Having Cake AND Eating It…I Don’t Get It
I remember once I asked James about the saying, “You can have your cake and eat it too.” I didn’t understand what it meant. How could you eat it and still have it? This was a concept I could get into. Cake. I like it.
He spent about an hour trying to get me to understand that you eat a piece of cake, but there’s still a whole piece left. Truthfully, I am not sure I ever really grasped the depth of the meaning because I kept wondering if there was any real cake that we could just go ahead and eat.
But I think this past weekend was an example of that for me. We were planning to work in the yard. If you know anything about James then you might have noticed yardwork isn’t his passion. It’s only once or twice a year that he really gets out there and works. And even then it is usually some kind of gift for me, this time it was my Valentine’s Day present.
We made the plans and then, on Friday, it started to rain. It rained for 2 days and while I was disappointed that we weren’t going to be able to get the yard fixed up, I was so grateful for the rain that I didn’t mind. But then….and this is the have the cake even after you’ve eaten it part of the story…..it stopped raining and dried up just enough for us to work outside.
So on Sunday James gathered all of the kids and they got started. I had made a long, impossible list and they started chipping away at the jobs while I worked inside on Shop 24 orders. I’d look out the window and see James carrying a long board followed by 4 little boys who were asking questions like, “Can I use the saw?” or, “Do astronauts wear underwear on the moon?”
The girls helped too, giving opinions and holding boards for James to cut. It was a group effort.
I love seeing my man tromping around outside with my children. There’s just something about watching it that blesses me. It’s so pure and charming and sweet. Until I hear him fussing at someone to stop asking him questions about astronauts. Then it loses a little bit of the appeal. But I get it. It’s probably the same way he feels when he slips into the house in the middle of the day and quietly watches me sitting at the school table working with the kids, teaching them their Bible verses, warming his heart….then all of a sudden he hears me shout in disgust, “Adam, UGH! Did you brush your teeth?!”
He informed me last night that they got the first 3 1/2 things done on the list. I should tell you that the list had 47 to-do items on it. But I wasn’t disappointed. 3 1/2 is better than none.
And so, if I understand the concept, I got to have my cake (in the form of rain) and eat it too (by getting some work done in the yard). Is that right? Or is the cake the yardwork and the rain the leftover cake?
Oh, forget it. I’m more of an ice cream person anyway.
Have a great week!
It warms my heart too, to see my hubby with the kids doing stuff – John is golfing today with Adam and I think it’s just so neat that they can do something like that together!! Then, I hear him get frustrated with them and realize it’s not just me 🙂 Only 47 items on your list? Ha, ha…I’m the same way! We had a group of young men from church volunteer to come and work in our yard for the morning and I had a HUGE list in about ten minutes!! Great minds think alike!
Becky B.
http://www.organizingmadefun.com
Organizing Made Fun
Becky, there were only 47 things on my list, but some of them were things like, “Build a deck on the guest house” and “build a fence across the back yard.” We have 7 acres, if that tells you how much fence we have to build. LOL! There was NO way to get that list done in a day even if 47 young men came to help. But hooray for lots of things on your list getting checked off!!! Lisa~
Maybe part of your confusion comes from the fact that the cliche is “you CAN’T have your cake and eat it too”, meaning, you can’t have it both ways… My favorite twist was on the show My Three Sons, when Robbie’s new wife hollers at him, “you can’t have your duds and fluffies too, Robbie Douglas!” (referring, of course, to his popcorn and some other newlywed issue.)
We got a little bit done around here too. The Christmas lights are finally off the house and the Valentine decorations (which I never got to put up) are put away back in the shed. (sigh).
Glad you got some chorcs off your ‘honey-do’.
Sara, oh yeah! That’s it…can’t. I *am* confused. LOL! Lisa~
I thought this was going to be a diet post!
How’s it going?
It’s nice when things on your list get done- by someone else!
I was always so confused about that saying too! 😀 I ended up asking my Mum about in exasperation one day, and she explained it this way:
“You can’t have your cake and eat it too. In other words, you can’t hold the piece of cake in your hand as well as eat it. It’s either in your hand or in your stomach. You can’t have both!”
😀
I love love love to see my honey and the children out working, or just doing stuff together, hanging out and being silly. Children need this so much. And I think daddies do too!
So I just found your blog through a friends’s link to your 20 ways to RESET list. Anyway, wanted to say I LOVE IT. Love you’re style! Love your tips! Love the way your personality comes through the computer. Reminds me a lot of myself on a good day. : ) And also loved your post about Pinterest, too stinkin funny. Speaking of, I pinned your RESET post for easy sharing and future reference. Hope that’s ok! Have a blessed day!
To have one’s cake and eat it too is a popular English idiomatic proverb or figure of speech, sometimes stated as eat one’s cake and have it too or simply have one’s cake and eat it. This is most often used negatively, to connote the idea of consuming a thing whilst managing to preserve it. This may also indicate having or wanting more than one can handle or deserve, or trying to have two incompatible things. The proverb’s meaning is similar to the phrases, “you can’t have it both ways” and “you can’t have the best of both worlds.” Conversely, in the positive sense, it would refer to “having it both ways” or “having the best of both worlds.”
Hope this helps! Though I understood the concept, I had to get an actual definition to explain it….Most common usage I know of is about trying to have more than one deserves or having two incompatible things.