I am on the planning committee for our upcoming South Wood County Empty Bowls fundraising event to fight hunger. For some reason, we signed up again this year to be a team and sculpt "something" to reflect our mission. Leaving the house this morning with the temperature at a mere 4 degrees, I wondered what we got ourselves into.
Did I say "we"? Oh yes, Carter was a reluctant "volunteer" as well.
By the time we got there -- an hour into it -- our big square block of icy snow was already starting to take shape. Can't you tell?
Carter did do some chiseling and chipping, but mostly whined about the cold. "Mom, what does it mean when I can't feel my hands and face?" Uhm, that you didn't dress warmly enough! Heaven forbid he wear long underwear and snow pants like I did. He got a free pass for most of it anyway. By the time he had some warm soup inside and changed out of his allegedly "warm" clothes, he had to go to driver's ed. behind-the-wheel training with his instructor for two hours.
Needless to say, by the time he was done, so were we. But not without a few challenges.
Our spoon in our "Empty Bowl" broke so we had to glue it (freeze it) together. Then after chiseling out letters about our event, we were going to spray colored water on them so they would stand out. Well the straw part on the inside of my spray bottle (our only team one on site) broke. So one person went to the dollar store and I went inside the mall. (This was conveniently held in the mall parking lot.)
I knew the only possible store in there that might have a squirt bottle was the Bethesda Thrift Shop. I told them what I needed and all we could track down was a BBQ baster and one of those blue, baby booger-sucker-outers. With no other alternatives, I brought them to the checkout counter, where the cashier said she also found a Windex bottle under the counter and it was mostly gone. She threw that in for free. I just cleaned it out, added water and food coloring and we were good to go!
The other person got a bottle, too, and away we started! Only had to make one run back into the building when our nozzles froze up. Yes, it was cold out there. Sunny and double digits but extremely windy and cold.
We got done right at 2 p.m.
Looks pretty good, eh? Nothing fancy. We were there to spread our message. But there were some pretty elaborate designs among the dozen teams out there.
I found a cupcake just my size! I was going to take a lick of it (I'm not twerking, I swear), but I figured I'd get my tongue stuck to it like Flick and the flagpole in A Christmas Story. I realized then it was too stinkin' cold to hang around and take pictures so I will stop by tomorrow and shoot some after church -- assuming it stays cold enough so they don't melt by then.
Ha.
It did happen one year! Not gonna this year.
Now I'm all tuckered out from all that fresh air! Carter is at a dance at school. I guess if you spend most of your "snow sculpturing" time indoors, you have energy to dance!
I'd rather have my green food-coloring fingers and know I did my little part.
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1 comment:
Awesome story, Robyn!
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