This is what passes for fun at my house
When I went to the baby shower recently, I came home with one of the table decorations, a vase with Epsom salt, a candle, and festive confetti in it. My mother took a liking to it and decided it went with her shabby chic decor. However, she decided she didn't like it with the confetti, only the white of the salt and the candle. She then set about removing the confetti from the salt.
Here's the thing about the way she went about that: You could probably guess that, with this being my mother, she probably went about it in a weird way. You'd be right. Most people, I'd gather, would try to dig the confetti out, putting the confetti in one place and the newly-clean salt in another. Mom, in her infinite wisdom, would put the confetti in a little candy dish...then dump the salt back into the vase, covering up the rest of the confetti. Way to go. So, yes, she kept burying the confetti and couldn't understand why it was getting harder to get out.
Dad and I came along and we ended up dumping the vase-load into another container--one that was much wider than the vase, so it was easier to get a spoonful at a time. That was the other thing; mom would dig everything out in big spoonfuls and then complain about how hard it was to separate the stuff. Small spoonfuls. Just grab a little salt at a time--it's easier to see if it's confetti-free that way. Mom still had trouble, though. She really isn't fit for delicate/intricate/detail-oriented tasks.
Again, my father and I jumped in. We all took turns sifting through the salt trying to get the confetti separated out. Mom started frustrating me because I had this perfect little pile of confetti only in the candy dish, then she came along and would get most of the salt out of her spoon, but when the spoon was more confetti than salt, she'd dump the whole thing into the candy dish, thereby mixing salt in with the confetti. Really? Did you not notice that there was *no* salt at all in the dish? All the salt went back into the vase. Seriously. WTH.
Finally, we got it all sorted. Dad was a big help, having gotten bored while talking with mom, something like that. I came down for breakfast the other day and what had been a maybe half-full container had gotten so far cleaned out that I could see the bottom. Whoa. He claimed it's too cold for him to hang out in the basement, so he needed something to do. Too funny. But I ended up finishing it off last night. Phew. All this because mom couldn't stand there being colorful metallic confetti in with her white salt and candle. It's now the centerpiece on the dining room table. As for the confetti, it's still in the candy dish. I kind of like it there, because the dish is crystal and has a lot of facets, so it almost looks kaleidoscopic. I doubt it'll stay there forever, but I like it for now.
I think I need to get out more.
Here's the thing about the way she went about that: You could probably guess that, with this being my mother, she probably went about it in a weird way. You'd be right. Most people, I'd gather, would try to dig the confetti out, putting the confetti in one place and the newly-clean salt in another. Mom, in her infinite wisdom, would put the confetti in a little candy dish...then dump the salt back into the vase, covering up the rest of the confetti. Way to go. So, yes, she kept burying the confetti and couldn't understand why it was getting harder to get out.
Dad and I came along and we ended up dumping the vase-load into another container--one that was much wider than the vase, so it was easier to get a spoonful at a time. That was the other thing; mom would dig everything out in big spoonfuls and then complain about how hard it was to separate the stuff. Small spoonfuls. Just grab a little salt at a time--it's easier to see if it's confetti-free that way. Mom still had trouble, though. She really isn't fit for delicate/intricate/detail-oriented tasks.
Again, my father and I jumped in. We all took turns sifting through the salt trying to get the confetti separated out. Mom started frustrating me because I had this perfect little pile of confetti only in the candy dish, then she came along and would get most of the salt out of her spoon, but when the spoon was more confetti than salt, she'd dump the whole thing into the candy dish, thereby mixing salt in with the confetti. Really? Did you not notice that there was *no* salt at all in the dish? All the salt went back into the vase. Seriously. WTH.
Finally, we got it all sorted. Dad was a big help, having gotten bored while talking with mom, something like that. I came down for breakfast the other day and what had been a maybe half-full container had gotten so far cleaned out that I could see the bottom. Whoa. He claimed it's too cold for him to hang out in the basement, so he needed something to do. Too funny. But I ended up finishing it off last night. Phew. All this because mom couldn't stand there being colorful metallic confetti in with her white salt and candle. It's now the centerpiece on the dining room table. As for the confetti, it's still in the candy dish. I kind of like it there, because the dish is crystal and has a lot of facets, so it almost looks kaleidoscopic. I doubt it'll stay there forever, but I like it for now.
I think I need to get out more.