inventions/solutions... or creativity in everyday life

You know my blog is all about living the creative life.
If this post seems like something about nothing, well, Seinfeld made a career of that and who am I to discount that??
So I have come up with solutions to a few annoying every day problems...

#1. Cole no longer enjoys just eating when you feed him. In fact he often asks, begs, demands to be fed --until you actually feed him.
Then he saunters over sniffs the bowl decides it's not worth his time to chew and walks away. Or he begs from my plate, I finally give in and hand him a bite of whatever I have, he sniffs it, looks at me like he's lost all respect for me and walks away. (Cole: "I cannot believe she has thumbs, can open the fridge and still eats that stuff")

Anyway...
He has a food stand so his highness-with-long-legs can dine in relative comfort. He hates the non allergy kibble, the one that does not make him sick, and that costs a good portion of Daddy's available salary.
In an effort to make it more palatable, we heat water, add canned food (same allergy food) mush it around and make sure it's warm. If he eats, he likes to lick the "gravy" first. Which means he splatters it across the wall behind the dish.
Once that stuff dries, it's like plaster and harder to get off than tomato stains off a tshirt.

As an aside, Cole wants to eat a bit, wait til that settles, then eat an hour later but he wants it to always be warm. Mommy dearest here, just heats water and adds that each time.

 He doesn't need a food stand, he needs a buffet with a chafing dish. 

The other day, after we both went at it hammer and tongs to clean the wall, I pulled out my creative thinking cap, and  Eureka! I cobbled together a barrier made of a piece of foam core board (sacrificed from the studio) a white plastic garbage bag, and propped it up behind the dish. Now all we have to do is turn it around to the clean side at some point, then toss it when icky and replace. Ah HA!
Wasteful but a lazy solution and we are both pleased.

(Note, we seldom have company, and don't really care how it looks, so avoid us  if you care)

#2. The sliding door to the porch is nearly impossible to open. In fact, it's likely the same age of the house built in the '80's. Whatever.   It sticks.
Because the power goes out so often, we have candles laying around. One day, I said, Eureka! I will drag this candle over the track! And I did

And still do about every six months. Then the door nearly kills itself sliding open so fast it hits the wall! I wonder why I don't do it more often!

For the quilters out there, this is a bit like finally giving in and changing the rotary cutter's blade. We will saw away at fabric hoping to get one more cut out of it, I mean it's sharp enough to remove a limb, but not to cut fabric. Or it cuts fabric all but two threads every three inches so that you have to go back and recut them.

So of course the ugly service candle lives near the slider. Where else would it live? Again, don't come over expecting a show house! Come over for a poodle kiss!

#3. The lantern that lives on the coffee table. It ain't pretty but it's functional. As mentioned in #2 our power goes out way too often. Now, we live in a metropolitan area, it's non stop traffic, people, and wires around here. But the power goes out just the same. We do not like being in the dark, so we stopped storing the lantern in the basement, and just gave up the concept of decorating a house, and leave it on the coffee table.

Oh, and the tree like sculpture was a gift one year, it's a jewelry holder but I liked the concept of  "tree" and just decided to leave it here as if it was a sculpture. Shrug. 

People, I have lots of these creative solutions to the annoyances of life! I bet you do too.
I think just for fun I will start a new series on them. After all, if you can't use your creativity to make life easier, then why not?
I'd love to hear one of your creative solutions, leave a link to your blogpost on it if you like in the comments section. Linking to rascalandrocco
Creatively yours, LeeAnna