I was talking to a friend about Mom, and about her life, and as I was recounting some of the things that have made her who she is. Resilient.
I could tell you a moving story. One about overcoming insurmountable challenges, about prevailing in the face of adversity.
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| (Obviously, not here. Here, she's reading with the kids.) |
... Instead, I'm going to tell you the Wall Barf story.
The summer between 8th and 9th grade, we painted the inside of our house. Growing up, we did most of the home improvements ourselves. My dad worked long hours, so it was usually Mom, KidBrotherSam, and me taking on these (in retrospect) rather ambitious projects together.
[SIDE NOTE: if our family had a motto, I think it would be "shared suffering brings us closer". I should embroider that on a pillow, or put it on a family crest.]
Mom has always been good about assigning age- and developmentally-appropriate tasks, so there was a lot of taping, putting down dropcloths, and of course, painting. (To this day, I hate painting ceilings, because I can't manage to do it without getting paint in my hair. But I digress.)
She also decided on projects and techniques before the age of Pinterest (and Pinterest Fails), and web tutorials, which have changed the game a bit, when it comes to DIY anything and everything.
The idea was to do spatter painting in our living room. I'm sure her intention was to look stylish and fun, kind of like this:
We prepped, we painted, we spattered. It was really, really fun.
The end result looked like this:
The end result looked like this:
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| Mom and KidBrotherSam. circa 1996, looking appropriately goofy for our #PinterestFail before there were Pinterest Fails |
Hm.
"This is awful. It looks like someone projectile vomited all over our walls," she said, accurately assessing the aesthetic we had achieved.
We painted over it, and started again. We tried spray bottles, paintbrushes through screens, and just flinging paint at the wall.
It took three or four tries before Mom decided that spatter painting wasn't going to happen. (Mom: in looking at the picture, I think it was a color choice and paint viscosity issue, combined.)
So, we took a picture to document our epic fail (before there were epic fails!) after the last attempt, and painted over our experiment, one last time.
The most important lesson I took away was that, even if a plan doesn't work out, it doesn't mean it was a total waste. It doesn't mean that our day was ruined. You paint over it, and move on.
...and we've got a funny story to tell later.
Happy Mother's Day, Mom. I look forward to many more funny stories.
"This is awful. It looks like someone projectile vomited all over our walls," she said, accurately assessing the aesthetic we had achieved.
We painted over it, and started again. We tried spray bottles, paintbrushes through screens, and just flinging paint at the wall.
It took three or four tries before Mom decided that spatter painting wasn't going to happen. (Mom: in looking at the picture, I think it was a color choice and paint viscosity issue, combined.)
So, we took a picture to document our epic fail (before there were epic fails!) after the last attempt, and painted over our experiment, one last time.
The most important lesson I took away was that, even if a plan doesn't work out, it doesn't mean it was a total waste. It doesn't mean that our day was ruined. You paint over it, and move on.
...and we've got a funny story to tell later.