If at first you don't succeed...

Both of my husband's parents were born and raised in Mexico. They moved to the US sometime in their early 20's or so, and Ricardo was born here. It goes without saying that he was raised on some authentic Mexican food - the real deal. Homemade tortillas...lots and lots of them. Beans. Rice. Red chile. Enchiladas.

When I went back home with him for my first visit, I remember being in awe - and a little intimidated - of his mother's cooking skills. I watched her as she moved around her kitchen, throwing this and that into one of her many pots that sat perpetually on the stove. When it was time to serve dinner, she would heat up about 20 or 30 corn tortillas. For the 4 of us. I usually passed on them, and she would eat maybe one or two, and then Ricardo and his dad would polish off the rest. 12 each. At least. My thighs are cringing at the thought of ingesting that many carbs.

We had been married a few months when I decided that I better stretch myself from my firmly planted Midwestern cooking roots and attempt to cook some Mexican food. I was terrified...not that I could not pull it off, but that it would not measure up to his mom's. So I chose the simplest of dishes - beans - and I also chose a day when he was going to be gone for a long, long time. My thought was this; if they didn't turn out, I would chuck them and he would be none the wiser.

But, really, how hard is it to cook beans? Easy, right? I was confident; I could do this. Most of the people I knew made them in a pressure cooker, but I lived in mortal fear of the pressure cooker after my roommate had one explode on her and fling carrots forcefully to the ceiling. So I decided that the crock pot would work just fine.

I dumped in the water and the beans and some seasoning, and sent it cooking on it's merry little way.

Hours later, when they should have been done, I tasted them.

Apparently, I had purchased the only package of non-fool-proof beans, because they were AWFUL. I'm quite sure that they just needed to cook longer, or to have salt added, but at the time I was too nervous to try to figure out what the problem was. And then, with impeccable timing, Ricardo drove up. I panicked a bit as I looked from my crock pot full of those horrible no-good beans to the window where I could see him walking out of the garage. Good....he was going to get the mail, which meant I had a few minutes. I took those beans and gave them a new and permanent home in the trash.

That was 6 years ago. For 6 whole years, I told myself, I can't make beans. They were awful. If I try again, I'm pretty sure they'll still be awful. Awful. Awful. I started to truly believe that I might quite possibly be the only person on this entire planet who could not make beans. Because I told myself that I could not make beans.

2 weeks ago I finally got up the nerve to give it another try. They were on sale at the Mexican grocery store where I get all of the great deals on produce, and so, on a whim, I picked up a couple of pounds.

Same crock pot. Beans. Water. Garlic and onions. They cooked all day and smelled heavenly. I cautiously tasted them at the end of 8 hours and....they were good. Maybe not as good as his mom's, but...good nonetheless. I had successfully made beans.

With fear and trembling, I took a forkful over to Ricardo and waited for his reaction. I noted the look of surprise on his face as he looked up and said, "Hey, not bad!" Which is pretty high praise coming from my hubby.

So this has made me think. I know it's just beans, no big deal. But in what other areas of my life have I debilitated myself, just by saying over and over, You can't do it. You've tried it, it was a mess. You can't. You can't. You can't.

I know that words are powerful, even words spoken silently to ourselves. We build ourselves up or tear ourselves down by what we say. And I know that we are usually our own harshest critic.

But sometimes it pays off to step out of that comfort zone and do something a little different, to try something that terrifies. us.

Because, chances are, your crock pot full of beans will turn out a lot better than you could have ever imagined.