Sunday, July 24, 2011

"MacGuyvering"

I discovered something about my brother in law on our recent family vacation.  He is a problem-solver.  I think his aptitude for that must be off the charts.  I got to where I was calling him "MacGuyver".  If we didn't have it-no problem, Darrell would find a way.

Darrell is also into all things natural and/or organic.  I knew this to be the case, but I had never seen it in so many applications as I did on our vacation.

Here are some examples of the "MacGuyvering" that Darrell did:

1.  Problem:  Darrell doesn't like chemicals in sunscreen.  

Solution:  He lugged around a plastic water bottle with home made sunscreen.  He used it, and by the end of the day he was very, very, brown.  Why?  Because some of the key ingredients were not available to him.  He "made do" with what he had and ironically, instead of acting as a sunscreen, the oil in the concoction acted as a tan accelerant.  We had a good chuckle at that!


2.  Problem:  The charcoal we had required lighter fluid to burn.  

Solution:  Darrell tried walnut oil.  We had a lovely grilled meal.


3.  Problem:  We wanted Darrell to make make his famous oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.  We couldn't find a cookie sheet or mixer in the rental house.    

Solution:  Rig some foil together and voila-cookie sheet.  Also, use a blender for mixing.  In a pinch it will suffice.


4.  Problem:  The toaster from the rental burned one side and did not toast the other, and just for kicks liked to blow a fuse when we used it.  

Solution:  Butter the toast and use a frying pan on the stove top.  Surprisingly good toast.

5.  Problem:  Deflating the boats and tubes we had in order to pack them for the return trip.

Solution:  He discovered that to suck the air out of the inflatables, you had to move the hose around somehow.  This actually falls under "discovery" but still is a problem solver.  J didn't feel so good that last night.  When he woke the next morning,  he was happy to learn that the job was taken care of.


So my sister and I dubbed him "MacGuyver".  When he finds a new application for some item, or finds a way to fix a problem, we say he is "MacGuyvering".  

 He could write a column for Real Simple Magazine.  He could be featured in the "new ways to use household items" category.  At the very least, I think he needs to enter "Survivor".  He'd clean up.



Much love and many laughs,

A

Friday, July 22, 2011

And the moral of the story is..... Vacation run-down pt. 2

 On our recent vacation, which included my sister, her husband, their boys, and the four of us, we traveled to Seagrove, FL.

It was a wonderful trip.  The beach is always my favorite type of vacation.

Though I have spent a great deal of time over the years with my sister and her family, I don't recall having such a good stretch of time with just them.  We really enjoyed being together.

Our week was filled with repeated efforts to locate the best beach access points.  We had the gear (chairs, umbrellas, boogie boards, towels, sunscreen, and of course books). It was quite a load to haul.  

Moral:  Next time-plan ahead to get a beach front property.












The first day at the beach, I noticed something in the water that was not normal.  It was June Seagrass.  It was only moderately annoying to me, but the younger boys experienced chaffing in their "unknown region" (to quote the neighbor kid), and that was baaaaad.

This seagrass (with added "kelp") was so thick it actually colored the water a beautiful shade of blue-green.  Wonderful to look at.  Not so wonderful for playing in the waves.  Two days before the end of our trip was the worst day for seagrass.  The young guys and my husband went in the water and shortly thereafter returned to the beach with patties of seagrass in their pockets.  It was wild.  

I felt helpless to do anything about it.  I didn't have the swimsuit problem that they did-no pockets and all.

The patties were so bizarre.  So nice and damp and firm.  I couldn't help myself.  I didn't see the point in wasting them so I took the patties and pummeled my son with them.  

Moral: When life gives you lemons, throw those lemons at someone.  It is an instant pick-me-up.





"Sea Patties"



I wanted to cook this trip.  I knew that it would be crowded in that highly popular vacation area, and the kids always do better when they can play and relax in a home instead of the torturous wait at restaurants.

