Red Elastic

Well, I know that many of you have been waiting with baited breath to find out what profound things I have to say about red elastic. I have gotten more feedback on this post (or lack of post) than anything I have written in a long time. In fact, I have decided that from now on I am just going to post random titles and let you come up with your own blogs. I believe that will be more exciting for all of us.
I also know that nothing I could now write on this topic will ever live up to your expectations. I am sorry to disappoint you now with the whole story.
First of all, the title of this blog is actually suppose to be Red Elastic Medical Tape. I'm not really sure where this partial title came from or how it got posted. I have another draft saved on my computer with the appropriate title.
There are certain items in this world that fascinate me. Elastic medical tape, that they wrap your arm with after you get blood taken, is one of these intriguing items for me. I love to play with the stuff. Whenever I visit the doctor for lab work I am actually excited to receive the gift of a piece of this amazing invention. I can't just wad it up and throw it away after it has served it's purpose. I have to play with it awhile first. I love the way it stretches. I love the way it sticks to itself and then unsticks when I pull on it. I love the amazing variety of colors it comes in.
On Monday my oldest son took a trip to the podiatrist to have his ingrown toe nail looked at. He returned home with his surgically repaired toe wrapped in red elastic medical tape. That stuff is so versatile!

It reminded me of Rudolph's red nose and I was a little bit jealous that he got some tape and I didn't (but I draw the line at playing with goopey, smelly toe tape).
The next day however I went to have some lab work done and I got some red tape of my own. I was pretty happy. I folded it and unfolded it and stretched it to my heart's content. As I was playing with it I began to wonder who created this cool product and if it made them rich. I tried to search the Internet to find the answers to my questions, with no luck. That's when I typed the title for a blog post and saved it as a draft.
This morning my youngest son went to donate blood at the Stake Blood Drive. His brother is our usual family representative, but he has a 1 year deferral due to a dental graft that he received, and so the small one had to step up to the plate. Since he is only 17 I had to go with him to sign a release form.


While I was sitting at the church watching all the generous people part with some of their blood, I once again began to muse about the medical tape that they were all being given as a parting gift. I started discussing it with the lady in charge of the Stake Drive. I thought since she has worked in the medical field for many years perhaps she would know who invented it. She couldn't answer that question, but she did tell me that it is called Coban, which we thought might assist me with my Internet search for information. Most of the victim's arms were wrapped with red tape and I was all set to take a photo of my son, wrapped in red, for my blog. However, when he was finished he ended up with purple tape and refused to let me take his picture. When we returned home I spent some more time on the computer searching the word Coban. I learned that 3m manufactures this product and I also found a 250+ page online book published by this company that I am pretty sure includes the answers I am seeking, but I wasn't curious enough to spend my entire Saturday searching for the info and gave up after skimming the book.
I don't know who invented Coban elastic medical tape, but I hope they got rich because of it. In my opinion, it is one of the world's greatest inventions and entertaining too.


I'm not sure the youngest son agrees with my assessment. On the way home from the church he told me that the phelbotomist told him to leave the wrap on for 45 hours. I questioned if that was really what she said and finally we decided she had said 4 to 5 hours. That sounded better, but that was still difficult for the son. Apparently this son is allergic to the Iodine they used to clean his arm and in the 5minutes it took him to donate his blood his arm had broken out in a severe rash. The technician cleaned off his arm and told him to take a Benadryl when he got home, but his arm still really itched and having the tape wrapped around it didn't help. He finally ripped it off after about 3 hours and was very happy to wad the offensive item up and immediately throw it in the trash.

Today I am grateful that

even though I can no longer donate blood, I have children who carry on in the service.
I got to visit with my sister on the telephone.
Heavenly Father has a plan for each one of His children and that I don't have to know exactly what that plan is. I just have to trust him and have faith that there is a plan.

One year ago today - Employee of the Quarter

The Pin Cushion

The oldest daughter and I have been working on a lot of sewing projects this week. I am not usually a very particular seamstress and I don't really believe in using pins (my fingers work just fine at holding things in place and I am better at removing my fingers from the path of the needle than I am at removing pins before I sew over them). I do happen to have a lot of unopened packages of pins though (since I can't resist a bargain). A few of the projects we have attempted have required the use of pins. I opened a package and pulled out the required number of pins, but then I didn't know what to do with the rest of the pins. I grabbed a Ziploc bag and dumped them all into it. When I pulled the pins out of the projects as I sewed I didn't want to stop and put them in the Ziploc so I would just lay them down on the table and then they would end up on the floor and then in some one's foot. After this happened a couple of times, I dug through a few drawers and came up with a heirloom pin cushion that I inherited from someone - I think my mom or my Aunt Ruby. When the son-in-law came to pick up the daughter he was bothered because some pins were in the pin cushion and some were in the Ziploc bag, where they could injure someone. He very nicely stuck all of the pins into the pin cushion for me.

As I have continued sewing today, I have spent some time pondering the origins of this obviously homemade pin cushion. It is constructed out of a metal film canister, painted white, and a knee high nylon, stuffed with a piece of cotton. At first I thought it was just a piece of the nylon, but on further inspection I discovered that it indeed the complete nylon.

There was no skimping on this creation. What I am curious about is who created this useful tool? Was it a Homemaking project for a group of frugal Relief Society sisters? A Cub Scout created gift for a mother? A requirement fulfilled for a Primary bandelo jewel? or perhaps a summer project for a bored child? I probably will never find out when or by whom this item was created, but it has been fun imagining all the possibilities.

