A Little or a Lot

It all depends on how you look at it, I guess. The other day I was doing my holiday baking. I was rushed, as usual, trying to get six things done all at the same time. While making gingersnaps, I had to measure out baking soda, among other things. I typically double the recipe, which called for 2 tsp. of the stuff. So, doing the math, I figured I needed 4. Not a lot. So far, so good.

So I go to open the drawer where I keep the measuring spoons only to find that my 3-year-old had struck again. All my measuring spoons were gone, except for a tablespoon and a 1/4 teaspoon. Have you ever had to measure out 4 tsp. worth of ingredients with a 1/4 tsp.? It’s 16 of those babies. Not to mention all the spices I had to add. It took a while.

We have yet to find my measuring spoons.

So what seemed at the time like only a little turned out to be a lot. Here’s another example: If you read my blogs, you know that we just bought a tractor. When we got it, my husband and I both had visions of clearing our driveway in half an hour, whipping around on Bobo like there was no tomorrow. That didn’t happen. We kept slipping and sliding. So we got chains, and another chance to try out Bobo. On Sunday we got a snowstorm of about 9-10 inches. Not a lot of snow, but enough to keep us busy, we thought. We went out to clean it up. Now that we had the chains, we were cautiously (or should that be foolishly?) optimistic that this day would be the day we’d be whizzing around cleaning up snow and making snow hills for the kids with the greatest of ease.

Boy were we wrong about that. What was only a little bit of snow turned out to be a lot. We were out there for 5 hours taking turns plowing and shoveling. Five very long, very hard hours. Needless to say, we went out and bought a snowblower the next day, with our sore muscles cheering us on, and very loudly, I might add.

Bobo, as it turns out, has been yet another of our very expensive follies. My husband and I seem to learn things the hard way. One time we tried to change our own oil and ended up draining the transmission fluid, which of course means that we couldn’t shift our car into drive. We had to call for a tow. That was the most expensive oil change we ever had. It seemed like such a little thing, and we wanted to be self-sufficient and save ourselves some cash. But man did it cost us a lot.

It’s funny how life can change our perspective on things. They say that all that matters is our perception of things. You can either see things as a little or a lot. Of course, it can also come down to the tools you are using. I felt like we were trying to move all that snow with a 1/4 tsp. measuring spoon. Actually, come to think of it, I think it would’ve been faster.