Because of that, we made many trips to Publix.  Soooo many.  One day I said to my brother-in-law, "At least we don't have to go to the grocery store today!"  Guess what, we did need to go to the grocery store.  

Moral: Never assume you have enough milk in the refrigerator. Also, do not spell refrigerator with a "d".  You will get slammed by spell check.



The first day, I discovered that I had not packed something.  That always happens right?  The things I had not packed were beach towels-HA!  While my sister and I were getting kids sunscreened, we sent the guys on a towel recon. mission.  Hesitant as always, I questioned my judgement on that, but we all were so anxious to get to the beach, I relented to save time.

J came back with two towels.  They looked worn.  I immediately assumed that he had rented or borrowed them from the realty place we used to book the rental house.  (They had to make a side trip there as well.)

J informed me that he had purchased the towels.  "You bought used towels?" I cried!  No, they're new.  Incredulous, I couldn't believe him.  I thought it must have been a joke.  These towels looked well-worn.  

I kept waiting for the punchline.  And waiting, and waiting......

Then, he proceeded to put on his beach shoes.  The shoes were the slip-on type that he was to busy to try on before he left the store.  You see, my husband doesn't buy his clothes or anything like that.  In my heart of hearts, I question whether or not he even knows any of his clothing sizes or his shoe size.  Without my supervision, he chose to guess his general size and then proceeded to chose the closest size DOWN from that.

That's when it all broke loose.  You would have thought I had insulted him personally.  We had an animated private discussion, had our required "head-butting" episode for the trip,  and moved on.

Moral:  If your husband brings you worn towels, when you get home, add them to the "dog" towel collection.  They're great for that!




Our last day on the beach we took a bunch of photos with the kids.  Darrell had on his new yellow shirt.  He picked that color because if he spilled mustard on it, it would not show.  


Having previously been burned by a mustard stain, Darrell remained cautious in all clothing choices.  Fool me once shame on you.  Fool me twice and you're not gonna be fooling me again:)  You can read about it at houseof1000dreams.blogspot.com.


Also, my kids were dressed for beach photos but my husband did not give much thought to what to wear in case I wanted to take his picture.  He told me " at least I can spill food on this and it won't show-especially ketchup!"


Hmmmm..... that rings a bell.  Oh yeah, Darrell said the same thing about mustard and his shirt.  


So for what remained of the trip we referred to them as "Ketchup" and "Mustard".  It's not quite as catchy as PB & J, but it would have to do.



Ketchup and Mustard


We had a wonderful time!  Come and go with us next time!

Much love and many laughs,

A














Saturday, July 16, 2011

Signs (pt. 1)

This was a sign posted at the pool we used during our stay at Seagrove, FL.  Leave it to MacGuyver Darrell to notice it.






Looks fairly standard right?






Look closer....











Never in a million years would I have thought I'd see the word "Diarrhea" on a sign.


Niiiiiice......



Much love and many laughs,


A









Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Vacation run-down

We were blessed to spend last week in Seagrove Florida.  My sister, her husband, my two nephews, my kids and my husband and I made the long trek to the shores of northwestern Florida.


This trip was wonderful in too many ways to count.  It goes without saying that many of the events of the trip will be fodder for my blog.


I will go into greater detail about the trip in the next blog.  I just thought I'd give you a bullet point highlight list.


You can let your imagination fill in the blanks...


Humidity
Sand
June seagrass
Kelp
Beach access
Publix
Mermaid
Chaffing
Lemon tart
Walnut oil
MacGuyvering
Frozen grapes
Runescape
Movies
Bicyclists
Architecture
Dishes
Unsightly beach towels
Seafood
Masters of the Grill
Home made sunscreen
Garmin
440
No shoes
Chloe & Lizzy


More details will be revealed in the next blog.  For the time being, I thought I'd throw this out there to see if any of the subjects piqued anyone's curiosity.


