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A. Kristina Casasent, Author
Delightfully Weird. Occasionally Dark
Where the dog never dies!

Sunday Salutations and the Joy of Missing

by A. Kristina Casasent Sunday Salutations

Cartoon black Newfie running along a forest path past an axe in a stump

The Joy of Missing

Failure is hard, failure is painful, but if you are lucky, it can also be fun. Now, those that have known me most of my life will probably be scratching their heads or having a small aneurysm, because they know I tend to be focused to the point of obsessiveness and hate. By which I mean, I HATE making mistakes.

So, how in the world can I say that failure is fun? I am not espousing pop-psychology or doing a motivational speech. Besides, I have always found the demotivational posters more fun and motivating… However, whenever you want to do something new, you are going to be meet with failure. It is trite but if you never fail, you never really tried.

So, this week we are celebrating trying a few new things.

1. Throwing knives with both hands…
2. Throwing axes… (This was mostly Tod, but I enjoyed trying.)
3. Revamping a short story… possibly to be more romantic.

I am not sure about the last one, which is what I am doing after I finish this blog.

But I can tell you today the other two were a lot of fun to miss at. We couldn’t stop laughing sometimes. But the best thing about learning new things is, you get to try again, and you get better and sometimes even hit the bullseye.

Tod managed to hit a bullseye in his first session throwing an axe – after many, many, hilarious misses.

Axe stuck in the bullseye of a wooden target

Here are some neat pictures we got of knives and axes in motion.

Below, I’m throwing with my right hand. The knife is right above my hand.

Anna releasing a knife throw right-handed in a backyard

In the next picture, I’m throwing left-handed. I’m not ambidextrous, just stubborn.

Anna winding up a knife throw behind her head, left-handed

In the next two pictures, you can see the knife halfway to the target and hitting the target (high and right).

Follow-through on a knife throw toward a target on a white board in the backyard

Here Tod is getting ready to throw an axe. He says the books recommend using two hands, overhead to start with, as it is easier to throw straight that way.

Tod raising an axe overhead with both hands, ready to throw

And here, the axe is halfway to the target.

Tod releasing the axe toward the backyard target

And finally, the axe hitting the bullseye. Tod missed the first round, where I was just taking pictures of him. It was funny in a blog about missing to hit a bullseye on camera.

Tod after the throw, with the axe in the target's bullseye

Have fun trying new stuff, otherwise you miss out on all the fun. The only kind of missing you don’t want to do.

Anna and Tod