Saturday, July 20, 2013

Lemonaid Stand

Today was to be the big community garage sale, I am not big in to garage sales.  A lot of work for very little payoff; people haggle for pennies.  Me, in most cases, I would just rather give away stuff to someone who could use it, or to a charity.  But I digress, this is why I do not blog as much as I should...

Anyhow, Arianna and her friend had an idea to have a lemonade stand, we thought the community garage sale would be the best day for it.  Turns out that the threat of rain and the actual rain washed out the garage sale, but the girls' efforts to sell lemonade went rather well. 

They not only made some money, but they learned many things while they had fun.  The girls worked collaboratively together to serve their customers.  The ice and money box tasks were shared between the two girls, no small task for kids their age.  They were polite, "Thank you," You're welcome," smiles and small talk were emphasized.  The girls worked on their patience, a skill that definitely needs strengthened.  The cars and people were not as numerous as they hoped and there were definite lulls, but they held up well.  The girls worked on their money skills to male change for the customers, I helped and coached as needed, but it was their show.  I had to pour the lemonade for them at first, a gallon pitcher is too big for a six year old to use without spilling.  Once Arianna's friend's mom found a pitcher with a button pour spout, so it would not need tipped to pour, the girls worked together to run the entire service.

They enjoyed their effort and learned several good lessons.  I got to watch them have fun while they worked and learned. The day turned out better than I expected.

On a related note, the title is such due a misspelling on their sign, a flattened Scentsy box painted white and taped to several old metal posts.  I did not help with the labelling of their sign, just the preliminary set up; flattening, cutting, painting white, and delivering to have the words painted on.  Typos happen, the girls learned about that too, I promised to fix it for the next lemonade sale.  I commented that the typo was intentional, they we raising money to save lemons from being crushed by big corporations. 

Cheesey humor, but then again I liked "Sharknado," it was no "Class of Nuke' em High," or "The Toxic Avenger," but few movies are.

Friday, July 19, 2013

Grill Smoker Lesson

I was given a new grill as a combination Father's Day/birthday present this year.  I recently bought a smoking box to use on the grill top...I learned today that you need to add the firebox well before you put the food on the grill.

I added some water soaked wood chops along with dry wood chips to the box about five minutes before I put chicken on.  Not even close to smoking, next time I wait about fifteen minutes before adding meat to the grill; by then the chips should be smoking...at least that is the plan.