Preparations for tomorrow’s Memorial Day celebrations

Tags

baking, Historical Society, Memorial Day, postday2013, veteran's

As the curator for the Blandford Historical Society, I have taken over my mother-in-law’s responsibilities, in particular, her role in preparing and organizing the Blandford veteran exhibit at the Historical Society which is open prior and after the Memorial Day parade. I spent two hours cleaning up and vacuuming the Historical Society upstairs and downstairs so that all of our exhibits are at their best when everyone comes to see their service men in picture frames and all the war time memorabilia that the Historical Society has collected over the years.

Of course as usual, part of my responsibility is to provide beverages and homemade goodies, so as soon as I got home from cleaning and setting up, I got to baking. I made small French cakes called financiers. These little cakes are really very tasty and quite easy to make, I bookmarked the recipe. I had to translate the recipe and the measurements from French to English which wasn’t too hard. The recipe itself is interesting; it’s mostly egg whites, chopped walnuts, melted butter, confectioner’s sugar and a little bit of flour. My hubby and the baby girl loved them and got a little peeved when I announced that these little cakes were for the Historical Society. I told them that I was going to make a banana walnut bread for them and I did. Hopefully that will keep them happy.

Too big to fail

Tell us about something you would attempt if you were guaranteed not to fail (and tell us why you haven't tried it yet).

The only things that I wouldn't attempt to do are things that are associated with heights, falling, jumping or anything that I haven't thought of that involves my phobia of the vertical. This hasn't to do with failure, it has to do with fear, abject fear that would not go away just because I did it and didn't die doing it.

I understand how much better it is when you achieve something despite the possibility of failure and that is what makes the experience so much richer and more rewarding. If you take away the possibility of failure you lessen the sweetness of accomplishment or victory.

I don't see the value in this prompt. I am attempting to write a novel and there is a genuine possibility of failure but I am still doing it, I am struggling with it, I promise you that, but I am not going to give up despite how hard it is. So in effect I am writing my book precisely to see if I can do it despite the very good possibility that I may very well fail.

Trying to do something with a built in guarantee kind of takes the thrill out of it. My friend who writes over at weescoops.wordpress.com runs 10k's and she trains hard for them, I am sure that she is doing it and training for it precisely because there is a possibility of failure and her success is that much more meaningful because she has worked so hard for it. I don't think that her running would be all that special to her if it came without commitment. I admire her so much for all of her work and dedication.

All my work in gardening and in the kitchen always comes with that possibility of failure. How many years have I tried to keep a rosemary bush alive and I may succeed for a year and then for reasons unknown to me I fail the following year. It is because of my many failures that I persevere and keep at it until I succeed. How many times have I burned cookies to only get back to the drawing board and try, try again.

I see failure as an integral part of life and one of the most important ways in which we truly learn our lessons.