Confessions of a Recovering Perfectionist

I like things Perfect. Just so. As I imagined them. The dictionary defines perfect as: "excellent or complete beyond practical or theoretical improvement" "entirely without flaws, defects or shortcomings". So there really are very few things absolutely perfect and yet I strive and drive myself bonkers trying to get there. In fact, my quest for perfection can so paralyze me that I don't even attempt a project, knowing that I won't achieve the level of perfection I require. It can really stink because projects don't get started or finished because of this foible of mine.

Ok, the title of the post stresses a recovering perfectionist. Below are 3 things that have helped me in my quest to recover from my dreaded perfection obsession.

1. Accept (truly and fully ... it might require counseling) that I am imperfect. Yes, I realize most other people know I'm imperfect. But I'm a prideful person and strive for perfection in all that I do. It leads to thinking such as I don't measure up to my own standards, so I can't love myself, so how can others love me and on and on. Or maybe its the other way .. if I'm perfect people will love me. I think this will be a lifelong lesson with daily practice needed and as I mentioned lots of counseling! Knowing you have a problem is the first step.

2. Commit to being your authentic self (in Dr. Phil speak). After acceptance comes commitment. Don't play a part. People want to get to know ME not the me playing the part of who I think a perfect person would be. If I play the perfect role long enough I can forget who I really am - my authentic self. It can be very scary to take the mask off and show the world all my flaws (many just imagined I'm sure due to that darn P word).

3. The galloping horse rule. This one is less emotional and more practical. When I was in upholstery school I (again) was struggling with my perfectionism. I remember an instance where I was trying to get the last little wrinkle out of the dust skirt (the usually black fabric on the underside of your upholstery). Yes, the bottom where nobody ever looks. After an hour or two (!!) working exclusively on that darn wrinkle on the underside of a wing chair my instructor finally got fed up with me and told me "if you can't see it from a galloping horse from across the room it is good enough". I was appalled at the time. However there is such a release with this rule. Tension and strife melts away. With practice I can now apply this rule to some areas (not perfect yet .. oops!) of my life. When I'm getting bogged down, my friend Alison will scream at me "galloping horses, galloping horses!" and I snap back to my imperfect yet pleasant reality.

National Get Crap Done Month

Do to an overwhelming lack of forward momentum in the decorating, diy, crafting, cooking and general housework departments the last two months, I've declared July as Get Crap Done Month. I will attempt to start and FINISH (oh my) a project in each catagory this month. My thinking is if I declare them out loud (or in writing as the case may be) that I'll be too embarrassed not to complete them. Feel free to ask me about their progress throughout the month if you don't hear any reports coming from me.

Decorating: Paint my son's room. There are 60 year old plaster walls in fairly bad shape so it requires some major prep work prior to actual painting. Sad that we have lived here almost 3 years and he goes to college in 2 months and its just now getting done. Bad mother, bad mother. On a positive note, I get more say in its decorating since it will be my craft room while he's away.

DIY: Tile the backsplash behind the pedestal sink and replace the faucet (both require my brother's help and are subject to his availability) in my bathroom. My backup project is to caulk all the windowsill cracks where the lovely carpenter ants were emerging from. Actually this project should be done even if the bathroom project is done.

Crafting: Make and hang drapes (only after painting is done) for my son's bedroom so that the TOWEL he has hanging in his window can be removed. Yes, we look like trailer trash. It's embarrassing for somebody with a decorating/lifestyle blog to have such an abomination in her home. I have no excuse. OK, I have a little excuse. We have no drapes in our condo due to being on the 3rd floor (private with plenty of mature trees) and our love of sunlight and openness. We moved furniture around in my son's room and now the sunlight is hitting his computer monitor causing a glare and impairing the 2700 hours of video game playing daily. His immediate solution - hang a towel. My immediate reaction: ACK!

Cooking: Get back to my recipe Monday posts. Make two new to you and two new to me recipes for the month: cilantro slaw, cherries in the snow, lemon sour cream pie (ummm.... pie) and, and, and, zucchini bread yeah zucchini bread or maybe homemade pizza crust or a great corn and black bean salad. Hard to decide, they all sound good.

