Miss Mary Mack

For whatever reason this morning my mind jumped back to the playground at Jefferson Elementary school and sitting on the ground in a circle with my friends clapping out a rhythm to Miss Mary Mack. 

You know her, she’s the one with all the buttons down her back?

Yeah, I couldn’t really remember anything else about the rhyme either, so when I got to work, I googled Miss Mary Mack.

Memo to me:  don’t do that again because you get the blue screen of naughty!  Yikes!!!  But, if you do the search as hand clap rhymes, by golly it pops up!

So now I have the whole rhyme, plus I have a bunch of other playground memories popping around in my head. 

• On the swingset locking legs and then twisting the swings up tight and letting it unwind in a crazy, dizzy spin until we’d almost puke.  
• Hopscotch outside the fourth grade rooms.
• Ice skating in the winter time.  
• Freeze tag on the flat below the hill.
• Rolling down the hill, again almost puking from the vertigo.  

I don’t know why my mind went there today.  Maybe the long, cold, miserable winter and spring is wearing me down, and I need a play date.

Since spring is taking it’s own sweet time to make an appearance in my neighborhood this year, I went looking for it online last night.  I just googled “spring mountain lake” and brought up all the images. 

Oh my!  I spent an enjoyable half hour scrolling through pictures of places I’ve never seen but would love to visit in person.  At the time, I just reveled in seeing something that didn’t have snow in it. 

Maybe it’s because we spent two weekends in a row with Cubby who keeps us young at heart, so I went tripping down memory lane as a reaction. 

Her newest thing is if she wants something that you have, she’ll say “I really love [insert object].”  As in, “Gramma, I really love your tablet.”  Which, translated, means she wants my tablet so she can play games. 

Or, “Grampa, I really love those dilly beans.”  Translated:  Give me some dilly beans right now and keep them coming. 

The last time she was here it was very nice out and the house warmed up to the point I dragged out some capris to wear.  As I was walking past her, she said to me, “Gramma I really love your tattoo.” 

Okay, sister, you are not getting my tattoo or one of your own!!

After she left, I got to thinking what we could do this summer when she visits.  So I went back to Google--seriously, what did we do before Google?--and search for backyard kids games.  Millions of ideas, but the ones that looked like the most fun were the things with repurposed pool noodles. 

Like an obstacle course:

Or a bowling alley:

Or a sprinkler:

Or a giant Kerplunk game:

Apparently I have reverted to my childhood because yesterday at Hy-Vee as I was working all day I had the theme to Sesame Street in my head.  What’s up with that?!

I guess I’d rather act younger than my age and come off as silly than act older than my age and come off as dead. 

Now, in the spirit of elementary school and childhood, I think it’s time for milk and cookies and then a nap.  Who’s with me?

Gave It Up For Lent

Image courtesy of Brainy Quote

This year for Lent, I vowed to give up plastic.  I'm not a big chocolate fan, so that was never going to be a sacrifice for me.  Someone suggested giving up coffee, and I laughed until my ribs hurt.

So giving up--or at least drastically reducing--my use of plastic during Lent seemed like a doable kind of thing. 

Until I tried to put it into practice.  That stuff is EVERYWHERE!!  Seriously. 

Try and go to the grocery store and not come home with plastic.  I'm not talking just the stupid bags that don't hold anything and fall apart right way.  I'm talking all the packaging, too.  I went to grab a six-pack of 16-oz bottles of Diet Pepsi.  Nope, plastic in the bottle and the carrier thing.  For that I opted for a 12-pack of aluminum cans--both recyclable. 

Milk comes in a plastic jug, although in the Health Market at Hy-Vee I did see some actual glass bottles.  All the juice comes in plastic bottles. 

I may have to redefine what I meant by "give up plastic" which, in a nutshell, was to stop using those awful plastic bags.  Those things out to be outlawed.  That being said, I'm not all that fond of paper bags either since the flimsy little handles tear so easily. 

I do have several of the cloth reusable tote bags, but more than half the time I forget them or they are loaded up with something else--like yarn. 

I know that there are direct-sales companies that sell reusable totes, but they are insanely expensive!  I bought one of those for Molly when she was in college to haul her laundry back and forth, and it worked very well for that.  I'm just afraid if I loaded it up with groceries, it would take two people to haul it into the house!

Boxes.  That's what we need.  They are reusable, recyclable, and biodegradable.  Like the ones they used to have at the Food Bonanza warehouse back when I was a kid.  It was out there on Highway 14 just west of Rochester.  Right about where First Supply is now, or thereabouts. 

Does anyone else remember the Food Bonanza?  That was the first concept of warehouse grocery stores like Sam's Club and Costco.  You'd go in the front door and you got a flatbed cart, some boxes, and a grease pen.  The kids all jumped on the cart and my poor mom who stood 4 feet, 10 inches and weighed maybe 100 pounds soaking wet had to push three kids with a combined weight greater than her own around the store.  At least until the cart got too full and we had to get off. 

There was no packaging.  The shelves were stacked with the cases and cartons just like they came off the truck.  You would take however many you needed, mark the price on each item with the grease pen, and put it in the boxes you had grabbed at the front.  This was very much an on-your-honor system.  The prices were clearly marked above the product. 

