July Diversions

 

4 – Independence (?) Day

This used to be a day to celebrate this country and the freedoms fought for and won.

 

 

 

8 – Body painting day

I LOVED Laugh-In. I would take notes of the various funny things to relate to my friend the next day at school because she wasn’t allowed to watch it. 

 

 

 

15 – Tapioca pudding day

I think this is my favorite pudding of all time. Even more than chocolate pudding. Of course, you can adjust the recipe and make it chocolate tapioca pudding, which beats them all, spoons down. 

 

 

 

24 – Amelia Earhart Day

I was in 4^th grade when I read a story in my reader about Amelia Earhart. Short little biography of her adventures starting when she was very young. I was quite taken with this brave little girl. When I got to the end of the story and it told about her being lost and never found again I was FURIOUS! How could they leave me hanging like that?!?

 

 

 

27 – Walk on Stilts Day

I don’t recall how old Paul was when he built himself a set of stilts. And they were good, sturdy ones. He had no trouble walking all over with them. That’s not a picture of him. I don’t think we ever took one.

 

NOPE!

 

Unpopular Opinion Game! Funny spin on the usual.

Name 10 things that you don’t like that everyone else likes...here are mine:

 

Choc covered bacon. Apparently this is a thing and several people have voiced their delight in it. No. You can cover a lot of fruits and nuts with chocolate, but NOT bacon. Bacon is perfect just the way it is.

 

Anything with salad dressing, sour cream or mayo. And coleslaw makes me gag just thinking about it. In grade school, if you got the hot lunch you were FORCED to eat everything on your plate or you couldn’t go out for recess. We would have weekly menus telling us what each day served. There were many times that I would have loved everything except grated carrots and raisins in some kind of goopy slop. If it had been just plain carrots and raisins, fine.

 

Tons of different vegetables that most people seem to enjoy. Don’t care. I’m a grown-up and don’t have to eat anything I don’t want to.

 

Gambling. Some people say that marriage is a gamble, and if that’s true, I really hit the jackpot there. But feeding money into a machine in hopes of getting a fortune I find to be senseless. Same with playing cards for money. I don’t believe it’s a “sin.” It’s just not something I would enjoy.

 

Horror movies. Spoofs or funny ones are OK if they aren’t filled with gore. But the usual fare in this genre is NOT to my taste.

 

Any kind of rap. Even Christian rap. If I can’t understand the words, it’s all just a bunch of noise to a beat. And sometimes I DO hear the words and they disgust me.

 

Eating contests. Trying to cram as much food into yourself in as little an amount of time is foolish, wasteful and harmful to your body. Share that food with others.

 

Car races. Waste of gasoline. And it pollutes the air.

 

Boxing or “wrestling.” Real wrestling is fine. But the scripted stuff is stupid. Picking people up and throwing them down is not wrestling. And in boxing, you are trying to do as much physical damage to another human being as possible. There are better ways to compare strength.

 

Almost all reality shows involving sex, back-stabbing, over-the-top drama, “courtroom cases” or ridiculous premises. I LOVE BattleBots though!

 

 

 

Handy Hacks

 

We’ve all see the articles/videos about hacks that make life so much easier. Some are pointless and solve a problem that never existed. Some of them I look at and think “I’ve been doing that for YEARS! Who DOESN’T know this??” And some are actually of value. Since I love my peeps so much, I decided to try some of the ideas that were new to me.

 

Cut an empty TP tube along one side to make a cuff to keep wrapping paper from unrolling. This one makes so much sense and I was embarrassed that I never thought of this. I’ve been using rubber bands all these years. Then I tried it…IT DOESN’T WORK! There isn’t enough tension for the cut tube to retain the shape. If you store your paper upright, like I do, the tube will just slide down to the bottom. It helps a bit, but I’ll stick to rubber bands. If you store it horizontally on a shelf, then it would be fine.

 

Coffee in ice cube trays. I’ve mentioned this one before, but it bears repeating. I love iced coffee in the summer and using coffee ice cubes makes a huge difference. I don’t always drink an entire glass of it at one time, putting the remainder in the fridge. It’s pretty much diluted from the water ice cubes by the time I get around to finishing it. Yuk. Coffee cubes are better.

 

Use pop-top tabs to offset hangers for more space. You can buy hooks or tabs to put over the hanger top to add another hanger below, but using your own things is cheaper. However, the tab from a soda can will only take wire hangers. If you use the thicker plastic ones (like I do) you will need a different size tab. The pull-top ones from canned fruit or vegetables work just fine for that.

 

Put some ice cream in an almost empty jar of Nutella, or other type spread to get the last bit of yumminess. My suggestion would be to heat up the jar of Nutella in the microwave first and then put in the ice cream.

 

Something I started doing years ago was to set my kitchen timer for laundry. Since the washer/dryer set is in the garage, I don’t hear the buzz sound when the load is done. The timer really helps. That way, when you get ready for bed and want to put the clean sheets on, you don’t suddenly remember that they are still in the washer ready to put in the dryer…

 

One absolutely amazing thing I learned about came from a FB friend who has since passed on. She would make what she called “Muffin Tin Meals” for her daughter. You take a muffin tin and fill the individual spots with mainly finger food that is easy for a very young child to deal with. No cutlery required. Quarter a sandwich, or use a cookie cutter to make fun shapes. KEEP THE LEFTOVER SANDWHICH BITS. You can put them in soup or stews. Have carrot and celery sticks. Nuts and raisins. Cheese sticks. Little crackers. A cookie or two. Fruit. I thought this was brilliant and tried this with Lia. NO INTEREST WHATSOEVER!!! I still love the idea, it just didn’t work with Lia. 

 

What are some of your favorite hacks?