Hope you're having a good....whatever it is you're having:)


Much love and many laughs,


A



Saturday, July 9, 2011

Last camp post this year- I promise

I forgot about my job as a parent.  That is to lovingly embarrass your children whenever you get the chance.  So with that I thought I'd tell you about what l learned from last year's camp.

1.  Send your kid with only the junkiest clothes they have.
2.  You're good!

Last year, I sent B with his cutest, most put together/without being matchy- matchy clothes.  When we picked him up his bag was a whole lot lighter than when we sent it.

What I didn't know, was that in all the hub bub of last day, the kids gathered all their stuff and set it in an area for parents to pick up.  Ben's laundry bag did not get in his suitcase and I did not notice it on the other side of the luggage mountain.

Remembering that I had a motto about packing for camp this year.  It was "only send the grossest stuff for camp".  But if you're like me, you throw your children's really gross stuff away.  We selected and packed and marked everything off our list.

However, even though I knew I was sending practically disposable clothing, I felt the need to take photos of the items.  I have to say it drives me crazy to be looking for something and never find it.  I didn't want to wonder if we had sent it to camp or not.  (And yes I know, that's incredibly anal retentive.  I can't help it and neither can trained professionals either, so we just go with it:)

Well, I'm pleased to say that B was much more aware (or his counselor was more on top of things than the one last year), and he got back with everything (or most everything I believe-I'm not THAT anal retentive:)

As I was going through his bag, I was reminded of what he DID get back with last year.

When I unzipped his bag last year, the only undisturbed thing I found within was a stack of nice and neatly folded boxers. They looked as if they hadn't been touched.  I just laughed and asked him about it and he got a big grin on his face.  Apparently, in his mind at camp it was "underwear optional".  What a funny kid!



Much love and many laughs,

A

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Banned list addendum

Recently, I posted a blog about my daughter's "ban list".  In writing some other blogs, I remembered two other things she has been banned from.

As I mentioned in A hairy dog and a good fellow, Teddy has a shock collar.  It was purchased with his safety in mind.  However, we discovered that you can use indoor "zappers" to keep some rooms off limits as well.  Teddy doesn't know there are only 4.  When he has some really bad behaviors (pooping on my playroom rug) I'll move for a short while so he'll hopefully get that behavior corrected.

One day I noticed that Teddy was skittish and wouldn't follow me in from the playroom area to the main part of the house.  Later that day, we discovered the reason.  My daughter moved the zapper to the bookshelves right at the opening that led to the main part of the house.  Poor Teddy.  It took several days of TLC to get over that one.

Hence ban #6-no touching/moving the zappers.

Also, sweet cheeks likes to take showers now.  She can spend so much time in the shower singing the Spongebob Squarepants song, or anything like that.

One morning, I hopped in the shower and found evidence of several chunks of hair.  One small cluster was conspicuously entangled in my razor.  The hair was medium length.  It was strawberry blond.  It didn't take much to deduce that someone had played with my razor and cut off some of her hair.



                                  (sorry to those of you who might be grossed out by this:)




She vehemently denied having done it and I finally told her "I know the truth," followed by "I want you to tell me the truth!!!"

I envisioned her telling me "you can't handle the truth!"  However, after much cajoling, I got a confession out of her.

Hence ban #7- no touching mommy's or daddy's razors.

Needless to say, she keeps things interesting around here!






Much love and many laughs,

A

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

What is it? (pt. 2)



Okay, so I'm finally getting some interaction on my blog.  Thanks Lease and Dare.  It was fun!!!  

So with that in mind, I'm doing the number two installment of .......

"What is it?"

 (cue cheesy game show music)




Winner will receive a lovely lunch of turkey & gravy, cranberry sauce, green beans, crescent rolls, sweet potato casserole, and pumpkin pie.

Black out dates: June 6, 2011 thru November 23, 2011 and
November 25, 2011 thru December 31, 2011.
Prize must be claimed in the 2011 calendar year.

Good Luck!


Are you ready?


Here it is!












(This photo brought to you by Hobby Lobby)








Much love and many laughs,

A