"If you don't learn from your mistakes, there's no sense making them." --Anonymous
Last week I took the car in for a lube job. Everyone that knows me knows that the main reason I do this is so they can check the air pressure in the tires, change the wipers, and vacuum out the inside. Those are tasks I would gladly pay someone else to do. The actual oil change is the extra.
After I paid and drove on my merry way, I noticed the car smelled a little oily. Hhmmm, maybe they dripped a bit on the engine. Not a big deal. Over the next few days, the smell still lingered and became so strong that we'd have to roll down the windows. Then the engine started sounding really low and a bit thumpy. Something was wrong. We pulled over and popped the hood. The oil cap had not been tightened and over the week had been shaken off and there was oil spurting all over the engine! Eewww! Stinky big mess! We put the cap back on, wiped up a little bit and got back on the road.
After I dropped off everyone that needed to be to school, work, etc., I went straight back to the lube place. I didn't even go home and put on makeup first. I was starting to fume a bit (just like the car). And then I was a little surprised at how apologetic and nice everyone was there. They thanked me for coming back in. They washed the entire engine. They washed all the windows, inside and out. They put on a new wiper blade because it had gotten oil on it. The wiped down the dashboard. They made sure the oil level was where it was supposed to be. They fixed their mistake. I don't know what I expected them to do but I had thought that I would have to stand firm and demand the engine be cleaned and refuse to pay and maybe not ever go back there again. I was very impressed with how they made it right.
I compared it to a time when, as a teenager, I went to get my brakes fixed. As I drove out of the parking lot, the brakes that had just been fixed, did nothing when I stepped on them. I used the emergency brake to stop myself before getting into traffic. I went back into the shop and told them that the brakes that they had just fixed didn't work at all now. They just kind of brushed it off and said they must have forgotten to put brake fluid in. They told me to drive it back up and they would fix it. I told them to drive it up! I wasn't going to drive a car without brakes! If I ran into their shop or another car, I did not want to be held responsible. Then they acted like it was my fault that the car didn't have brake fluid in it. What? It could have gotten very ugly so I stopped talking except to make sure it was done right before I left again. As you can guess, I never went there again and talked bad about them every chance I got.
B-man brought home a book from the library recently that is about inventions that were made because of mistakes. Stainless steel, liquid paper, celluloid, rayon, and dry cleaning, to name a few. A mistake was made, the person figured out how that new product could be used and now we all have microwaves in our kitchen. Amazing.
It's kind of like the making lemonade out of lemons saying. What do we do when something goes wrong? How often do we take offense when a mistake is made? Do we try to right our own wrongs? Do we own up? Do we give others the chance to right their wrongs? Do we throw the first stone?
Mistakes are a part of life and we all make them and, yes, some are bigger than others, in fact, some are doosies! The thing that matters is our response to a mistake--whether our own or someone else's. I suggest we clean the engine and replace the wiper blade and clean the windshield inside and out. Make it right.
Lots of shoes. 
Lots of cups.
Little kids first. Wait for it.
This recipe file is for all of the recipes that I've gathered that are still loose. These recipes are in that in between state of finding a copy and becoming a favorite. They look good either in the newspaper or RS Newsletter but I haven't tried them yet. They are all on different-sized scraps of paper.
The file box is full and messy, but all of the recipes in it are where they're supposed to be. 
I made my own section dividers with colored paper.
Each recipe is printed nice and big and if it gets ingredients spilled on it I can wipe it clean.
It did take some time to type them all in initially, but it's worth it to have them so handy now. I think it took 3 or 4 days just to type in all of the cookie recipes (2-3 hours each day) but now they're easy to find and share. And now I'm only typing in one or two recipes a month. Easy peasy.
Next project is C's graduation quilt! She wants it blue and green--she'll need something soothing in the dorm! I've already purchased about 40 fat quarters in different blues and greens and the pattern is picked out. I've got to get it going! Graduation will be here before you know it! Hopefully there will be pictures of it before June!
