How to make a tissue box wrangler

This is my first how-to! I have always dreamed up lots of "inventions", but seldom follow through on them, especially if it is going to involve money. (Like getting an attorney, paying for a patent search, manufacturing, etc. OMG- I'm not that much of a risk taker.) But anyway, I had a problem I really needed to solve. When I'm driving alone in my car, and I suddenly need a tissue- I mean really need one, and someone has moved my tissue box out of my reach cuz like they wanted to sit in the passenger seat or something dumb like that... what do I do? I dreamed this up, made it in a few minutes and tested it on a long road trip where the car was full of junk, there was a shifting ice chest in the back on the floor and all sorts of challenges to the thing's survival. Here is how to make a simple tissue box wrangler for your car:

I had a little of this heavy cloth-backed vinyl in my stash. I cut it to fit, and wrapped it almost all the way around a standard square tissue box. I added 2 pieces of 1" wide elastic to make it fit around it snugly yet be able to slide on and off. I also added a piece of the same elastic across the bottom so that the box wouldn't fall through. I took two more cuts of the elastic (doesn't need to be elastic, but it's nice and stiff and won't just crimp under stress) and sewed them vertically on 2 opposite sides of the holder.

Then I just found an old drawstring from a hoodie or some sweatpants (I never throw these parts away!) that was long enough to go around the box and the console in my car. I made sure the string was placed low enough on the front of the console that it wasn't going to slip up and slide off.

That's it! It did end up resting on the floor a little more than in this picture, but it has stayed in place for months and everyone in the car can now reach a tissue. One of the more important things in life. Smile. Please.

Kneedles

Well, I'm a little in the dumps these days, but must remember to count my blessings. It was not so very long ago (1 year or less?),that I was bragging to my friends with their knee and hip problems that "at least I don't have any knee problems". But my turn has come. I really do have to admit that for quite some time I've felt something funny going on in my right knee when I scampered up and down the stairs 25 times a day. Of course it got worse and worse and because of all that bragging the evil eye done spotted me. I had to have an outpatient arthroscopy the other day to repair a tear in the medial meniscus and clean out a bunch of "debris" from the rather extensive arthritis in that knee. Waaaa. I didn't think this would happen to me. I just retired and was starting to really have fun! Ok, Miss Alanious--- it could be WORSE! Stop whining and just keep your chin up, your top lip stiff (what the hell does that mean, anyway?) and you'll be back to having fun again soon.

Pockets for All!

Pockets Why in the world don't women and girls deserve pockets in their clothes? Even before cell phones I used to crab about that discrimination, but now, more than ever we've got to have pockets, and very decent ones. Anytime I shop for pants, that is my #2 criteria (well, they have to fit first). I check the location and depth of the pockets. Sometimes they are only deep enough to carry my paper clip. And I like to shop on line for clothes, but although the description might say "side pockets", it never says "to a depth of 6 inches". Six inches is really the minimum needed to carry a phone, a driver's license, a little cash and a key. Any more shallow, and everything falls out when you sit down in the movies-onto the sticky floor-that slants toward the screen--in the dark and possibly even unbeknownst to the owner. I shopped a little (very little) for school clothes for the previously mentioned 12 year old girl. I tested the pockets-- 2 inches was the maximum depth on most of the (JC Penney) "designer" jeans. WTF? She acted like this was no big deal, but of course that attitude is required of her, since she must contradict or have a different opinion than her old grandma! We bought them... hope she can keep track of her phone this year.

Carry on-- people are waiting!

I'd like to get this blog going a little more regularly. I think I'll practice for a while before I go public, to see if I can keep it up better than my exercise routine! I'll have more time now that my granddaughter is going back to school and my time will be 99% my own. OH JOY! I've pretty much dedicated all my time to her all summer because I know that, perhaps even as early as next summer, when she's 13 1/2, she may fight to stay home alone every day. I hope her parents say "no", and if they do I think we should find a month-long camp or a farm for her to go to. I got a very very old home medical reference book from my grandparents. I think it was published in 1901 or something. Among the yellow crispy pages, there is a chapter on "the young". It says that the cure for the stubbornness and impertinence of the young teen is to "send them to the country to smell the new-mown hay". Sounds perfect to me. I bless this child's precious little heart. She is my only grandchild and I love her forever, but I wish I could wipe that exasperated look off her face!

I'm free!

How wonderful to be retired! I have so many ideas and projects and feel so luck and priveledged to be able to pursue them!

Sew and Sew

11/30/11
I keep saying, all I really want to do is SEW, but I don't feel like I can take a day and just do that when I have so many other things I have to do. Like get my mother (Alzheimer's) moved into a new care home against her wishes, dispose of her excess belongings and furniture and clean her old apartment, clean my room and put away the summer clothes, learn how to use my new laptop, so I can download the new quilt designing software I got for my birthday (in October!),  put the kitchen back together and clean it after having a new counter top sprayed on. And then of course there is work. I don't mind the job but it sure keeps me from having as much time as I want to SEW.  Waaaa Waa Waa

My hard drive is full! Why do I keep eating more and more??

I keep saying that I'm on tech overload and I don't think I can really learn any more new things. But I've got a digital camera and download lots of pictures and fiddle with some of them in Photoshop, putting hair on bald friends and erasing ex'es from the background. But if that gets any fancier, I'll have to draw the line. Then there is my new android phone... I'm sure there are 10,000 more things I could do with it, but I think I'm doing real good by texting using swype, dictating my grocery list, surfing the web, downloading YouTube videos. But this is the highest tech phone I ever want. I still need to learn how to edit the videos I take on it and burn them to a DVD.
I think I'm kind of old for all this. I'm hoping it will protect me from getting the Old Timer's disease that runs in my family!