Thursday, August 23, 2012

I am woman, hear me roar!

Over the past couple of weeks, I have had a handful of noteworthy empowering moments. Being married to MacGyver, I am used to hubby coming to the rescue whenever there is a challenging situation that needs to be handled. In these instances however, I took care of business myself.

First up, we were looking after Mat's parents house while they were away and they have a gorgeous fireplace to keep the house warm. Mat was running very late from work and the chill of the evening had well and truly set in. I reasoned with myself that if we were in the wild, just the kids and I, and I was the only one who could start a fire to keep them warm, then for sure I would be able to do it. So I set to work gathering supplies and can you believe it.....I made a fire!!!!!! I was stoked to say the least and I even got Sophie to take photos of me doing it so I could show Mat.

Then, a few days later I was all on my own at Mat's parents place, just about to leave and head back to our house (Mat was at work and his folks were still away). I loaded the car, put the kids in and turned the key...nothing. The bloody battery was flat. My first response was to call Mat and see if he could drive to me and fix the situation. Of course, he was working about an hour and a half away so that was out of the question. I then searched the shed for jumper leads but came up empty handed. Finally, I popped next door and asked to borrow a pair of leads. I then collected a solar charged car battery from the shed and jump started my beast. Boooyah! I am woman, hear me roar!

Then there was the time I was in the middle of some cake decorating and I managed to get three cuts on my fingers. Exposed wounds are no good when dealing with white fondant icing and neither are bandaids. I thought to myself "What would Mat do?" I came up with two options. One, he would use some electrical tape to plaster a dirty rag onto it...not really suitable seeing as the cuts were tiny, not gaping leg wounds and that method is sooooo unhygienic. Then two, he would just super-glue the cuts. Brialliant! That's what I would do. So the search began for some super-glue but again, I came up empty handed. I did however find some Bostik Multi Bond Industrial Strength All Purpose Adhesive and decided that would work just as well. I was wrong. It stung like nothing I have ever felt before and did little to seal the cuts on my hands. Now I am no doctor but I am putting it out there that perhaps medical super-glue uses a different formula to Bostik?? Just a theory.

The final empowering thing happened last night. I had separated some chicken breasts into smaller quantities and popped them in the upright freezer. The only trouble was that as one of the bags had frozen, it slipped through the shelving and expanded to the point that I could not get it back out. I resolved to leave it there until I next defrosted the freezer but it came to the point where it was either mince again for dinner or a chicken stirfry. I put my thinking cap on came up with a genius plan. I would pour boiling water over the chicken in the very back corner of the darn freezer, catch the run off in a bowl below it and presto, it would shrink and pop back through the racks. I began pouring and....it worked! Again, I was amazed and felt just a tad proud of myself. MacGyver would be so impressed!

So I guess the moral of the story is, don't ever feel like something is too hard or out of your league, just give it a go and you may be pleasantly surprised with the results. If it fails, you can always call 000 or RACQ. Oh and just in case you decide to pour boiling water into an electrical item like a freezer, I would suggest also training your kids to call 000. 


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm proud of you! I don't even have a husband & whenever something doesn't work for me I'm almost always calling on a man :p or Kat, mostly Kat... You've inspired me to try to DIY next time