Winner time! First, your entries were so inspiring I re-read that thread (ha! do-over!) several times yesterday.
Thanks to the random integer generator, the winner is:
#26: Michelle Harlan!
Michelle, please send your mailing address to me at sarahATsmartbitchestrashybooksDOROTHYcom.
Thank you to everyone who entered, and I hope your weekend is free of any need for a do-over!
I received an email from Knock Knock about doing a giveaway, and it made me so giddy, I bounced on the sofa. I love Knock Knock – I use their “All Out Of” grocery list pad every week, and it's a lifesaver in so many ways. Saves me money, too. I love a LOT of their stuff, so I was really excited that they wanted to give some away here.
Since it's nearly Valentine's Day, they want to send one lucky winner a sampler of their products, including a Personal Library Kit, complete with datestamp, self adhesive pockets and checkout cards for your books, 'Sweet Nothing' post-it notes, and a set of sticky 'Guilty Pleasure' bookmarks. They sent me a set of the products to play with, and they are so adorable. Releasing my inner librarian is terrible fun.
And since it's Groundhog Day, today's contest theme is Do Overs! One thing I like about Knock Knock products is that they help me stay a little bit better organized – and less likely to need a do-over.
To enter to win the Knock Knock reader sampler, just tell me about a day when you got a do-over, and changed things for the better. Did you reorganize? Fix something? Tell us about it!
Standard disclaimers apply: I am not being compensated for this giveaway (except for my own sampler set, mentioned above). No fee for insertion (SNRK). Void where prohibited. Open to anyone worldwide 18 years of age and older wearing flippers on their feet. Use caution when walking while wearing flippers. Park at your own risk.
Comments will be open for 24 hours – so let's celebrate the do-over!
The best part of working with yarn is that it is rarely permanent. You can still unravel the work if you don’t like it. You can buy a sweater in a Salvation Army and salvage the yarn and make something you actually like. You never have to settle. Quilters don’t get this freedom, once you start cutting the cloth it doesn’t magically reweave itself. I know you are looking for more philosophical do-overs, but yarn is the best chance to redo until it’s right that I know.
Just as long as you don’t put the wool in the washing machine.
I once called a do-over on a bad day at work. I walked home, took an hour-long nap, and decided the previous start didn’t count at all. The day turned out well.
For one of my first classes in grad school, I had a very hard time with the final (and I think only) assignment. The professor gave me and several other first-year students the opportunity to redo it, a kindness that was unexpected but very much appreciated.
I am prone to messing things up, so have a lot of do-overs. = )
Today was a do-over for me. Work sucked, so I came home and did my bad mood/migraine filled day over—with an episode of my favorite Hart of Dixie, kitty purrs, Diet Coke, a nap, new sheets on the bed, and a book.
A do-over for me is attacking the sweets. The minute the chocolate touches my mouth, the day seems so much brighter.
On my first date with the man who is now my husband, he cooked dinner and we watched a video. When the video was over, he asked if I wanted to watch home movies from his childhood.
Watch toddlers drooling? Was he kidding? I said, sarcastically, ‘There’s nothing I’d rather do.’ (Nookie wasn’t on the cards, since this was a first date). However, I have a soft voice and he didn’t pick up on the sarcasm. He said he was really thrilled to be watching them. He’d just figured out how to transfer 8 track tapes from his childhood onto video tape and this was the first time he’d get to see what was one them. He was pleased to be sharing the moment with me, a friend whom he thought would appreciate his technical triumph (yeah, we’re nerds and this was long before just plug the right cable in to the right box).
So, I had a do-over moment: make it clear I was rude and sarcastic, ending the date and probably our friendship or keep my mouth shut and pretend I’d been sincere. I kept my mouth shut, we watched the home movies. They turned out to be pretty interesting. He asked me out again. We’ve been together for nearly 20 years, married for 17.
I would like to do-over several days but I have had a few where i actually got to do a do-over. One of the major ones was sending in part of my graduate work but my professors computer crashed and I got to bring it to her on Monday over a weekend to go back over all the work and got a stellar A instead of the rush job I had thrown together and sent to her on a Friday after a very, very long week. So I count that as one of those very handy do-overs.
There were plenty of days/events I would have loved a Do Over, but I don’t think I ever got one. There was that time I was stranded in Hawaii during which the airline put us passengers in a hotel near the airport and a highway so it was nonstop airplane or traffic noise. It was the only night during my trip that I slept well (apparently crashing waves sounded like a bad storm to me when I was mostly asleep so it would wake me up – I was *not* soothed by those waves – but my mind ignored traffic noise).
