Blessed Is The Woman Who Knows Her Own Limits

I recently decided our Family Home Evening job chart was an ugly eye sore and I needed to make a new one. I’m convinced this new chart will make our discussions more meaningful, our singing more melodious and our dessert lower in calories.



That’s the theory I’m working under.

Whenever I decide to make something the less exactness needed the better. I thrive on estimating. I roamed the aisles of JoAnn Fabrics, waiting for inspiration for a new FHE chart idea to strike. It finally did. I painted the small frames and ordered some prints from Costco to put inside. When Adam saw the project mid-way through he asked if I wanted help sizing the pictures. (He knows how exactitude and I get along). I said, “I already ordered the prints. You can help me after I find they don’t fit.” That’s how I am. Act now. Fix later (or have Adam help me fix). Adam gave me a look that could have been stark admiration.

But I could be wrong.

The pictures (more or less) fit and that’s when my non-perfectionist tendencies come in handy…when things more or less fit.

I got the whole thing assembled and ready to hang. I decided to do it Right The First Time (perhaps prompted by that look from Adam that may or may not have been complimentary). I pulled out a laser level, a pencil, a tape measure. None of these objects (except pencils…we don’t have any negative history) are friends of mine. I had measured the distance between the nails on the wall (where the previous unlovely FHE chart had hung). I measured and marked the spaces on the new board.

I hammered little picture hangers on the back of the board. When I realized the nails were going through the board I exclaimed in horror. Adam was in the next room and walked over and held one of the nails against the board, clearly showing me it was too long. Oh, so there’s a way to tell before you nail the board to the table? Interesting. I pried the picture hangers off, cut the nails shorter with needle nose pliers (and decided to just get another nail and stop searching around when one of the—now tiny—nails jumped ship onto the kitchen floor).

Once I finally got the picture hangers positioned, I tried to hang it on the wall but they were woefully misplaced. Why do I even try to measure? Is there a hole in my head where the measuring capacity is supposed to reside? I pried the picture hangers off (again) and estimated where they should go. It’s what I should have done in the first place because THEN it worked.

Such is my lot in life.

I have accepted it.

That’s why I stopped myself before I bought a darling apron pattern a while ago. It was very cute and I debated whether or not I could sew it. I finally went with, “No you can not. Remember how you decided you can’t sew anything that involves a pattern?”

I remembered and if you’ve seen me walking around with droopy shoulders, that’s why. Because that apron was really cute.

When my sister, Marianne, who can sew anything anytime anywhere asked me what I wanted for a birthday present, I told her to sew me an apron. She said OK.

Marianne’s kind of a pain like that. She has 6 children, 5 she birthed and one she’s caring for out of goodness, she home schools them, her kids are always involved in some sort of elaborate and impressive venture, her scrapbooks are perpetually caught up to date AND she weighs less now than when she got married. I try to love her despite all this.

Today the package from my sisters arrived. It was from Olivia too which didn’t make sense initially…what did she do while Marianne sewed my apron, hold the scissors? Then I realized the (exceptionally cute) apron they sent (along with some pretty dish towels) was not homemade. When I called Marianne to thank her for the beloved present, she apologized that the apron was not homemade. She said, “I ran out of time.”

If anyone in the world deserves “I ran out of time” as an excuse it’s my lovely Marianne. And it’s something of a relief for an underachieving sister to hear.

My shoulders are no longer droopy. Not one bit.



Thank you, sisters.