Twiddling (Thumbs, not Rackets)

Last night my grandmother, mother (Pam), niece (Jill) and nephew (Drew) arrived for a weekend visit from Ohio. That necessitated the house being cleaned. We acquired the dogs in October and I am not sure the house has been cleaned at all SINCE October really, so it was quite a project. It is not that nothing has been done, just not a lot. For instance, the basement bathroom has taken approximately five 'restarts' when the shower has been cleaned, the toilet, then other stuff comes up and three weeks later when I get back to it, I have to redo the shower and the toilet rather than moving ahead with the sink, tub and floor. This seems to be the cycle around most of the house where a lot of half finished cleaning projects are underway. Actually, Diane has been painting the spare bedroom for close to two years now for the same reason.

Hmm... now that I am thinking about it, the garage has been half (well, maybe quarter) cleaned since April so the cars have to park in the driveway, the flower beds never actually had all the weeds pulled last year, nevermind this year but for the third time, I have the wheelbarrow out in the yard and there is a very nicely cleared section surrounded by a jungle. Then there are the potted plants on the deck that I bought three years ago and never did anything with (amazingly, most are alive and well in spite of the lack of care).

Yes, that was another tangent... family, visiting... Grandma is 92, Drew is 5, the temperature is 100° so what do you do to entertain them that does not involve going outside and is not going to completely bore one or the other extreme (or me, for that matter)? On previous trips they have been to most of the common touristy type places like the zoo, aquarium, botanical gardens, mall, baseball game, etc. but the issue I still have is, even if we went back to any of those, the heat is a killer and will make it not worth the effort. So now what? Well, mom did say jokingly "we could clean the garage" so maybe that will work.

God help me, the best answer I came up with so far was Chuck E. Cheese...

P.S. As for the title? Read this. Who says you can't learn things reading the crap I write?!?