In high school this one guy had a crush on me and I was dating someone else and things got real awkward real fast. Partially, he did get a little creepy but also I did get pretty mean girl on him as well. This all culminates in threats of school shootings (NOT from me, thank you) and the school administration has been called and basically, shit’s gotten real. Nothing ever happened with it, but it was obviously a very tense situation. He used to drive by my house and flick it off from his car.
So a couple years later, we’ve both graduated but are “in town” for some reason and I run into him and a mutual friend at Wal-Mart (the only thing to do in small towns after 9 pm) and we get to talking and hanging out. This would be a much better story if it ended with “and then I married him!” but it’s not that kind of story. I helped him try to talk to a few girls he was interested in and the three of us did the same kinds of stupid silly things we used to do in high school and then we all went our separate ways, but I like to think in some small way we both received some absolution. Me for going into full on high school Queen Bee Bitch Mode when he was hurting, and him for threatening to murder me.
My boss once asked me to rewrite an awards package, stating “I know you can do better as you are my best writer.” It was a fabulous compliment from someone who rarely gave compliments. The awards package was significantly improved the second time.
I met my husband in high school when I was 14-going-on-15 (my birthday was always about a month after school started) and he was 17. There was some interest there on both sides, but I really went into full-on pursuit mode and pretty scared the guy who thought he wanted to be a priest to death. (He changed his mind in college – and no, I didn’t have anything to do with that!) After 6 mostly-fruitless weeks, I gave up my goal of making him my boyfriend and after a couple of weeks of being hurt and angry, we settled into a “just friends” relationship through marriages and kids and divorces on both sides for the next 25 years or so.
About 8 years ago, we were both single, available, and in the same town again, and he was the one that said, “I really think we should try being more than friends and see where it goes”. This time, I was the one running scared – who wants to give up the longest friendship of their life if things go horribly wrong? Still, I decided to take the chance. We’ve been together 7.5 years and married for 5.5 and it has literally been the best relationship I’ve ever been in. So I guess, in a way, this is kind of a do-over for both of us – though, I realize that if we had gotten together in high school, it never would have lasted and we wouldn’t have what we have now.
Yesterday I accidentally washed my son’s white basketball uniform with a bunch of red sweatshirts and it came out pink. BIG DO-OVER. I bleached it the second time and only the warmup shirt retained a slightly pink hue that was hardly noticeable under the fluorescent lights of the auditorium. (Whew!)
Robin’s post made me think of my do-over. My boyfriend and I moved in together shortly before Christmas a few years ago. We literally had time to get his stuff in the door and then we loaded ourselves into the car and drove to my parents, 4 hours away, for the holidays. Among other gifts, my mother gave dear BF an authentic Burberry sweater that she had found at wholesale price from a local store. Flash back to our new abode a few days later, where I’m feeling domestic and offer to do our holiday laundry. Little do I know that the new sweater is in the hamper. I don’t sort laundry….well…no more thoroughly than separating lights from darks. I just go on the understanding that if it`s in the hamper, it’s going in the washer and then the dryer. Needless to say, the sweater came out small enough to fit my 5-year old nephew. I fessed up, called my mom, who fortunately managed to find one more sweater at the same store, and we now have more defined procedures for sorting laundry at our house.
my do over: On a dive trip at GBR (Great Barrier Reef), my first dive of the day was awesome but I was using a dive computer in meters not feet. I had gone too deep; in my defense it was clear blue water 70 feet down to white sand (it was amazing). Well, I got in trouble with the dive master and had to sit out diving for the rest of day. So instead I decided to snorkel off the boat, hanging onto the drift line. I watched all the other divers swimming around the coral head 50 feet down and felt pissy. Then I looked to my right and a Minke whale had swam up to me. It was five feet from me! It was so beautiful and we just stared at each other. If I had dived like a responsible diver I would have missed this chance of a lifetime. And all those divers down below? They didn’t look up to see the pod of whales swimming by.
I can’t think of a do-over but the pulling out the yarn reminded me of the “frog stitch” in cross-stitch. It’s where you have to “rip it, rip it” out! I’ve had to do that more times than I’d like to remember…
Sometimes quilters do get do-overs: I made a quilt on commission and we had a miscommunication about the size and she requested I make it bigger. I ended up making her a different quilt, but after that, I deconstructed one edge of the first quilt and did indeed make it larger 🙂
My best do-over though was with a friend. We were as close as sister’s in high school, had a falling out in college and didn’t speak for about 20 years, then found each other on FB a couple of years ago and started to write email. When my family was evacuated from Cairo last year she offered us a place to live indefinitely and I ended up taking her up on it and staying with her for 4 months. We picked up as if time had never passed. And even after living together for 4 months we are still friends, LOL. Ultimate friendship do-over.
