life happens: public service announcement--marshmallow mush

Thursday, April 14, 2011

public service announcement--marshmallow mush

Can i just say
sometimes it is the small and simple things
that make me happy?!

I found these little bit of yumminess at the dollar store the other day.

In true Goldilocks fashion,

they are bigger than a miniature marshmallow,

but smaller than a full size--

they are the momma bear marshmallow--

Just right for this momma.

And to boot, they are tasty with different flavors-- not your boring bland white marshmallow. Not that i don't like plain marshmallows-- I just like them dried out. Some might even refer to them as stale?. Is it strange that i like dried out, plain white mallows? There is just something about the crunch that i find appealing. In fact i have been known to leave the bag open in hopes that they will dry out-- unfortunately they usually don't last that long...

So what do Marshmallows and public service announcements have to do with this blog? This blog is about many things, but the last thing i want this to turn into is a blog about the weather. Currently we are riding the weather roller coaster-one day we are having unusually HOT weather and then one week later we have dropped over 40 degrees and it is raining, and dare i say COLD?.
It is hard to know how to dress-

the question is: bikini or thermals?

(EWWEEE--what a mental picture-- the bikini it out of the question).

So, really the question is:

--expose the pastey white (marshmallow like) legs

or leave them covered?

There are things you take for granted when the weather is cool. Things people never have to think about unless you live in the toasty warm state of AZ.--Phoenix specifically. The things i am talking about are the things you can"t leave in the car even for a few hours.

Growing up (when life was much safer) my mom would run errands with us kids (not by our choice or hers). Often, if it was a quick errand (quick is a relative term when you are a kid) she would leave us in the car--usually with the windows up and when it finally would get warm (again relative term when living in CO) with the windows down. She didn't worry about us being taken (no one would want the whole brood--we were too onerie) The only thing that she worried about was whether or not we'd kill one another while she was gone. Now this is NOT something i recommend these days, but i can understand why it was so appealing--and lets face it, we lived on the wild side. We ran around the neighborhood (without cell phones) and my mom's only requirement was that we were home by dark. But this blog entry is not about my carefree safe childhood--it is about leaving things in the car.

Here in AZ,in the summer, even a few minutes in the car can leave you breaking out in a full sweat (and that is with the AC on). Once years ago, I was taking a sleeping child into a friends house and left my keys sitting in the car. My older children shut the door and the automatic door lock--LOCKED. It wouldn't have been such a problem--you can always get a spare key (only i was 20 minutes from my house)--but for the fact that when they locked the door, they locked my baby in as well. There he sat, in his car seat--smiling through the window at me.

(dang he was a cute little bugger)

It was high noon in the middle of the summer and I knew the temperature in the car was going to increase real quick. We tried breaking a window to no avail and quickly gave up and called the fire department. They did manage to get him out and declared him FINE (i am still left wondering about his humor and wonder if his brain didn't get a bit baked)--he was a tad red, but really no worse for the wear. On occasion I hear about parents leaving a kid in the car by mistake and I think of that day--things would have turned out much different if i hadn't realized he was in there. It makes me sad to think about that kind of loss--but i do understand how those accidents can happen.

Once again today i am reminded just how warm it can get in the car.
Let me preface this by saying that it hasn't really been HOT this week--
the weather has been
BE-UTE-I-FUL

--lest i say almost PERFECT these last few days.

So nice in fact, that i was able to open the windows in my bus and read and nap without melting. So with all this perfect weather i never gave a second thought about it being TOO HOT in my car --that was until i went to grab something out of my backseat and saw this.

Apparently while i thought the weather was perfect,

it was a just a tad warmer than i thought in my car--

warm enough to melt the DNA of the marshmallows bunnies into each other

I had just bought these yesterday.

Unfortunetly, I don't think there will be any recovering from this though.
Just one big ooeey gooey mess.

Other things i have learned over the years not to leave in the car when it gets hot--

Deodorant--yes it melts as well, but it does leave the car smelling, ohh so fresh and clean.
Candles--do i really need to explain? Again, good smell but often the wick goes MIA
Glue sticks--hot glue--glue glue--they ALL melt! It is NOT pretty, and leaves quite the MESS, because it is glue! And when glue cools off, it glues everything back together--even things you didn't want glued--like the bag it was in.
Magazines and Books--again back to that glue thing. This time it manages to UN-glue the bindings and you end up with lots of pages loose
Crayons--creates a waxy mess--not so good on the carpet or upholstery
Bottles of Milk--now it has been a long time since i have found one of these hidden gems in my car but i can still remember the curdled solid mass it was. Often that bottle would get tossed before i would dare to open it
Chapstick--ends up in the cap--or melted sideways
Soda in cans--when it gets hot enough it will EXPLODE. Yes, i am afraid to say that it has happened...MORE than once over the years(you think i would have learned)

Now i feel i can add to this list...