• Family Matters,  Super Dad

    Dude, we totally got a flat tire.

    Dude, we totally have a flat tire.

    Don’t you love Bug’s expression?

    It wasn’t very exciting though because we were close to home and I called my trusty Triple T insurance guy who came right out after he smoked three cigarettes and drank a cup of coffee. I only had to wait thirty minutes.* Not bad for a tow truck guy. He didn’t even have to tow us! He pulled out the super-mini, fancy-dancy Audi car jack thingy from the trunk, jacked up the car, pulled off the lug nut caps and fixed our tire right there on the spot. Without even reading the manual!!!

    Mr. Manly-Man

    It was so hott. I love a man who will rescue his wife in distress.

    Then we drove our car to the tire place with the dinky little spare tire. It was so cute next to the other big fat tires. I almost want to keep it. Except I can’t drive on the freeway with it and this spoiled my big plans to visit a friend in San Diego today. Blasted tire! Literally.

    7Days, Day 5: "Cold Waiting Room"

    This is me waiting in the tire store waiting room. (It’s my 7days photo.) The dog’s name is Beamer.

    What’s funny is I was just thinking to myself, probably yesterday or the day before, that I need to learn how to change a tire. I know it’s not that hard. I was even going to ask Toby to teach me. So I guess it was providential that the tire blew out today. I watched Toby carefully and except for the part about not stripping the lug nuts and being careful with the not-very-strong allen wrench, I feel pretty confident I could do it next time.

    us

    *I could be exaggerating.

  • artsy fartsy,  crafts gone wrong

    The Flashlight Flop

    materials

    My idea was to paint flashlights in patriotic stars and stripes. Then we’d attach red or blue cellophane and one some wiggly chenille stems in front of the lenses and it would be sparkly and cool. What better way to wait for fireworks than a fun flashlight to play with right?

    stripe painting Rapunzel painting

    SuperChic painting mauve is totally patriotic

    If crafting success is rated by how many daylight hours were spent happily painting, then this was a smashing success. The kids had a blast painting. If success is rated on magazine-quality photos then it was a disastrous flop. The paint did not stick to the smooth plastic of the flashlights.

    It’s not really shown in these photos but when I pulled off the masking tape that I had so carefully taped on there to create stripes, it pulled the paint off with it! The foam stars didn’t work either. Paint seeped in around the star edges and when they were removed the blank space was a sloppy smudged blob instead.

    sloppy paint job

    star idea

    Painting a star on the lens didn’t really work out either.

    attaching the chenile stems

    But you know what did work? The chenille stems. They were totally funky and cool.

    twinkle twinkle

    They make neat wiggly shadows in the dark.

    I think this craft could be rescued by either painting with some special made-for-plastic spray paint or maybe roughing up the plastic of the flashlights with sandpaper before painting. We probably should have used painters tape instead of masking tape too but… we used what we had on hand and it was fun.

    making spooky faces

    Sometimes the process is more important than the end result anyway.