Plaster Fail

Today I had the idea that I would plaster my front entryway. To be more accurate, I was going to texture it with Topping Joint Compound in a holey-smooth texture. This requires the plaster to be loose and smooth.  I found a 5-gallon bucket of it on our back porch. (Which also doubles as a tool shed.)  I opened the bucket and realized that the compound was still great to use, it just had separated, with the water settled on top.  No problem! I would just mix it in.  I looked for something to mix it with and found a power-mixer.  Awesome! This should make it go faster and the mix would be more consistant in texture.  I plugged in the mixer and started, well, mixing up the compound.  Things were going good until I realized that a bunch of the plaster compound had settled towards the bottom of the bucket.  So I jammed the mixer to the bottom of the bucket to mix that in.  What I failed to realize is that nothing was holding the bucket in place.  So the bucket began to spin! It flung plaster in a 360 degree slop all around my back porch! I basically had white, powdery pudding dripping from garden shoes, paint buckets, shelving... gross! I just started laughing so hard! I wish that I had caught it on video! It was a total "fail" moment!

Jones came out and asked why I was laughing.  I said that it isn't worth it to be mad when I make mistakes, sometimes I just laugh about it and then fix it.  He stayed and "helped" me to clean the mess up.  He said "You should just call Dad to come clean it." I told him that I made the mess and I have to clean it up.  It was a good lesson for him to learn.  But then he taught me one in return.  I said, "When you make a mistake you can learn from it. Now I know what NOT to do."  Meaning that I would make sure that I held the bucket in place when I used the power mixer.  He said "Yeah, you learned to mix the plaster outside where it doesn't get everything messy!"  Touche'!  Humbly, I finished mixing the plaster outside.