the sunshine festival

Or, The Sonnenschein Festival, which is it's proper German name apparently. (Um, peeps, what's German for "festival?")

Saturday morning, the Ouiser peeps headed out on a long journey to the blink-and-you'll-miss-it town of Hohenwald, TN to attend The Sunshine Festival. The drive was an hour and fifteen minutes, which I knew was a little beyond S's hour-long tolerance for sitting still. She did, of course, fuss a lot on the way there. She then fussed a lot on the hour and fifteen minute drive home that began thirty minutes after we got there. The festival was a total bust. I should've known better. It was supposed to be some sort of hippie/sustainable living shendig, so we thought there might be something interesting. Not so much, really. Plus we sent two-and-a-half hours worth of emissions into the atmosphere trying to get there to be green. Duh. I feel like I need to start buying carbon credits for these kinds of boneheaded moves.

Anyway, we unloaded S from the car upon arriving in lovely downtown Hohenwald, and she flat out refused to go into the stroller, which we knew was coming as she'd been strapped into the carseat for so long. So, M carried her through the 90+ degree heat. We got to watch some old dudes carry in the flags for the presentation of colors as we made it there as soon as the festivities began, and we got to hear a little bluegrass , and we got to see a little girl clogging on a sheet of plywood. Poor kid probably melted in the heat as she had hair down to her butt and was wearing jeans.

We did talk to some people who run a business that insulates homes with straw, which we will be interested in when the time comes to build our farmhouse. No use right now, though. We got some information on the Elephant Sanctuary, and The Farm School tried to recruit S. Then we met Sam, the guy who co-founded a pretty cool little organization called CoolPeopleCare. He gave S a sticker, which she wore all day. We bought a book from him, and some local honey to try to help out the local beekeepers...and work naturally on M's ever-worsening allergies. Then we headed back to the car. I don't count the trip as a rousing success. It was at least something different, though, and we were all together and relaxed-ish. Next time we're looking for a family outing on a Saturday morning, we're heading to the Farmers Market. I love that place, but there just aren't enough vendors set up during the week to make the trip worthwhile. We need Saturday produce trips.

Anyway, I'm just rambling. I will tell you that one of the pointers in today's Ideal Bite was about fast food, and it relates to one of my biggest pet peeves. Taking too many napkins/ketchups/fire taco sauces/whatever. M and I are seriously anal about only taking two napkins if we're out. Even now that we have S. We'll get up and get more if we really, really have to, but it's such a total waste. Know what happens to those unused napkins? They get tossed. It drives me nuts. Same with those stupid packets. And plastic cutlery. I picked up Blizzards one night for me and M, and I refused plastic spoons, and you would've thought I asked the girl to just put the ice cream directly into my cupped hands for the drive home. I am guessing I'm the first person at the DC Dairy Queen to refuse the red plastic spoons. (Wow, two posts in two days talking about DQ. Nice.) Anyway, only take what you need people. I know it takes more effort to only take one napkin, but it's worth it. The other thing was- get out of your car instead of sitting in a drive thru. I am hereby resolving never to sit in a drive-thru again. If I require fast food, which I rarely do, I will haul my butt out of the car to get it. Sonic is an exception, though, as we always turn the car off while we wait for roller-skating carhops to bring us our heart attacks in sandwich form.

I have to stop now. I have legitimate things to do. Have a great Thursday, peeps. That is, if you actually stuck with this insanely boring post. Sorry for wasting the minutes off of your life.