2 Things I learned This Thanksgiving

Folks, I've been feeding-myself-every-day-all-on-my-own-adulty for 15 years now.  In preparation of this shift from kinda-sorta-adulty to full-on-adulty, I went through a lot of my mom's recipes and copied out a bunch of my favorites.  This has been invaluable, of course, but also somewhat fruitless.  I've learned two things from that:

1. Even if I have Mom's recipes, my food still tastes like my food and her food still tastes like hers.  I don't entirely know how that works.
2. I've only ever needed a handful of those favorites because I virtually cycle through the same twenty over and over again.

One of those essentials that I made sure I got was my mom's / grandmother's pie crust recipe because pie crust is death and I don't love me pie crust, generally, but this one works for me.  I've made at least one pie a year ever since this advent of adulting, and this is the only pie crust I have ever made.  So on the minimum, I've used this pie crust recipe at least fifteen times.  NEVER ONCE have I enjoyed making it.  NEVER ONCE have I felt confident in my pie crust making abilities.  MORE THAN ONCE I have owned my inability to do much with the pie realm.

And here we go...FIFTEEN YEARS LATER, I figured out what the hooey is the problem.  People: I copied the ding dang recipe wrong.  How, might we ask?  What, perchance did I copy incorrectly?  Well.  The recipe that I wrote down has 3 cups of flour, 1 bar of butter (cold, not melted), 1 egg, a pinch of salt, and 1 T of vinegar.  Where is the liquid, one might wonder.  It took me FIFTEEN YEARS to figure this out after grumbling my way through this recipe over and over and over.  So this Thanksgiving, I learned that I'm actually OK at making pie crust.  But I'm somewhat rubbish at copying recipes and absolutely dreadful at figuring out when there's a pretty obvious problem.  Oh.  My.  Word.

Also, what the what is it with my children and Thanksgiving / Christmas?  The Elder went through her first stomach bug on Christmas day when she was 2.  For a 3-year stretch, The Boy and I alternated with who missed each Christmas gathering at the parents' houses while staying home with a throw-uppy kiddo.  I first learned about the convenient marvel of "free shipping" and "online shopping" when a sick child was napping and the other half of the family was enjoying a holiday party elsewhere.  And the oddities continue.  Over the years, I've learned two things from this:

1. My children are weird about stomach bugs.
2. I can always use the quiet-at-home time with my child and never mind missing that slice of pie and chaos.

Yesterday, The Elder did it again, this time waiting until the day after Thanksgiving when we were staying overnight with my parents before leaving early the next morning for the other side of the family.  Gross story short, she made it to the bathroom and then I had to clean the whole thing shortly afterwards. 

Kids are maybe the hardest people to understand.  Or maybe I'm not the most sympathetic of mothers when my child says "Oh, my heard hurts a bit" and "Oh, I'm beyond exhausted."  It may be possible that I rolled my eyes (on the inside) and muttered "Ten year old..." (also on the inside).  On the outside, to my credit, she was cuddled all day long and was dosed with Tylenol twice. 

So, this Thanksgiving, I learned how to use a mop.  The conversation went something like this...
Me:  Mom, what do you want me to use to clean the floor?
Mom:  I have a mop and bucket.
Me:  Mom, can you teach me how to use a mop?  I don't own one.  I would use disinfecting wipes.
Mom:  (blinking at me) You make a lousy adult who keeps humans alive.  (She didn't actually say this.)
Me:  How much of this bright yellow cleaning solution do I dilute in some substantial amount of water? 
Mom:  (blinking at me)  You make a lousy adult who keeps humans alive.  (She also didn't actually say this but I have my doubts that she wasn't thinking this.)

Summarily, it has been a couple of days full of learning opportunities (growth mindset, y'all).  That's what happens when I step away from a day job to "relax" and "catch up on my reading" and "do nothing for a few days."  When we all get back at it on Monday and I get involved in those inevitable conversations about how the handful of days of went, I very well may raise an eyebrow and launch in with "Well, I learned 2 things..."