Sunday Scribblings #148 - Regrets

I don't believe in having regrets. If things had not happened the way they did at the time they did I would not have the life I love. But we all have regrets, atleast little ones, don't we? I try to keep mine to a minimum. How do I do that? That is something I have been thinking about for three days.

Last night I was baking some fresh, not frozen, sweet potato rounds in olive oil and marjoram on an edgeless cookie sheet. I have done this before without incident. For some reason, this time I thought twice about using the pan. I thought maybe I should use a cookie sheet with sides, but I talked myself out of it because they come out so much crunchier on the edgeless pan and Mr. B&B loves them crunchy. I stuck them in the oven and busied myself with the other vegetables I was cooking and the clean-up. About 15 minutes in I thought it smelled a little smokey. I turn on the light in the oven, but everything looked fine. 10 minutes later all of the fire alarms in the house, including our neighbors upstairs, were blaring. The kitchen was filled with smoke. Upon closer inspection of the oven, a significant amount of olive oil had spilled on the bottom of the oven and was burning off. We opened windows and doors and got fans running to blow the smoke out. All turned out fine in the end, but the sweet potato rounds were not as crunchy as I would have liked.

Then I realized how to prevent regrets. Listen to your inner alarm.

Had I listened and obeyed my inner alarm that made me stop and think about which pan to use, the olive oil never would have spilled and the fire alarm never would have sounded and the neighbors would not have been disturbed and the sweet potatoes still would have turned out fine.

Do I regret not listening to my inner alarm last night? A little, but not really because it served as a reminder. I learned from it and that I don't regret.