I started a baby afghan for my new great niece and it wasn’t looking like I hoped, so I pulled it apart and started over. The new version looks great and my nephew and his wife are very happy with it.
My husband and I met when I was 15 and he was 17. We were together for about 2 1/2 years before college and life broke us up. After a year we started talking again and got back together. We have been together for 15 years, married for almost 6 years, have a beautiful almost 2-year-old and are getting ready to try for baby #2. Best do-over EVER!
December 1st of last year. I moved to a new city, into a new living situation, and into a new job a few days later. I majorly cut down on the stuff I own, and left a fair amount with my family back in the Midwest. There are certain things I miss, but I love having a place for everything, and having everything in its place in my new space. I truly feel like I’ve got a new lease on life and am trying all sorts of new things.
My favorite do overs involve repurposing things I own. I just moved from a three bedroom, two story house into a cottage. I had to use my imagination to fit my belongings into a much smaller space. I painted some furniture and decorative items so they would work in the new space.
I lost my third pregnancy on Christmas day 2005. There is nothing you can do to make up for a loss like that. But I wrote my heart out and made a book where my pregnant heroine had the happiest ending I could think of to give her, the happy ending I wanted so much for myself.
In another world, that was my do-over. And wonderful therapy. Romance novels are great.
I’m not really sure it counts if I didn’t personally change the outcome, but here goes.
In May of 2009 my husband was found unconscious (well, dead actually) at work. He’d been down somewhere between 1 – 5 minutes. The EMT’s had to use their defib at the
highest setting to zap him back (I think I’ve since read that only about 10% of people zapped ‘in the field’ instead of in a hospital survive). Then he had about 3 days of a
drug induced coma with the body cooling gear. Then a pacemaker surgery.
I am thinking I was a widow for a small amount of time, then got my hubby back. Though I didn’t change anything, I still got a 2nd chance.
That count?
SamG
My first date with my husband was such a disaster I told my roommate “If he ever phones here again, tell him I died.” Fortunately, she refused to lie for me, he apologized profusely for the previous date, and I grudgingly agreed to let him make it up to me. His having tickets to a concert I wanted to attend didn’t hurt.
Best do-over ever. We’re celebrating our 36th wedding anniversary this month.
I met my fiance when we were both in relationships. It was really terrible, because I was falling for him so hard, but we were trapped by bad timing. So we became friends instead, and started hanging out more and more. A few months went by. My own relationship fell apart pretty quickly for various reasons. His had been getting worse and worse, and when then it finally seemed like he was going to break it off with her. I was doing a little mental happy dance.
But they broke up, and he asked someone else out. I was beyond upset and convinced that I’d fallen into “the friend zone” where he would never think of me romantically. Luckily for me, that other girl went out with him once, and then dismissed him pretty quickly to date his ex. So I got my do-over. I sent him an email, in which I very explicitly said “I really like you. I also really like movies. Maybe you should ask me to a movie some time.” Which, for me, was a bold move.
Turns out I wasn’t in the friend zone at all. He just didn’t think I’d even consider dating him, since he is something of a nerd, and I used to date muscled hulks with small brains. We’ve been together six years, and we’re getting married in August.
I get daily do-overs with my boys. When they get on my nerves, I get snappy. Then once I calm down, I go do the interaction over with them and it usually ends up in hugs all the way around—those are the best do-overs.
The day my husband switched over from Army Reserve to Active Duty was a “do-over” in my life. At that point, we were very unhappily married and on the brink of divorce. We had 2 kids & owned a home, but had been working opposite shifts for so many years that we hardly saw one another. When he told me he switched to AD, I thought…WTH?! His first assignment was across the country & we decided that we were either going to “sink or swim”. So, we said goodbye to friends and family in Texas (we were both from the same area & had lived there most of our lives) & moved our kids to the east coast. Best decision ever!! It wasn’t easy, but we became a family! I’m so glad we had our “do-over”!
In graduate school, when I was panicked about finishing before my advisor went away for a semester (which would mean my missing that year’s job market, AND requiring special permission from the graduate school to be enrolled for another year) I was given the option to either defend it as written or take another semester and polish it. I did more than just polish—I did a substantial set of revisions, and ended up with a much stronger final product.
