Yesterday, my oldest daughter came home from school with yet another project FOR ME. She was distraught because on her blank map of Canada, she had placed the dot for Toronto in kind of, sort of the wrong place because her handwriting was too big to write Toronto in the exactly right place. And since white-out is synonymous with failure in perfectionist Emily, we had to start the project completely from scratch. It’s true. She’s the kind of kid who will start over before admitting a mistake. She is going to singlehandedly ruin all of the recycling work we are doing around here. so, we researched printable blank maps of Canada and then we filled it in.

We, notice.

Of course, this would have been a lot easier had she been forced to fill in a blank map of the United States, since, while I’m fairly good with maps (I have some special skills, yo) I really couldn’t tell you exactly where in The Yukon Yellowknife is.

“No, Mama, really, really north is not a good enough answer.”

Sixth grade is even less fun the second time around, no matter what Billy Madison wants you to believe.

Luckily, though, my night was filled with all sort of other stuff, equally as exciting as middle school social studies. Because even though I have a good sense of direction and coloring provinces and capitals and oceans and lakes, I really am quite the failure at laundry.

I have realized recently—while trying to put together a media kit— that it’s super important to be able to admit where you are awesome—baking chocolate chip cookies, using the m-dash, playing the piano, making grilled cheese, instagramming, shopping, finding new music, making poorly timed coffee decisions, quoting movie lines.

But, it’s also important to be able to admit where you completely fail miserably—painting the nails on my left hand, second grade math, wearing a shift dress, applying eyeliner, running, balancing my body, dancing, packing school lunches, LAUNDRY.

Last night was a banner laundry night in the Martell house. There was a mysterious noise coming out of my dryer. I probably should have stopped right then and there, right when my mind said, “Huh. Interesting. The dryer kind of sounds like that creepy child from The Grudge. AND IS IT SUPPOSED TO BE MOVING LIKE THAT?” But, of course, I proceeded to throw in another load. It worked, a little too well, and I pulled 8 doll-sized placemats out.

Well, lucky Rebecca the American Girl Doll, she can have really pretty and lavish tea parties with all of the Isabella’s stuffed animals. Not so lucky me, who now has to replace said placemats.

But, lo, I wish that was where the laundry problems ended. I really wish.

The next load, filled with whites that weren’t completely white, but more like lights—Emily’s overpriced Artizia shirts, of course. And when I started pulling the shirts out of the dryer I noticed that they were no longer whites or lights, they were splotched with a wonderfully neon shade of hot pink. I found the cuprit, a hot pink probably crayon (but could also be a hunk of Isabella’s modeling clay—we’ll never know for sure) that had completely and totally decorated the inside of my possessed dryer, including inside the wee holes of the lint trap.

I threw in the (not splattered pink) towel.

And made a giant coffee that may or may not have had some alcohol in it (I’ll never tell).

And vowed to never, ever do laundry again. Or map homework.

Make me feel better this morning. Tell me one thing you are really, really good at…and one thing you are really, really bad at.