That's the Way the Cookie Crumbles

Okay, so I'm very excited to start my cookie favor endeavor. And I need to photograph the cookies in the best possible way to make them look oh, so appealing. Part of the reason this project means so much to me is because it combines things that I love, like food and being artistic. So I built a small 'photo studio' to start photographing with (there are one's available on the Internet for a hundred bucks or so but I found DIY instructions on how to make one and it only cost me ten dollars, and that's just because I went 'deluxe'.) And I made cookies. But after decorating most of them yesterday, I realized they weren't quite good enough yet.

Yes, I know that I'm a perfectionist. I also know that perfect isn't attainable. But these cookies need to be quite good in order to sell. There is a bit of competition out there with people charging up to $11 a cookie. I'm going to beat their price. And I know my cookies will beat theirs in taste (this is a truly great sugar cookie, honestly, the best I have ever eaten. And I can't stop my mom from eating them, which is a sure sign of quality.) But they also have to be really pretty. And I was having some icing issues that kept these from being A+. Oh, they were cute. But not cute enough. Right on the edge. But they need just a bit more, well, perfection.

I've always struggled with my artistic side, especially when it comes to visual arts. I can see clearly in my mind what it needs to look like, then I get very frustrated when I can't translate that vision into reality. I still remember one project in art class in junior high. We were working in pastels and I was doing a mountain scape. I knew exactly what I wanted but the finished picture just didn't work the way I wanted it to. I hated that picture, because it wasn't perfect. But I had to turn it in, for the grade. My teacher entered it into an art fair, where it won first place. My mother still has the picture and the blue ribbon. And I can't stand to look at it, because I know what it was SUPPOSED to look like. Writing is easier, because you can edit until you get it write, but with visual arts you have to either go with it or start completely over again.

So I wanted to quit yesterday. Because I let the nagging worry start to creep in. "They aren't good enough". "No one will buy them." "Why would anyone want these?" "Everyone else's are better." It is so easy to chicken out, to not take a chance in life. There are a million justifications for quitting, for not even trying. And I was ready to. But life isn't easy and it isn't perfect (at least not in my world.) And just about every great success has come from a lot of work and many failures along the way. If I had quit doing comedy when it wasn't perfect, I would have quit the second time I performed. The first time was really good (I say that in the context that it was my first time) and the second time I bombed. BOMBED. Laid a giant, stinky, rotten egg. I wanted to run and hide and never do that again. But I did it again, and again. And I had nights that were good and nights that were bad. But the good were more frequent and the bad were not as bad, until they were all good. And if I had quit, there is so much in life that I would never have done and so many people I would never have met. And how terrible that would have been. So maybe there are a million reasons why I shouldn't go into the cookie favor business. But the investment is mostly my time and if I don't try, I know it's something that later on I'll say, "Gee, I should have tried that". This time is supposed to be my time to try all of the things I can't do in a 9-5 world. So damn the nagging negative voices who tell me it's not going to work! Time to try again.

There is an upside to setbacks in the cookie business....someone has to eat all the cookies that aren't good enough. It's a tough job but I have plenty of applicants!