Category Archives: family

Hoopla!

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Hoop it up! If you think hula hoops are only cheap plastic toys that kids play with in the backyard for a few minutes before going on to something else, then please think again. Older Daughter, an accomplished belly dancer and teacher, has fallen in love with hooping. It’s the latest fitness craze, plus it’s fun and easy to learn. I mean, who can resist picking one up and swaying those hips? You really get a feeling of accomplishment once you keep one in the air for a few minutes. But it’s more than core work. Older Daughter teaches workshops and classes in hooping, and she choreographs whole routines using your arms and legs for a total-body workout. Plus, she and my son-in-law make and sell hoops. It’s fascinating to watch the process. They make the hoops out of flexible plastic piping and then create the designs with sticky colored tape. Amazing! They do custom hoops as well as children and adult sizes and even portable hoops that fold up for easier transport. In true entrepreurial spirit, they’re planning to take their hooping business to the Web and sell at local festivals and shows — if only they could come up with a name. Every possibility on their list is already taken or one or the other of them doesn’t like it. The top contender of “Hip Happy Hoops” turned out to be close to the name of a Web site touting recreational drug use — not really good for the family-friendly image they’re going for. Husband and I think they should go with “Capt. Adorable’s Hoops.” After all, 2-year-old grandson Capt. Adorable is a great help with the family business — he jumps up and down on the hoops when they’re laid out on the floor and unravels the rolls of tape when he’s not using them as dog toys. Adorable!!!

Gulf Oil

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Word that the leaking Horizon well is under control is encouraging, and that is good. But damage has been done in ways we’ll be dealing with for years. Husband and I were in Pensacola, Florida, this past week for a quick couple of days. It’s one of our favorite vacation spots and we were anxious to check out the oil-leak effects. Here’s what we found: The Emerald coast was gorgeous, as always … but, sadly, clean-up workers seemed to outnumber tourists. We didn’t mind no lines at restaurants and no crowds on beaches, but that also meant no money coming in and no jobs for the folks who live there. And that is not good. At Joe Patti’s Seafood, there were more employees behind the counter than shoppers in front of it — and no local shrimp, grouper or oysters. The Boardwalk shops in Pensacola Beach practically echoed with emptiness. A local newspaper story quoted locals as saying it was “January in July.” And even though theoretically folks who’ve lost money and jobs to the oil leak will be reimbursed, what’s going to happen next year when all the tourists who got scared off by the oil this summer decide to stick with the new places they found? We’ll be back. And you should, too. You can order from Joe Patti’s online at http://www.joepattis.com and keep up with the latest Pensacola happenings at http://www.visitpensacola.com/.

Happy Birthday!

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Aw, today is my birthday. Whoo-hoo! Fifty-three years ago at about 4 p.m. my dad finally convinced my mom to go to the hospital and a couple of hours later, there I was. They were laughing about that today. “I didn’t want to go too early and have to lie there for hours,” my mom said, shaking her head and smiling. “I just told her to stop being stubborn and that we were going to go to the hospital,” my dad said, chuckling. Realizing for the first time how close I’d come to being born in a car or sidewalk or hospital hallway, I was the only one in the room not really amused by this story. But that’s OK. They then went on to the fun parts about how they set up the baby bed and brought me home to their one-room — not one-bedroom, but one-room — apartment and how my dad picked wildflowers in their backyard for my mom’s coming-home bouquet. Now, that’s a story. I also had a birthday party at Older Daughter’s house, and 2-year-old grandson Capt. Adorable generously shared the Elmo tablecloth, plates and napkins left over from his birthday party. We had the perfect birthday lunch: Nothing But Noodles takeout, beer, cute little cupcakes and chocolate and peanut-butter ice cream. Plus, the Captain gave me hugs and kisses and told me “Happy birthday cake,” because to him, “cake” naturally comes after “birthday.” I like the way he thinks.

Too Many Rooms at the Inn

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When it comes to travel, my husband and I are pretty laidback people. It takes a lot to rattle us. And by “us” I actually mean “my husband,” who traveled all over the world in his former job as a sportswriter and handles just about any glitch with style and grace. And even though to me “roughing it” means having to make do with generic brewed coffee at the breakfast buffet and “adventure vacation” means choosing between the pool and the beach (as in “sitting and reading at”), I’m not that demanding. Really, I’m not, despite the evidence of us going through three rooms in one night during a recent trip. But none of them were my fault. The first one had plumbing problems, so before we could even unpack I stayed in the room while he went to the front desk to get another one. It took him several minutes, though — because the second room we were given unaccountably had people already in it. So back he went to the front desk for the third time and we finally got a room with working plumbing and nobody else in it. Except the spider my husband found in the bed while I was brushing my teeth — and didn’t tell me about until the next day when we were back on the road. “It was a little one, though,” he said, “and if I’d found another one we would have gotten another room. I just really hated to go back to the desk a fourth time.” I secretly think even a second spider wouldn’t have done it — a third one, maybe.

