhere. Now, it's not the newest internet "thing" (you know, like the posters that say, "Keep calm and carry on" with a crown on it.) These things were just hidden among all sorts of other bits of news/ideas/fodder for thought. For some reason, the Universe thought I needed to hear that. And apparently, I did. I heard it loud and clear. No matter how many cakes fall apart in my hands or dishes I don't get done or zits I get on my chin, there is nothing wrong with me. I'm perfectly imperfect and perfectly awesome just the way that I am. There is nothing wrong with me. And for the record, there's nothing wrong with you either.