Housework: ugh, housework. Well as a general must do better, I have to keep up with the dishes on a daily basis. I hate washing dishes by hand and we have no dishwasher (except moi). Currently I let them go until my son is using a sugar spoon to scoop peanut butter for a sandwich since every other spoon is dirty. As a specific task (there are so many to choose from) I'll pick putting away my son's art work brought home from high school and organizing his body of work to protect/preserve it. As a bonus, this will free up some closet space in my new, temporary "craft room". This requires my son's help and separating him from the computer which is attached permanently, like an electronics umbilical cord.

This is all in addition to some volunteer work I want to start. And our staycation plans of museums and free concerts. Oh and blueberry picking and jam making. And plant repotting. And some bloggy crafts and more posts than the last month (which were a little sparse I'll agree).  I've also had an elderly Uncle pass just a few days ago. There will be many relatives I haven't seen in years at the memorial. I would like to take my genealogy information with me and try to fill in some holes. I need to do this before the older generation is completely gone. Of course I have to organize it better first. Oh, and I'd love to go to a summer flea market or street festival. And the weekly farmers market. And ...

I'm tired already and haven't even started. I'll have to plan out specific tasks on my calendar or otherwise nothing will get done and on July 27 I'll be in a panic looking for a reasonable excuses why I was so lazy, oh I mean busy with other important things.

My Blogging Goals

I must admit I've been caught up with "blog fever" since I started 3 1/2 months ago. My number of followers, my subscriptions, my statistics and top referral sites, features, link parties, daily posting, weekly projects and recipes OH MY.

When I first started I found myself censoring my posts because of what I thought my family would think (there she goes, dithering about colors again; off on a lamp goose chase - why does she need new lamps?; why does she think she knows anything and can tell other people about it (OK, that last one might be mine)). I'm pretty much over that now, kinda sorta.

But lately I've found myself censoring and changing my posts because of what you might think.  Organizing posts don't receive comments so you must not like them and I shouldn't write them (although I adore organizing things). Burlap, twine, ruffles and shirts with flowers are really big right now in blogland. I should think of  posts and projects with these items to increase traffic to my site. Really, crazy thoughts because my site is for fun not profit. Increase traffic. I just am happy some people seem to like what I have to say.

Prior to this I found myself writing around the difficult bits of my life, showing only the good "perfect" stuff. I'm tired of writing around the messy bits. From now on you get to read uncensored Kathleen (yep, Kat is just a nickname - shocker).

My goals in blogging are: to have fun! pressure to produce projects or certain blog posts is now gone (yeah right - I'm a perfectionist. I'll work on it); give me some structure to my day; give me a creative outlet that is immediate; practice expressing and sharing what I'm thinking and feeling (I tend to bottle things up in an unhealthy way. Did you read my Passion post? I really shared there and was scared to do so. Ah - sharing again). And show what I'm working on and maybe get a kick in the pants to finish things. All with like minded people (that would be you)

So be prepared for the new, uncensored Kathleen. Raw, edgy with the messy bits exposed while still focusing on Decorating, Organizing and Creating for Less - I'm not changing the focus of the blog. Only that you'll "see" more of the real me (pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...). And I will write about what I want to and not be a lemming (she said as the cliff loomed near).

I hope you enjoy the subtle change.

Passion

What are you passionate about? This has been a topic in the chain of friendships I have and got me thinking.


I used to know what I was passionate about: my son, my job, and a couple relationships. Some stuff you don't know about me: I've have a major illness. Several years ago my job was eliminated in a merger and now my illness prevents me from getting another like it so there went the money and the self identity tied up in my work (not necessarily healthy, but still). My standard of living sharply decreased. My romantic relationship ended and I moved away. Long distance old friendships are harder to maintain and new ones seem difficult to make. I am lost and have lost track of who I am.

I've been working on redefining (or finally discovering) myself, my values, my goals, my talents, my passions. What I really want in life and not what I think I should want or what I think other people think I should want (if that was confusing to you just think about how I feel living it). It's HARD work. And there are no right answers, which I hate. I want to get to a point where a bell rings and a voice calls down "ahh... finally. Your answer is correct" which I really don't think will happen (darn it). Art titled Passion Lotus.

So enough about me. How about you? What are your passions? How do you know?