Florida Road Trip

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For folks in middle Tennessee and north and central Alabama, a summer road trip to Florida means driving south on Interstate 65. And that means a stop at Priester’s Pecans in Fort Deposit, Alabama, at exit No. 142 about 35 miles of Montgomery. A gift shop and rest stop and restaurant, Priester’s is best known for its free-sample bowls of its famous flavored pecans. Now, I never get up in the morning dreaming about pecans — I’m not even a big fan of pecan pie — but if we’re anywhere near Priester’s, I have to stop and nibble on such taste treats as Key Lime, Peach and Honey Glazed pecans. This truly is marketing genius, because you can’t sample without thinking, “You know, the one thing that would make the rest of my vacation complete is a bag of Cinnamon Pecans.” There also are all sorts of Priester’s-made candy and even plain ol’ unflavored pecans there, plus a cooler stocked with homemade frozen casseroles to make the first night at your beach rental much more convenient and plenty of souvenirs and gifts for when you’re headed back home and you’ve forgotten to get something for the grandkids. These Priester’s folks think of everything! Go yourself and you’ll see: http://www.priesters.com/

Shameless Self-Promotion

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I am not one to use my blogging space to shamelessly market and promote my other endeavors … I mean …. to try to convince you to read my things I actually get paid for … uh … I mean … to try to up readership of my other online articles … oh, what the heck … Here is a food story I did today for the TimesDaily on a cool and refreshing no-cook fresh-vegetable salad — http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20100728/ARTICLES/307289999 — and my latest weekly newspaper column, http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20100723/ARTICLES/307239995, which is about my 2-year-old grandson Capt. Adorable and I learning how much fun it is to drop globs of Play-Doh on the floor and squish them flat with our feet. His mommy was not amused. Okay, the commercial is over. We now return to your regularly scheduled blogging.

Shopping

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Rarely has a retail promise been fulfilled so promptly. The blue Curel Itch Defense bottle, on the left, announces that the new Curel is coming soon and urges us to look for it. We don’t have to look far, because right beside the old bottle is the new version, which as far as I can tell is “new” only because 1) it’s in a white bottle, 2) it’s in a bigger bottle and 3) it costs more. Husband and I were in Wal-Mart recently and he’s the one who spotted this. The side-by-side displays were the same for other Curel lotions, such as the Intensive and the Nourishing flavors. But here’s the thing: The old blue bottle also proclaims its newness — see that yellow oval above the “C” in “Curel”? I don’t know how long the blue bottles have been in production, but I do know it’s been long enough for the newness to have worn off. But apparently the white bottle is newer and in a year or so we probably will have another newer still. And in all fairness, the Curel Web site does say that the new bottles have a new formula, one with “Advanced Ceramide Therapy” that helps skin stay strong and moisturized — although the old bottles still are featured on the Web site.  So we’ll see. This whole thing sort of reminds me of the Great Apple-Juice Switcheroo of years ago, when the kids were little and I bought apple juice by the ton. My favorite store always had quart bottles at 89 cents until the day when it advertised new “special” pricing: Four quart bottles for $5! A bargain!!!

Football

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Yup, it’s mid-July and supposed to hit 100 degrees today but around here we’re all already thinking fall — and football. Because with SEC coaches taking the podium during media days in Birmingham and doing their best to charm the press, this week marks the unofficial start of football season. It’s that giddy optimistic time when everybody’s smiling and anything can happen and championships are within every team’s grasp. Fans have made their hotel reservations. Brides and hostesses have checked the game schedule and know not to schedule anything on home weekends. Sports journalists — such as my newspaper-sports editor husband — have kissed their spouses “goodbye” and settled in for a good five months of all football all the time. And while I enjoy a good football game as much as anybody, it’s true that I also look forward to the start of the season because 1) It means college basketball is getting closer; 2) I love the game-day menu of chips, dips and anything fried and 3) Who can resist a “Peace, Love and Alabama” shirt? Not me.

Family Vacations

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You know how when you go on a vacation that involves sharing a space with a bunch of other people who are mostly related to you and there’s always a point when you declare that you absolutely positively never ever will go to the beach or anywhere else again with your cousin Michelle? The key is to be prepared. Look, you plan the food and you organize the packing and you get the car ready for the trip so do the same thing for family dynamics. You know somebody will be the Worrier and somebody will be the Worker and somebody will be the Fun-Lover, so proceed accordingly. Just make sure the Organizer does her job. Read more at my weekly newspaper column, http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20100716/ARTICLES/307169994.

Art

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Our 2-year-old grandson, Capt. Adorable, is a huge fan of trains and so the family has all gone a little train crazy. By now, most of us can create a train with whatever materials we have on hand in two minutes flat. The winner for Best Train Creation, of course, goes to the Captain’s daddy and here’s why. Exhibit A, on the left: My son-in-law’s sidewalk chalk drawing of a train. Exhibit B, on the right: My sidewalk chalk drawing of a train, helpfully identified as such in case anybody has trouble recognizing it. Now, can you guess which of us is a trained, money-making artist and high-school art teacher and which one of us is not?