Push Thru It! Take the Pressure Off!

The author of the "Serenity Prayer" must have conceived it while chiseling pecan squares from the bottom of a pan with a plastic spatula. Pecan squares were my chosen holiday dessert for the girls' night at my house this week, following Cherry Jubilee and another homemade recipe, likely handed down from generations, made by the cool, new friends I am trying to impress in our wine and dessert non-book club. The squares also presented a holiday baking opportunity for my 5 year-old daughter and me, the house smelling like apple pie from my Yankee candle as we held the spoon together stirring the oooey goey ingredients to a slow boil. She will remember these days cooking with her mother, I thought. Perhaps, the experience would offset her morning upset for my not putting Willa Wonka on "pause" when we raced to her room to find a brown outfit for Reindeer Day.

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change." As I gently unwrapped the foil the next morning to reveal and cut our pecan squares, the start of perhaps a treasured mother-daughter holiday tradition and family recipe, the crust resembled plaster I had just slapped on my bathroom wall to support the structure of my 50 year-old home. My frustration grew with failed attempts to remove the squares with the Gumby spatula erupting a volcano explosion of crust onto my red tablecloth, already decorated for the evening. Optimist that she is, my daughter said "it will be okay" as she nibbled a $7 pecan. I impulsively put the whole dessert under hot water, resolving to find another solution and salvage my stupid Pampered Chef pan.

"The courage to change what I can." I quickly looked up Peppermint Brownies, another holiday dessert featuring Paula Dean's happy face to reflect my creativity and domesticity from the red tablecloth whose volcano crumbs I would suck up with the vacuum cleaner after work. No $1.99 brownie mix would do. I would dash to the store after my day, making time for the 24 peppermint patties I would need to unwrap in matter of seconds before the guests arrived.

"And the wisdom to know the difference." "Oh, you can't do that!" my co-worker laughed when I expressed my desire to make homemade Peppermint Brownies after working 8 hours, being stuck like pecan squares in traffic and cleaning the aftermath of the volcano ashes and a dog that endlessly sheds at home. I breathed a sigh of relief when she accepted my invitation to ditch the domesticity and hightail it to the grocery store to buy a chocolate fudge pie with seasonal Egg Nog Icecream.

When I stopped working so hard, the world opened up. Icecream was on sale, 2 for 1, and I bought Egg Nog and Peppermint Icecream to top the pie. My friends didn't give a rip about the store-bought dessert, caring only about me and laughing at the plight I readily shared when I realized my own internal pressure created the volcano and not anything they would think or say. One girl even ended up in my pajama pants after spilling red wine on her skirt and my chair, admitting later that she also pee'd in them from all the laughing we did that night. We are all human.

• Where do you need to take the pressure off? 
• Where can you be more accepting of yourself?

Get yourself unstuck. Grant yourself serenity, and the world will open up. And, the dessert will taste even sweeter!