IN WHICH WE CHANGE OUR NAME TO MACGYVER

I ordered and received a new clamp for my Elan lap stand that will accomodate q-snaps.

(Thank you, by the way, to all of my stitchy peeps who so kindly told me that such a thing exists, and thank you to the wonderful gentleman who owns Artisan Products who was so patient with me on the phone as I babbled away incoherently.)

I know that there is a trick to keeping the q-snap from slipping in the attachment, but alas, I left the directions at home safe and sound. So for the last hour or so I've been happily stitching away, but a little frustrated that I couldn't figure out how to keep my project level.

The girls wouldn't work. (Lazy bums...all they want to do is hang out in the big girl sports bra all day catching crumbs and goofy juice spills.)

My big huge minibus of a belly wouldn't work.

Nothing I did seemed to fix the problem. I was just getting ready to abandon all hope when a thought came into my head. "If only I had a strip of rubber", I thought. "I could put it between the clamp and the q-snap to give it some grip."

I contemplated calling Magoo and asking him to run to the Targets to pick up some of that Rubbermaid shelf liner stuff, but then I remembered that he is terrible with directions and not allowed in big box stores by himself. (I'm not kidding. He got lost in the Martin's once and had to text me from the dairy department to come to his rescue before we could exit.)

Then I thought about asking him to bring me the thingie we (meaning I) use to get the lids off of pickle jars and such, but he has a propensity for getting distracted by something shiny, and God knows he'd never get here at all.

And then...I looked down.

A tourniquet! A long strip of rubber that is used on my arm to plump the veins for dialysis! Normally, they throw them away after use, but my tech forgot it today and left it on the table next to me.

So I futzed a bit with the tourniquet, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't hold it in place, tighten the clamp, and keep my arm still at the same time.

"If only I had a way to attach this to the q-snap", I pondered.  I thought about stitching it in place. Nope. Then I thought about asking Magoo to bring me some tape from...

Tape!

Right there on the same table next to me were about seventy-eleven strips of...tape!

So I did a little wiggly Happy Dance right here in the chair...grabbed my supplies, and voila!

Can you believe it?! Problem solved, and all with materials that were three inches away!

Sometimes I just love my silly little life!

I'll leave you with a photo of us at the Hacienda on Friday night, celebrating Magoo's birthday. (But please be gentle, for I am as big as a house and using this as a Weight Watchers "before" photo.):

Happy, happy, joy, joy all around, Dearies! Back to stitching and shenanagins!