Woodcarving required some plastic surgery

I did emergency plastic surgery on a Viking last week. The procedure would have been unnecessary if I hadn't sliced his nose off in the first place. Being a Viking, he didn't utter a sound when the accident occurred.
A spot of wood glue and a rubber band splint meant that no stitches were required. You can barely see the scar.
His injury had occurred while I was practicing my new hobby — woodcarving. Obviously I'm not very good at it yet.
Mistakes happen. In fact chopping the nose off a Viking is minor to some mistakes that are made. The current BP oil spill is a mistake - or should I say a series of mistakes - that will affect wildlife and not so wild life for a very long time.
Some of our most used inventions were the product of mistakes. For instance, a guy named Spencer Silver was trying to develop a strong adhesive. He succeeded in creating a product that was super weak instead. This mistake eventually became the stuff that enabled sticky notes to do what they do so well.
Silly Putty came about because of another misstep. It was the result of an attempt to create synthetic rubber in the 1940's because the Japanese had cut off the rubber supply to our country. The scientists mixed up a concoction that was an abysmal failure as synthetic rubber but that turned out to be a great success as a toy. Just reading about its invention makes me want to go out and buy some of the bouncy grey stuff.
The current state of the flower beds in front of our house is not what I had planned. The red and yellow blanket flowers are supposed to be in a mass in the front bed, not waving gaily from either side of the driveway.
The black-eyed Susans also jumped the sidewalk to nuzzle up to the sedum and monk's hood. The sunflowers decided they wanted to join the party and have ganged up at the end of the driveway.
Even though that is not where I wanted any of them to be they still look pretty with all the Queen Anne's lace I have allowed to bloom this summer.
The point is that even though mistakes are part of life, unless they are of the same magnitude as an oil spill or something equally disastrous, they can turn out to be good things.
The scar on my Viking's nose will add to his character. It has also taught me how to avoid that problem in the future. The flowers look pretty even if they did abandon my carefully thought out plan.
Most of us learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes. Most of what I have learned is to live and let live. Oh, and how not to de-nose a Viking.[[In-content Ad]]