Fist Full of Dollars...Sand Dollars That Is

  We BOTH slept in today!  I cooked breakfast and then we decided to work on all the shells we have.  We soaked the sand dollars in tap water then made a weak solution of bleach and water to soak all the other shells in.  We headed for the beach about 11:30 but it was pretty cool, so we weren't sure how long we would stay.  When we got on the beach there was a very strong wind blowing... our chairs wouldn't even stay up.  It was chilly, about 69 degrees but the sun was shining brightly, so we decided to tough it out for a while.  We walked the beach twice and found a total of 18 sand dollars! (Don't worry, they were all dead... we throw the live ones back). We played a few games of Yahtzee and then we left at 1:40.  When we got back Kathie and Ken were out, so I asked if they wanted to come over and play some cards or games.  They came over about 3:00.  They're not card players, so we played "Pass the Pigs" and "Tip of the Tongue," a fast paced trivia game.  They left about 5:00.  John grilled hamburgers and I made mac and cheese and a veggie for supper.  I cleaned up the dishes and John went for a walk because he hadn't gotten one in this morning.  I started working on the shells again by rinsing the sand dollars and making sure all the "stuff" that had collected inside them was out.  That took about 45 minutes.  Then I dropped them into a stronger bleach/water solution and it was amazing how fast most of them turned white, but I must admit that I liked some of the tan ones better before we bleached them!

The results are all so different!  Compare them to
the pix in an earlier post before they were bleached. 

  Then I went to work on all the other shells while John got some things in order for our move on Sat.  I spent another hour and a half on them!  Boy, do I ever smell like bleach!  Somehow I managed not to get any on my clothes, however, John, not thinking, wiped his hands on the back of his dark brown shorts.  UH-OH!!!  Tomorrow, per the internet, we will put a light solution of white glue and water over the sand dollars to strengthen them and put a light coating of mineral oil on all the other shells to bring out their colors.  I hope it's worth all the time it's going to take!

BEFORE...

 

AFTER... what a difference!  It was worth it after all!!

  We watched some of the World Series and then went to bed.  (Hopefully, we can get a picture of Kathie and Ken to add to this post... our brother-in-law, Ken is so on top of getting pix for Bonnie's blog posts.  We have to get better with that!)