Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Halloween Anxiety

I'm slightly neurotic ridiculous obsessive about things in my life. 

The girls and I got home from our road trip fairly late on Saturday evening, and I still needed to run to the grocery store to stock up on ingredients for the Conference Extravaganza Of Food happening the next day.  I also needed to feed my family since none of us had eaten on the way home and we were just beyond the point of starving.  

As I walked out my front door, I discovered that a plate of Halloween sugar cookies had appeared with this little note attached...

I love October.  I love the beginning of the season of thoughtfully surprising your friends and neighbors with baked goods.  But I have to tell you, these things make me crazy...and not in a good way.  When you take someone who is a people-pleaser, a perfectionist, and slightly ridiculously obsessive, and tell her she has to deliver treats to not just one but two people, secretly, within the next 48 hours, her world begins to spin rapidly out of control.  And it is not pretty! 

I mentally added "make sugar cookies" to the to-do list in my head on Saturday night.  And then waited until Tuesday to do anything about it.  

I did actually MAKE the sugar cookie dough yesterday morning (between rounds of pouring over 17 years of family pictures for #transformationtuesday.)  But the refrigerated cookie dough is as close as I've gotten to checking this task off my list.  And believe me, every hour that it sits there, I get one step closer to a mental institution.  

I've had visions of my neighbors looking around at all the other doors with "We've Been Booed" signs and wondering when in the heck the Thunell's are going to take their dang turn already.  I've made the kids get the mail so I don't have to make eye contact with anyone.  I have woken up in the middle of the night worrying that someone is out there waiting for their "special treats."  And now that I'm well past my 48 hour deadline, I'm wondering what kind of bad luck is going to fall upon my family.  This isn't like one of those chain letters, is it?  ugh...I hope not...  And what if I "Boo" someone and pass this anxiety on to them??  Will my neighbors secretly hate me forever?  

Probably no one else gets as worked up about this stuff as I do.  Probably other people just make the cookies and deliver them within 48 hours!

OK  I have decided that tomorrow is the day!  My calendar is cleared.  I have nothing else pressing left on my TO DO list.  Hopefully at this time tomorrow night I'll be writing a riveting post about the joys of October baking, complete with pictures of beautifully decorated Halloween cookies.  And the madness will have come to an end...until the next thing...

5 comments:

  1. I am the SAME WAY!!!! LOL And as I type, I'm praying that I see no Boo signs on our street...which if they do appear, I'm in your same shoes.

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  2. Ha! You have no idea! I am the exact same way!!

    So I guess that means we're completely normal, right?

    Idea! Save the sign, put it in your own yard next year, everyone will see you have already been "booed" , and problem solved! It's not technically lying...you were booed...just not that year! ; )

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  3. I've been away from home too long... as I don't know what this "booed" business is... but it sounds fun. Your last post was wonderful!

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  4. Two words " Break and Bake" I make them all the time and people ask me for the recipe!! I kid you not. breath everything will be fine and I will wear a salad if it makes you feel any better ;)

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