Getting Off-Track!

Today has been great. Late this morning, Tony's sweet sister Annie came to visit us and after a fun, short visit with her the two of them took off to go take pictures and to eat lunch, at La Fours restaurant, in Kerrville. I didn't go, because I had to take care of some ranch paperwork, etc.

When I was done with my work I started brain-storming about potholders. And while I was cooking a delicious grilled cheese sandwich for my lunch, with the mayo-covered side of bread on the outside—it hit me like a lightning bolt on how Jean and I could produce more potholders without lifting a finger.

When Jean and I have our business meeting I am going to suggest that we throw potholder parties. Yes, potholder parties where we will invite young kids ages 5+ and their friends to a free Tony's Pizza, potholder party and we will tempt their parents into bringing their kids, so that they can go have a 3 hour mother's day out.

When the children arrive, at either Jean's house or The Cabin, we will hand each child a plastic loom, with big bags of loopers, but no metal hooks will be allowed, because the kids might poke their eyes out and then we'll get sued. And that's also why we must have the parents sign waivers acknowledging that Jean and I will not be held responsible if their child chokes on a loopers.

When the kids are settled down, Jean and I will take turns at these weekly potholder parties, teaching these hungry kids the Pilgrim's ancient art of making potholders. Then we will tell them that there is going to be a contest to see who finishes making a pretty potholder first, because they will get the first small slice of Tony's pizza.

And we will have to reward the LOSERS with slices of pizza, too, because nowadays a lot of parent's believe and insist that every child entered into any kind of competition is a winner—there are no losers. Which, of course, I believe is total B.S. And if you disagree with me please take the time to watch the hilarious movie Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, when Ricky Bobby says, "If you ain't first, you're last." (And I do apologize for getting off-track here.)

Anyway, we will also give all of the winners a candy bar, loaded with lots of sugar, so it will help energize them and encourage them to make their next potholders faster.

This afternoon I've been crunching the numbers and this is what I have come up with:

1. Allowing for 4 pizza/candy bar breaks, at 15 minutes each, they will eat up 1 hour of time which only leaves us with 2 full hours of production time.

2. Any kid should be able to produce a finished potholder within 30 minutes, so 4 X 5 kids = 20 potholders. And if we can get 10 kids to show up—we're talking 40 potholders made in one day!

So if my calculations are correct: 4 parties a month x 5 kids = 80 potholders a month. So this is actually doable. And if this works, in the future, Jean and I will then expand our potholder empire by asking all of our friends to throw potholder parties for us, in their homes, that will be sort of like those Tupperware parties that our moms went to, when we were kids. And that's about it for today.

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!