Last night the Christmas Baketacular: College Edition officially baked to a close. My resulting spread was white and chocolate dipped pretzels and rods, strawberry thumbprint cookies, mini snickerdoodles, and three flavors of cake pops: pineapple (which ended up tasting like glorified vanilla), key lime (pretty good), and chocolate truffle. The mistakes in the pineapple batch were twofold 1) I had no pineapple extract so my only hope was canned pineapple juice and 2) I had frozen my pineapple a few weeks back and it quite frankly didn't taste as strong. When I originally had this idea I was going to carmelize brown sugar on the pineapple in the oven and then hollow out the center of the pops and stuff them. So after I had added all the pineapple to the batter itself thinking that was a better idea....
They don't even taste like pineapple. But they are actually quite good, so I guess I should be happy that a flop turned out yummy.
The other result of this Baketacular was the entire both sides of the sink being completely full of dishes. This might not have even been that bad, but I did not get finished dipping the cake pops, letting them cool, and packaging everything up until midnight. Which for a college kid shouldn't be an issue. But when you have spent the better part of 9 hours baking and dipping things in chocolate...
You no longer have college kid stamina.
This does all bring my to my main point. I am washing dishes, my fantasy team had just lost in the playoffs thanks to a last minute TD by Marshawn Lynch, and my back is killing me from sitting in the crappy kitchen chair all evening. I get the dishes done and dry, walk in to my room, flip on the light, and almost start crying.
My room is a complete and utter trainwreck. It looks like every drawer in my dresser exploded and a hurricane went through. I have been working two jobs all semester with some of my tutoring sessions running until mid evening, and by the time I get back, make food, wash dishes, and finish up homework...cleaning my tiny room just doesn't happen. And it is about half the size of a real room, so a little mess covers a large portion.
And all this to say, I really don't get how my mom has done it all these years. We kids were all mini hurricanes, leaving wakes of messes and destruction everywhere we went. We have baked goodies all throughout the year every year. And she never had anyone that really helped clean. I pretty much have a new found respect for all the things I never noticed as a kid. Though if I could go back in time I would smack myself upside the head and tell myself to be more aware of things like that and help out.
Sometimes I think that most people should have to live in a college apartment before they really get out on their own. It is a completely different world out there when you start finding out how much it costs to buy groceries, how long it takes to keep something clean, how much effort goes in to stuff like baking and whatnot, etc.
It is interesting to think, but I do imagine that this year of being in the apartment may very well end up teaching me more life lessons than any of my other college years.
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