Crab Omelets
Hello everyone,
One of the many joys of my life is our Friday Night Family Dinners, which always includes a tried-and-true dish special to our family. Annette and I love to cook, and we have so many favorites that sometimes it’s challenging to decide what we actually want to make!
Last week, Annette shared that she had a craving for crab omelets. We hadn’t made those in a while, and they sounded absolutely delicious to me as well! Neither one of us had the recipe handy, and we both tried to remember how much crabmeat our recipe required. We decided on an amount that we were both pretty sure about, and that is what I picked up at the store.
Well, Friday night rolled around, and we were both excited to get started! We had been waiting for these omelets all week! We got out the recipe, gave it a quick glance, and then gathered all the other ingredients and started making our meal.
It wasn’t until we made it to the crabmeat part of the recipe that we realized we had completely misremembered how much was needed. Even though our estimate sounded correct, because we hadn’t gone back to the recipe, I had purchased too much! The fix was as easy as doubling our recipe, and fortunately, we had enough of the other ingredients to do this.
It’s been a few days, and I must say, our crab omelet experience is still on my mind. I have been asking myself, “Even though we hadn’t made crab omelets in a long time, we have been making them for years - how were we so far off on our crabmeat estimate?”
I believe there is a lesson here for all of us:
It is important to take the time to regularly review our level of understanding of concepts and skills we think we’ve mastered.
For instance, you may have learned communication skills a few years ago, but are you still applying what you learned? Do you remember these important skills and how they helped you in all your relationships?
Maybe, you came in for coaching and you learned some valuable insights about boundaries. Are you still using your boundary skills, or are you back to your old ways that brought you into coaching in the first place?
It's even good to review what we learn for fun! Like the dance class you took with your friends. Or things we learn for safety like how to change a tire. Do you remember what you learned enough to use these skills if you wanted or needed to today?
It would be useful if we all took a little time to go back to the recipe so to speak and review so that we know that we really have the concepts down and remember what has helped us in the past or what improved our lives – and even what added to our safety, such as knowing how to change a tire. I know now that if either Annette or I had actually taken the time to review the recipe before I went to the store, we never would have been in our predicament.
Even though it can feel boring, like a waste of time, or we may have to fight the urge to say, “I already know this!”, reviewing what we think we already know can open our eyes to how much we have forgotten or help us realize how much we may have misunderstood something we thought we had all figured out. Further, going back to the recipe might also give us the opportunity to add a new layer of depth to our understanding.
What recipe in your life would be beneficial for you to review today?
Oh, and in case you are wondering - the crab omelets turned out awesome – and the leftovers were great too! 😉
Wishing you a lovely week,
Ada