As much as I wish I was, and strive to be, I am not perfect. Perfection is as illusive as the disappearing Roanoke colonists and just as intriguing. One of my favorite Bible verses is Jude 24, now unto him to is able to keep you from falling away and will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault. Ahhh, take that pressure off! Oh, I wish I was perfect, alright. But this is about failure. Failure is important in our lives. Here are four reasons why I love a Pinterest failure.
1)New creations
Failure has been around a whole lot longer than Pinterest. I admit, I sometimes look over pictures of perfectly sculptured cakes, and peoples neatly photo shopped items and wish I could do it. But who would create new recipes if we didn't fail sometimes? Most of us have heard the story of the accidental creation of Toll House Chocolate chip cookies. St. Louis is famous for Gooey Butter Cake, which was also a "failure." The creator inverted the amount of butter and one of the other ingredients. These recipes may not have come out as expected, but what a sad world it would be without chocolate chip cookies!
2)Funny stories
One year when The Accountant and I were newly weds, I decided I wanted to make him sugar cookies for Valentines. The Accountant really loves sugar cookies. I was working two jobs at this point, teaching English in a high school, as well as working part time at the accounting firm The Accountant worked at. My routine at that time was to make up a week's worth of baked goods and freeze the dough on Monday, making it easy for me to pull out whatever I needed and cook it during the week. One day a few weeks before Valentines day I made up sugar cookie dough and put it in the freezer.
A week or so before Valentines days I made Quiche. I really ought to make it more often, it's so good. I make mine with Poblano peppers, corn, and cheese. Yum... So good. I was really looking forward to my delicious Quiche. I remember sitting down to dinner, taking that first bite, and... something was wrong with my quiche. Very wrong. The Accountant couldn't detect anything odd. I found it disgusting; for some unknown reason it was sweet. I used regular pie dough, it shouldn't have been sweet. It was too sweet for me to eat. The Accountant ate both my portion and his. After dinner, as I thought back over cooking the quiche I realized what I had done. I had pulled a ziploc bag with a ball of what I thought to be pie dough out of the freezer. None of the bags of dough in the freezer were labeled. I made my Poblano pepper quiche with a sugar cookie base, instead of pie crust. Dinner and dessert in one, So gross! After Valentines I confessed my error to The Accountant. We had a really good laugh about it, and still do. He insists it was delicious. I refuse to ever make Sugar Cookie Quiche again.
This year we were invited to a picnic for labor day. I wasn't sure what I wanted to take, we had limited time to cook before hand so I thought I'd go with something easy. I found a recipe for adorable lettuce wedge salads on a stick on Pinterest. What's cuter for a picnic than food on a stick? They were super cute and super easy! Theoretically. You know how when you cut up a head of lettuce it doesn't hold together anymore? Yeah... I don't even know how the blogger took a picture of theirs, mine ended up being a few pieces of lettuce on a stick. I'm guessing the whole thing was photo shopped. I didn't have time to make anything else, so I showed up to the Labor Day picnic with a bag full of iceberg lettuce, a bag of tomatoes, a container of bacon, ranch dressing, and a whole bunch of pointy sticks. Hello Pinterest fail! Did my life end over a bag of lettuce and pointy sticks? No, but we sure got a good laugh out of it!
3)Trail and error
I recently decided to paint designs on some Onsies for Sirenita. Last year I found a tutorial (on Pinterest) on making tea-towels using fabric medium. I figured it would work on the Onsie since my towel is adorable. Apparently painting a towel and painting a Onsie are incredibly different. I was trying to paint a dinosaur, but it was so bad I painted "Dinosaurs: Epic Fail" on it, and stuck it in the "Just in case bag" that we carry in the trunk of the car. Unless there is a poop-splosion while we're out and don't have the diaper bag, it'll never get worn.. Haha, can you imagine donating that once Sirenita has outgrown that size? I mean, it's a perfectly good Onsie. Just that my painting is an epic fail. I had a bunch more plain onsies, and a bunch of cute ideas, so we tried something else that worked beautifully. I figured out one way that definitely did not work, but I also found a way that I never would have considered if I hadn't tried and epicly failed first.
4)Finding new skills
I am creative, so I browse Pinterest looking for ideas. I also browse various stores and get ideas from them. I love to make things, most of my home decor is DIY. I draw The Accountant into the creation process too. We try all kinds of crazy new things. Inspired by what I see on Pinterest, I look up tutorials or figure out how to make things myself. Sometimes I fail. Sometimes they come out amazing.
We've done the foil over glue decor thing. Mine looked like a little kid did it. The one on Pinterest looked like an antique made of real metal. I tried the Sharpie mug decorations. Mine wiped right off. I tried a mug painting tutorial, even baked and cured my mug just like they said. Not only did the paint wash off, but it stuck to some of my other dishes and has never come off of them. Go figure. I tried creating decor using a chalkboard. Who knew I am so good at lettering and designs? They come out so nicely that I hate to wash my chalkboard.
Once I found a cute tree shaped shelf that I thought would be adorable in our nursery. When I found out I was pregnant with Sirenita, I asked The Accountant if he could make one. He watched tutorials and studied online quite a bit, and churned out an amazing masterpiece that is so much cuter than we expected. He didn't know he could do carpentry like that, but he gave it a try.
Thomas Edison said, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." I may never make lettuce wedge salads on a stick again, but I had fun. Be inspired to try new things. Don't live your life vicariously, drooling over Pinterest while trying to avoid failure. It may offer you a million different ways to fail you never would have come up with on own, but you may just find something new you never knew you could do!
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