Oops! Oh no....... no problem.

Mistakes happen.  Oh well, whatcha gonna do?  Two choices, get pissed or get busy.  I chose....... get busy.  Just fix the damn mistake and get over it.  I wasn't always this way.  I would get all frustrated and annoyed about having to fix mistakes.  Suzie changed me.  That Suzie.............. 

Don't know who 'that Suzie' is?  Well, about 16 years ago, right after my mom passed, her best friend Suzie and I came up with a plan to help both of us get through our sadness. Well.....we really didn't look at it that way at the time, but the end result was just that.  Suzie was, according to my mother and it would prove out to be correct, a master of all masters heirloom seamstress.  She worked on a team with a famous heirloom gal named Martha Something-or-Other. Can't remember that gals name.  Anyway, we made the committment to spend one day a week together and Suzie would teach me everything she knew.  It lasted  for two years and I came out the other end, still missing my mom but at peace and having pretty killer sewing skills. Even more importantly,  in the end I had learned so many important life lessons.  I wondered throughout those two years if my mother had asked Suzie to one day teach me to heirloom sew and Suzie was fulfilling a promise in honor of my mom.  I never asked her.  It was left 'unsaid.'  

Anyway, sewing can be a wonderfully frustrating thing, if you let it be that way.  Suzie made me think differently about the process of sewing.   I apply it to everything in my life that has that forward progression with that two steps back issue in it.   She told me very early on in my training that the seam ripper was every bit as important as the needle and thread.  Now, for those of you who don't know what a seam ripper is.....it is this tiny little tool that everyone who sews must own.  You see......oops, we make mistakes and the 'ripper' takes those stitches out in a pretty precise and 'two steps backwards' kinda way.   She would tell me that the ripper was just as important as the sewing.  That in order to produce beautiful work, you had to look at the ripper as your friend helping you reverse that mistake and make your piece better.  Aha! 

Do you have a seam ripper?  I bet you do.  They come in so many forms:  erasers, bleach, the backspace button, paper towels, convenient memory.........(scratching record sound here)------ Convenient memory? What?  Yes, convenient memory.  We all do this......We re-invent the way we look at things that happen in life in order to justify the way we are choosing to move forward and deal with it.  Nothing really wrong with it as long as it doesn't hurt someone and helps us cope.  Move on, people.......get over it.  Mistakes happen. Right?!!  Well.... I am sure there are exceptions here as there are in every aspect of life.  But, hey, you get the point.  Mistakes happen and we just need to get our little seam ripper out, back out those stitches and move on to create beauty in our lives.

So with all that jargon, bla bla bla, said......  Here was my "Oops!" moment this weekend.  In my excitement to sand, prime and paint the first coat on my secretary's desk, I forgot the drop cloth.  Yep.....see......

OOPS!  (insert HBO appropriate expletives here)  "Ugg! What the heck was I thinking?  Paint actually drips right?!"  Well...... I think for a moment and I remember the lesson I learned from Suzie 16 years ago and realize that "Yes, I am not perfect.  I make mistakes.  For every mistake, there is a remedy."  So I set out to find my old friend, the seam ripper of painting mistakes..........

Yeah!  It's my can of Goof Off!  Now, if you don't own one, you MUST go out today and buy yourself some of this fantastic 'I-just-screwed-up-royally' remover!  As you can see from the image, I have had this can for eons. (rusty lid, duh)  It says on the front that it is the "Ultimate Remover!"  .....and it is.  This little can has saved me countless times.  Gets candle wax off everything, removed crayons (this mattered when my kids were small,) picks up dried paint left behind for days, deals with those scuff marks left behind on floors.....well, it removes everything.  It is my 'go to' seam ripper of sorts. 

Well.....as you can tell by the image above, this isn't going to be easy....or is it.  I mean, pavers....oh... porous pavers.  Whatcha gonna do?  Well, dummy, just get out your spare toothbrush.  We all have them.  If you don't, well.....your weird.  Anyway, the next step?  Call out your spouses name real loud and say, "Can you help me with a little problem."  (Make sure you do this in a sweet tone.  It helps)  When they appear look happy to see them and put them to work!

Bye, bye mistake!  You have met your match!  The seam ripper, I mean Goof Off!  (Not to be confused with that product, GooGone.  Not the same thing.) 

So next time I promise to not get so excited that I forget (I kinda remembered, just didn't care.) to put that drop cloth down.  Now my secretary's desk has it's first coat of color. (not pictured above, that's primer paint)  My pavers looks fine and I didn't cry over the proverbial split milk.  So this week, when you mess something up (and you will, we all do) just get your seam ripper out and make it work.  It's not the end of the world, just a part of the process. 

Images of my daughter's Christening Gown that I made during my days with Suzie.  Completely made by me, pin tucks and all!

-The End-