Imperfection.

I am a perfectionist about certain things. I strive to always get A's in school. When I make cake pops, every detail has to be in place.

I admit - I like to appear that my life is in control.

And most of the time, I feel like I am pretty good at balancing life. I usually get enough sleep. I always try to make time for both homework and doing things I enjoy. I don't usually feel like life is spinning out of my control.

But life still isn't perfect, and neither am I. And sometimes things don't go my way.

I feel like with a blog it's so easy to write about the good things in life - the happy moments, the funny things, the joyful feelings. But it's a whole lot harder to show your failures and weaknesses.

I don't want to be one of those people though that isn't "real" on here. I want to project the same person that I am in real life onto this blog.

So although I initially wanted to sweep this under the rug to so as to appear "totally put-together", here's a recent (and simple) example of something that hasn't gone my way recently.......

You probably know I like to bake. I do it often, and I usually share the treats I make with friends and family. I've been known to make a batch of cake pops and bring them into school just for the fun of it.

Last week I decided to make and decorate cupcakes to bring into school. I had it all planned out in my head: I would make vanilla bean cupcakes, filled with homemade chocolate sauce, frosted with salted caramel frosting, and topped with a buttercream rose. Sounds pretty good, right?

Well, it didn't turn out the way I pictured it in my head.

The vanilla bean cupcakes? Super dense and hard as a rock with no flavor.

The homemade chocolate sauce? Total liquid that wouldn't stiffen into the usual thick consistency of chocolate sauce.

The salted caramel frosting? Overdone caramel that ended up tasting like butterscotch with a burnt aftertaste.

The buttercream roses did actually turn out pretty good though :)

When all assembled, the cupcakes looked good. The decorations turned out the way I had hoped.

But as soon as you tasted them, they weren't good. And I was upset at first. I refused to take them into school because they didn't meet the expectations I had set for them. I didn't want to give my friends crummy cupcakes when I usually make pretty good treats.

Basically, I didn't want to admit that I had made several mistakes in regards to the cupcakes. I didn't want to tell anyone, and at first I didn't even want to post about it on my blog.

But I figured to just forget about the mistake would do nothing to help me. For one, I learned a few things as to how I fix some of my problems in the future. And also, I think it's good that we fail sometimes as reluctant as I am to admit that. I think if we never failed though it would be harder for us to learn new things, and it would trick us into thinking that we are perfect.

So I guess the point of this post was just to be real and honest with you. I would never want you to think I'm someone different on my blog than I am in real life.

I need to remember that our imperfections are what make us unique.

"There's no need to be perfect to inspire others. Let others get inspired by how you deal with your imperfections."