A few days before Christmas we were doing our best to get organised early, a bit of cleaning, planning and some food prep. One of those tasks was making rum balls – something I always do around a week before the big day. But all did not go to plan.
In hindsight, the disaster that was our rum ball making this year could have been averted, but in the craziness of having children, sometimes we don’t consider all the consequences.
Let’s just say that a smashed rum bottle on the tiles courtesy of miss 3 is not the way I wanted my day to go. Especially after I asked her not to touch the coconut container 3 times before she managed to knock it over and push the rum bottle off the bench.
What made it even worse is the fact that we have a 6 month old who has just mastered speed commando crawling all around the house. So smashed glass and half a bottle worth of rum on the floor was overwhelming in that moment. One of those things that happen and you almost want to walk out that front door and keep walking… almost.
So what did I do? Well I didn’t cry. There’s no point crying over spilt milk. Or rum.
And while we all need a good cry sometimes, it wasn’t getting this mess cleaned up so instead I yelled a bit. I’m not proud of it, but hey… I’m a redhead. 0 to 100 in under 3 seconds. There was some of the ‘I told you not to do that’ mixed in with demands thrown at the husband to get into action.
But why does a spilt bottle of rum have any relevance for 2016? It’s all about perspective.
If you joined the Simplify My Life challenge at all last year you may have read about attitude. The attitude you have towards anything influences the outcome. It can impact on the way you feel about a situation and exactly how that situation ends up being.
Now the fact that we had no rum to make the rum balls and a hell of a mess to clean up could have been a giant catastrophe. But it isn’t. Not in comparison to the things that really do matter. Things like our family’s health and wellbeing, our successes, and our passions.
Some things are not worth the stress. There is no need to feed them with emotion if they are the type of things that make no impact on the future ahead. Sure, it’s stressful. It’s annoying. And we all wish we could skip that sort of thing, but seriously, don’t sweat the small stuff in 2106. Focus on the good, forget the insignificant.
Our kids will drive us crazy some days, but before we have a completely explosive blow up, remind yourself they didn’t mean it. You love them no matter how many rum bottles they smash. Or how many sleepless nights they give us. Just the same as getting stuck in a traffic jam on the way to work is annoying at the time, but there’s nothing we can do about it.
If you have no control over it… learn to accept it. If it has already happened and you can’t undo it… don’t sweat it. Brush yourself off and move on.
Go into your 2016 minus the baggage that comes with stressing over those small life nuances.
So what became of my rum balls this year? They still happened… except most of them were rumless balls. Or just ‘balls’ which is okay because we usually make half that way anyway so miss 3 and the other kids in the family can enjoy them. Then we threw in a little bit of whisky and made some experimental whisky balls with some of the mixture. Why not?
And what became of my clumsy assistant? She came back up on the bench and was given the important task of rolling the rum balls in the coconut. No more bottles were harmed in the making of this Christmas dessert!
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