Today I am thankful for

an inquisitive mind.
a daughter to be creative with.
no more drippy faucet in the front yard.

One year ago today - It's Official, Happy Pioneer Day!

A Trip to the Car Repair Shop

I was a nice wife and let my husband use my van while the oldest daughter and I were in Utah this past week (she was a nice daughter and drove her car on the road trip). Sometime while the van was in the hubby's possession the red plastic cover on the right brake light fell off. That's apparently what happens when the temperature is consistently over 110 degrees. The glue it's stuck on with just dries up and stops working. Well, the hubby made some phone calls and our nice mechanic found a replacement for us. You can't just replace the cover, you have to replace the entire brake light unit, so today I drove to Phoenix to the car repair shop to get it fixed. When I got there he asked me to back the van into an small empty space between 2 other cars. I am not the world's greatest backer-uper and I especially don't like to back up with an audience, but I finally managed to get the van in the spot. I sat in the car while he worked on it, since it was a "quick" job and I almost melted, but not quite. When he was finished tinkering,he had me step on the brakes a few times, flip the turn signal off and on (which worked better after I turned the car on), turn on the hazard lights (which he had to come and locate for me), and put the car in reverse. After watching how well I handled the other jobs, I'm surprised he was willing to stand behind me while I put the car in reverse, but he was brave and I didn't run over him. Everything was working well and I wrote him a check and drove away. I decided while I was in the neighborhood I was going to look for a store that use to be close by so I drove around a few corners and then around the same corners again. I found the store, but it was no longer in operation. About this time I realized that the right turn signal sounded like it was running a race when I flipped it on. I have learned, from experience, that this is the sound it makes when it is not functioning properly. I debated for a while if I should just go home or go back to the shop, but I didn't want to drive back to Phoenix again tomorrow so I returned to the shop. First though, I did pull over, turn the signal on and get out and check if it was working. It wasn't. I wondered if the brake light was out as well, but I couldn't figure out a way to check it by myself. I got back to the shop and we went through the check list again - brakes, turn signals, flasher, reverse. Nothing was working. The repairman wiggled some things and pulled on some things and pushed on some things and replaced some bulbs and then we went through the checklist once more - I was finally getting the hang of this. Everything appeared to be working again, and so I left. As I was rolling up the windows and driving away from the shop my oldest daughter called me on my cell phone. As I started talking to her my air conditioner started making this high pitched whistling noise. It was loud enough that the daughter asked me what that noise was. We discussed that it was the AC and she suggested that I turn around and go back to the shop to get it checked out. By now I had turned onto the main road and was stuck in a major traffic jam where all the lanes merged into one. I turned the air conditioner off and turned it back on and the noise stopped. We talked for a few minutes while I crawled along the road and then she hung up. After I got past the construction and sped up the AC started whistling again - LOUD. I was trying to figure out why it only made the noise sometimes when it occurred to me that the sound it was making was quite similar to the sound the window makes when it's not rolled up all the way. I pushed the window control buttons and sure enough the passenger window was down a little bit and that was what was causing the noise. I called the daughter back and told her not to worry about the AC. It was fixed. We both had a good laugh at how dumb I am sometimes. I'm glad I didn't go back to the repair shop and ask for help. I'm pretty sure the mechanic already thinks I'm pretty clueless.

Today I am thankful that

my visiting teaching companion almost always sets up our appointments.
the turn signal stopped working while I was still close to the repair shop.
I have faith in an after-life and that I'm not in a hurry to find out for sure.

One year ago today - Royalty?

Bamboozled!

On Monday when my oldest daughter and I were getting ready to leave Utah and return home to Arizona I received a phone call from my youngest son. He wanted to know if it would be OK for him to go to Snowflake for the weekend with his sister and the roommate. I couldn't figure out why this request was phone call worthy and why he hadn't just waited to ask me when I got home. It made me think that there might be more to the story than I was being told. Perhaps there was something that he was suppose to be doing this weekend and he was hoping I wouldn't remember until after I had given my permission. I told him we would discuss it in person and then I thought and thought about his request. What was the rest of the story? Why did he want to go so bad? Was I forgetting something? I couldn't come up with anything.

When I arrived home we discussed it at dinner and I gave him my usual hard time (because it's fun to watch him sweat and I don't get to have fun that often) and then I told him I would think about it. The next day I told him that it was fine if he wanted to go. He seemed really surprised that I had said yes. Once again, I wondered if I was missing part of the story.

Today the oldest son and I were discussing why the roommate/girlfriend hadn't gone to Snowflake and I said that I was surprised that the kid had been so excited about the outing and wondered why. His response was "because ______ was going to Snowflake to visit her cousin this weekend, of course." Fill in the blank with the name of the cute girl who the youngest son has a thing for at the moment. Bam! All of the sudden the entire story became perfectly clear. I knew why he wanted to go and I also knew what he didn't want me to know. I have been bamboozled by the boy! I still would have let him go, even if he had given me all the details. I'm really not as mean as he seems to think I am, but don't tell him that. I have an image I have to maintain. I'm looking forward to having some more fun when he gets home. I've got something new to give him a hard time about.


Today I am thankful for

my son who inadvertantly shared "the rest of the story" and also bought me lunch.
my hubby who went to the grocery store with me and earned the money to pay for all the stuff we bought.
easily fixed mistakes.

One year ago today - 3 "Men" and a Lady

Shh, It's a Secret.

Don't tell anyone, but this morning at daybreak I was in my mom's backyard taking pictures of the sunrise and playing in the sprinklers in my nightgown.

I bet you wish you had known so you could have joined me.