Clarifying a Mistake

I read something interesting the other day in a Facebook thread about Ryan Lochte, bless his little pea-pickin' heart.

Some people were chatting about his shenanigans and particularly what passed for an apology after the conclusion of the shenanigans.

One person said "he was clarifying a mistake." Another person said "no, he made a bad choice."

The difference between a mistake and a choice is like the difference between heaven and hell. It's a pretty clear distinction.

Here are some examples of mistakes:

• Calling one of your children another child's name
• Calling one of your pets another pet's name
• Wearing one brown and one black sock
• Using conditioner instead of shampoo
• Ordering snails instead of steak because you left your reading glasses at home
• Driving the wrong way down Hotel Street in Honolulu (I didn't mean to)

Here are some examples of choices:

• Making an arse of yourself and then making up a story about getting robbed in a foreign land to cover it up. 

 (I didn't really feel like you needed more than just that one example. )

You see this a lot in politicians. Politicians are constantly telling us that they made a mistake when they posted a picture of their nether regions on Twitter or had 25 drinks and then drove into a lake, or when they accidentally spent half a million dollars on hookers and Scotch.

As a lover of words, I think that the words we use matter. We shouldn't use the word "mistake" when we mean "choice," any more than we should use the word "bacon" when we are discussing something which is made out of tofu or turkey. It would be far more respectable of the poor choice crowd (or the people claiming something which is not bacon is bacon) to just make up a whole new word, like snarglblarf or shammytoed or retrosnapple. I would respect that quite a bit actually, because it's been a while since I've seen a good new word brought into the world. And we could all come together around a person who experienced a terrible snarglblarf that they are embarrassed about, couldn't we?

I think so.

I have two fun things for you today. My mom got me the most WONDERFUL watercolors that I'd been lusting after since I saw them in Santa Fe. They are Schmincke and they are spectacular. My Mijello's are crying in the corner now.

I had to do a quick project with them to try them out and they are just a joy to paint with. Beautiful, saturated colors that blend perfectly. So here's a little no-line watercolor for you on some Fabriano Extra White watercolor paper - good stuff.

Hush Little Bunny (Santoro)	Concord & 9th Brushed Blossom Bundle	Schmincke Watercolor	Silver Brush - Black Velvet #2	Crushed Curry Ink
Fabriano Extra-White 100% Cotton Cold Pressed Watercolor Paper	Versafine Onyx Black Pigment Ink	Versafine Onyx Black Refill	Mini MISTI	Stampin' Up! Basic Black Marker

InLinkz.com

I filmed the process of making this for you - it's sped up. Watercoloring the image took 55 minutes, and I figured you probably would prefer the 8 minute version here, unless you're imprisoned somewhere and have a ton of time to kill. Perhaps you're in a maximum security facility for those who snargleblarfed and didn't get away with it. If so, I'd be happy to bake the longer version into a cake for you.

Now in addition to the watercolors, I got an AWESOME present from my friend Brian King. This is seriously genius, and it's so cute. We both love pistachios, and somehow he found this ADORABLE, clever bowl and sent me one. It's two nested bowls, so that you can drop your shells down into the bottom bowl, thereby solving the greatest snacking problem confronting humanity.

OMG I love it so much. I'm a pistachio fiend - a FIEND - and I'm in heaven. Perfect for those Breaking Bad marathons.

So while we're on the subject of presents, I have one to give away! I'm giving away the Concord & 9th gift card from my birthday post. Drum roll please!

Congratulations Lee! Email me for instructions on claiming your prize.

And because you were all so nice as to give me your awesome book recommendations, I turned that into a list for all of you to enjoy. Where I could find links to the books, I added them. Where someone recommended everything by an author, I linked to a search result for that author with a list of all their books. I appreciate this list so much - and I look forward to reading all these - especially the ones where several of you mentioned the same ones - they must be great! There was only one I couldn't find - I believe the commenter said the River Book series but that didn't turn up anything for me so if you have an author or more info let me know!

Lydia's Nice Commenters Favorite Books List

So I hope you enjoy that list - that was nice of y'all to share with me! I will have fun working my way through it! I love having book-y friends.

Now go forth and use words that mean something!

Loveyameanitbye.