The thing I remember most was that the canned pop was in the very back corner, and if we behaved well up to that point, we could all pick one can of pop.  We would drink it before we even got to the checkouts, but we put the empty cans, which Mom had clearly marked with her grease pen, up onto the counter for the cashier to ring up. 

Wow, that was a trip back in time and totally not where I was going with this when I started. 

So, back to plastic.  Oh gosh, I just had another memory about plastic pop into my head.  Did anyone else ever use plastic bread sacks in their boots if they had a hole in the boot?  Or was that just our family? 

As I was in the middle of writing this, I found a post on my Facebook news feed with a calendar of how to avoid plastic during Lent with an idea or a bible verse for each day of Lent.  If you do a Google search for "lent plastic calendar" you'll find it.  

I love some of those ideas!  Particularly, I think I am going to start bringing my own reusable tumbler with straw.  I already use my travel coffee mug all the time to refill here, there, and everywhere.  Some places, like Starbucks, will even give you a little bit of a price break for bringing your own cup.  Saves their bottom line, I suppose, not to have to replace cups so often that way.  

I'm not sure how I feel about the "bring your own silverware" concept.  That might be a little bit out of my comfort zone; we'll see.  

I know that I am not going to be able to eliminate all plastic from my daily routine; it just isn't possible.  I can, however, avoid as much of it as I can starting with opting for reusable bag or paper bags, reusable cups, and not using plastic straws. 

I'll keep you posted on how that goes.  If nothing else, it is going to make me more aware of the environment and our impact on same. 

If you have any tips or tricks on how to reduce the amount of plastic we use, please share!!

Bird Brains

Image courtesy of SlapLaughter

Remember when I said spring was on it's way?  Man, what was I smoking?!

But still, we are ever hopeful that winter will leave.  In the meantime, we are all doing our best to just get through it. 

This includes wildlife.  To do our part, we have a bird feeder outside the living room window.  It's one of the green cage things that holds a pressed block of birdseed in it.  We tried doing the tube things, but the wind is always blowing here, and more of that stuff ended up on the ground and growing in my hosta beds than actually feeding the birds. 

The reason we got started on this is because I wanted to attract the goldfinches.  They are so pretty in the summer time, and we spend so much time out on the deck that having a few winged friends around seemed like a good idea.

Image courtesy of https://www.publicdomainpictures.net

That worked for awhile, and then I forgot to put the bird seed out for a couple of weeks and they all deserted me.  It's been an uphill battle to entice them back! 

Part of the problem is that there are also pileated woodpeckers that like those flock blocks, and they are fat, messy, bullies who scare the other birds away.  Well, except the sparrows.  Nothing scares sparrows.  The darn woodpeckers irritated me so much I quit putting out birdseed altogether, which sort of defeated the point.

Image courtesy of All About Birds

Recently Captain has taken an interest in luring the woodpeckers back to our feeder.  He bought a special woodpecker-specific flock block, and it worked.  There were several of the creatures outside our window.  Captain was ecstatic.

Here's the deal.  Captain's excitement never fails to suck me into a vortex that I didn't want to be involved in to begin with except I like to see him happy.  So when I saw a woodpecker at the feeder, I jumped up and down and hollered for him to come quick!

And here we are at the point where we stand in the birdseed aisle at Menards and debate which birdseed and/or suet to buy.  Part of the debate centers around cost, because you all know how much angst Captain has with spending an extra (or even a necessary) dime.  Part of the debate centers around which kind of bird we want to attract.

I keep advocating for the finches, but Captain is really campaigning for the woodpeckers and cardinals.  Okay, cardinals are cool.  I get that. I wouldn't mind orioles or blue jays, but I think blue jays are bullies too.  

Okay, okay, okay.  We are going to be bird people.  Now I will become obsessive about it because that's how I roll. 

So I spent a good chunk of the evening on Sunday surfing the web looking at images of "DIY bird feeding stations."  Holy feathered friends, Batman!  If you can imagine it, it can be built. 

In my dreams, I would have something like this:

Image courtesy of Pinterest

...but will probably have something more like this:

Image courtesy of DIY & Crafts

In reality, we will likely have something that falls in the middle.  If I talk sweet enough, I can convince Captain to make something out of metal because he is better with metalworking than woodworking.  

To offset the aforementioned angst in the aisles at Menards over the cost of flock blocks, I got a recipe from a friend to make my own.  The recipe actually instructed to make a wreath form, so that's what I did.  

Yep, epic fail.  I always have great ideas and horrid execution.  The recipe called for sunflower seeds, nuts, and berries; I used goldfinch seed.  Their final result looked like this:

Image courtesy of Simple Solutions Diva

Mine didn't look anything like that!  I foresee a trip to Menards for sunflower seeds!  

Whatever we end up with outside our living room window, metal or wood, thistle seed or sunflower seed, woodpecker or finch will be fine because it gives us an opportunity to enjoy a hobby together while being good stewards to God's creatures.  

Spread your wings and fly today, my friends!