MIstakes Happen

the finished cabinet,
with Dad's picture on top

A year or two ago some of my friends retired and moved to Florida. As they were going through the inevitable big purge associated with downsizing, they offered me their stained glass making supplies. Learning how to make stained glass art has been on my list of 'things I'd like to do' for a long time, so I jumped at the offer.

I'm not sure what they'd used to store the glass, but it came to me in several plastic totes. I've been working around them for quite some time, holding my breath a little every time I move them around the workshop. Glass is easy to break, you know, and the totes are top-heavy and lopsided

Last weekend I finally got around to drawing up the plans for a storage cabinet, and spent the better part of Saturday making little boards out of big boards. This weekend, I went back outside to put them together.

For some reason, when it comes to making cabinets, I tend to subtract wrong when figuring out how much to cut back when allowing for the thickness of the wood - I make stupid simple math errors. Sure enough, when it came time to put the backs on the cabinet, I'd cut them, and the center dividers, an inch too short.

Bad words. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and I really hate it when I make stupid mistakes. I was complaining to a friend of mine about it this morning, and he suggested I take a picture of Dad out to my workshop. He thought it would help me get in touch with my inner putterer.

I took his advice, and as I was working to fix my mistakes I was thinking of Dad.

Many, many, moons ago he was putting up the paneling in our bedroom. I was following him around and 'helping' as I was wont to do in those days. The bedroom had a low-ceiling, with slanted walls; and he managed to cut one of the pieces snugging up to the angle mirrored - so the back of the panel was the side showing. (I do the same thing. a lot. suppose it's hereditary?) He said, 'oh, shit!', about the only cussword that ever came out of his mouth, and stared at it for a while, hoping it would magically fix itself.

Magic didn't happen, so we traisped on out tot the garage to fix it the normal way. He didn't have enough paneling left to completely remake the piece, so he cut the biggest piece he could, and then a smaller triangle to fill the gap. It wasn't an invisible fix, but it wasn't glaringly obvious, either.  As he fixed the pieces into place, he looked over at me and said, 'It's not that mistakes will never happen; everyone makes mistakes. It's what you do to fix them that counts.'

I thought of him again today, as I worked to correct my errors. The end result isn't perfect, but it'll do. (especially for a storage cabinet that'll always live in a garage...)

Mistakes happen, and, it's OK; most mistakes can be fixed.
Good for me to relearn now and again.