Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Making Lemonaid Outside the Lemonaid Stand

I am a good lemonade maker!
Give me a lemon, or most any "fruit" and I can create some sort of juice. I can take a problem and then find a solution, if not immediately then at least eventually I can find a way to improve it. I do not take full credit of course because Dan and I come up with a lot of this together...here are some examples.

Problem: Traffic at the airport is insane. There are "Airport Nazi's" blowing whistles for you to move on and then you have to take the 1 mile loop to come back. Cars have been lined up a quarter mile at times. The cell phone lot is in a dark, deserted place that I try to avoid.
Solution: We have a two level deck with departures upstairs and baggage claim for arrivals downstairs. While the whistles, honks and sighs of frustration emanate from down below....I am relaxing smugly at the curb upstairs. There are maybe 10 other enlightened souls up with me waiting for their spouses to arrive. Few if any passengers are departing at these peak arrival times so I can park and relax until Dan comes. If he has checked luggage he simply rides the elevator to the upper level.

Problem: How to get American goods while living in Italy on our mission.
Solution: Parents come with empty suitcases to pick up their missionaries. Dan would call one or two as needed to ask them to bring some things with them. We ordered the items on the Internet and had them sent to the parents home. Sometimes we asked parents to buy things if we couldn't order it online and then we reimbursed them upon their arrival. This is a partial list of the items brought to us...6x8' area rugs (2), nylons, items won on eBay, lap top (twice:), favorite candy, "underwear", 1000's of Cd's (only got nailed with tariff's once), decongestants (TONS! we sold them at cost to the missionaries) and onion soup mix. None of the other MP's had thought of this.

These are clear examples of making lemonade outside the lemonade stand, but it's really the small, everyday solutions that I come up with that sometimes amaze even me! I've even figured out something to list as a talent on the Relief Society surveys: making lemonade!

3 comments:

Andi Sherwood said...

Awesome. This is something you are definitely great at. :) Your solutions may be somewhat unique at times, but what matters is that you are coming up with solutions!

I would say that MOST of the time your solutions are quite reasonable and doable. Other times, well... let us not forget Jeattle, Jolympia, Jacoma...

:)

Esther Ogden said...

I agree-you are exceptionally good at making things work...even if it takes you all night thinking about it! Loved the back-to-back binder idea!

=)

Beverly Jensen said...

A new one! We need "saddle shoes" black and white 50's style for the road show. My solution is ingenious!
Take white shelf paper (self-stick) to cover the shoes. It may take more than one layer - but it should look awesome from the audience perspective.