My favorite Ice Pack

I wish I had discovered Pinterest a few years ago. I'm not sure it existed back when we started our Viking Games, but the wonderful tip I'm going to show you today was certainly out there on the internet somewhere. To give you an idea of why this particular tip would have been so helpful to me, allow me to show you something:

 These are two of my very dear friends in a spontaneous contest of manliness brought on by a surge of testosterone. What, may you ask, brings these two perfectly sane dudes to throw down in a spray-painted circle? A contest we like to call Shield Bash (no pictures, sorry). I do have a picture of the shields following this year's game:

They were pristine when they went out there, now they're scratched and scarred. The guys didn't fare much better. Last year, we had a lot of busted faces, busted noses.... there was blood everywhere, even all over the shields. This year, the guys seemed to be a little more cautious, but we still had some bumps and bruises. Enter.... the best home-grown ice pack I have ever encountered:

It's just alcohol and water in a ziploc bag. the alcohol keeps the water from freezing solid, so you have a squishy, malleable, reusable ice pack for all those bumps and bruises brought on by Shield Bash or any other brutal game you play. In a house with two boys, this is sure to come in handy. I'm going to follow the blogger's advice and make a handy little sleeve to put these in, since they are very, VERY cold. I'll make sure to keep the freezer well stocked with these puppies!