My do over is pretty simple. I was having absolutely the worst possible day – everything, and I mean, everything was going wrong, and I was doing everything I could not to cry – I was sniffling, absolutely miserable. But I texted my roommate that I was having a bad day, and when I got back to the apartment, there was dinner, a cold beer, and a good movie to watch so I could relax. She even lit candles and had some chocolate ready. It was an excellent end to the day, making up for how terrible the day itself had been.
On a return trip from California, my flight was cancelled due to bad weather in Denver. I was given a seat on another airline and had to, literally, run from one terminal to another to catch my flight that was leaving minutes later. I made the flight and got home in time. I don’t know if that’s a do-over or just being lucky.
I once sent out a report to a former boss (now long gone) and realized after I sent it to the she!witch that I had sent the wrong draft version. Meanwhile she managed to infect her computer with a virus and crashed it, including her email program. That meant no report. I got to print it out and turn in as a hard copy (the right one this time), and she never knew the mistake even happened. Very good do-over in my opinion.
When I was in grad school I had a tough time with my first major paper, as did most of my fellow students. When the prof handed them back she had made comments and notes, but not assigned any grades. She treated the paper as a critiqued draft and allowed us another shot at a finished product. My second try was much better than the first and I learned a lot from her critique that really helped me throughout my program.
When I was in high school, I had this HUGE project due, but I had been sick with the flu for a really long time, so I didn’t put much effort into. Luckily, my teacher wanted to look at it before I presented it in front of the entire class, and she made me do it over before I complete embarrassed myself. I had a hard enough time in high school without people laughing at me, so it was great to have a teacher so considerate 🙂
I can’t believe how difficult a question I thought this was when I first saw it. Then I read all those cool do-over stories that are ahead of me here and felt even more intimidated. Jeez. It seems to me that all my bad moments live on in technicolor glory forever! Still . . . how about this? I wanted a cheery and bright office once and so I picked (what I thought was) a soft but pretty yellow. Once the paint was on the walls it morphed into a nasty greenish tinted nightmare. I was so upset! We were really short on money at the time but my own true love cut some corners on our budget so I could repaint. It’s not like finding a lost love, I admit, but it’s one of many reasons I’ve held on to this guy for 33 years!
These stories are so very inspiring and making me so happy. Thank you for sharing!!
I had a do over in the middle of another one. I can do math, I have no problem learning it, as long as I’m given real world examples of when and where something will be used. Otherwise it’s just something that I’m forced to sit through because someone thought it was a good idea. I don’t use even a quarter of what I was forced into…which makes me a little disgruntled when I look back on it all.
So first semester in college (which I can now say was a while ago) I only missed one day of my pre-calc class, and somehow managed to fail. I swear the things on the test were never anywhere near what we had covered in class…Not good for me.
So next semester I take the same class from a different instructor. Missed a month (I should have picked a later in the day time as I am so not a morning person) and was given two weeks to make up everything I’d missed. That time I managed to pass with higher marks than I expected.
Thank the maker for instructors who are kind enough to work with class skipping idiots.
aaaaa….
errmmmm…..
*scratching head*
There’s knitting and, depending on the complexity, there’s embroidery. Other than that, the only do overs are in organizing. Does moving books back and forth through the house until they are where I want them count?
my husband died a year ago last jan.. about 4 months ago, i found my first love here on facebook. you know the one you always thought everything would be perfect with forevre. made all talking just 1 big stutter . heart race, the one i carried a pciture in my purse for 15 yrs ,even after i had children
turns out he is a piece of crap that is cheating on his wife
I got a “do over” with my first boyfriend. When we first went out in first year university i was inexperienced compared to what he had done in terms of relationships and the relationship didn’t last beyond a couple of months. Eight years later he contacts me out of the blue and we end up catching up and eventually dating a second time round. We had both grown up so much making us much more equal and subsequently it was a really lovely relationship. Since I moved overseas we discontinued the relationship however I am really glad I got the chance to meet him once again.
I hired a woman from a local consignment shop to give me a wardrobe do-over. Best thing I ever did. She went thru my closet and helped me clean it out. She also brought clothes from her consignment shop that would fill in the gaps that i needed to make a great wardrobe!
I love all the clothes and mix-match every day. It makes me feel great!!
Every spring I get a do-over when it’s time to plant my garden…this year it’s more eggplant, broccoli and peppers. And zuchini for the first time. Next year it will probably be an entirely different experience.