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I'll get back to theme days once I find a groove of posting regularly. In the meantime, most of my posts are about some variation of books, bikes, buses, or Broadway. Plus bits about writing, nonprofits, and grief from time to time.

This blog is mostly lighthearted and pretty silly. It's not about the terrible things happening in the world, but please know that I'm not ignoring those things. I just generally don't write about them here.

28 July 2011

I Really Have Turned into my Grandmother

Chad and I have this interesting rhythm in our marriage: When one of us does something that might be bothersome/style-cramping/irritating etc., the other one has the right, and in fact the obligation, to request that the behaviour in question come to an end. No such objections mean that said practise may continue indefinitely. This is how I've managed to sneak pretty much everything past my husband: I do something, like adding dried fruit to the granola bars, and don't mention it until he does. And because he's easygoing and an all-around good guy, he takes a while to mention things. It's a nice system (for me).

I think this soap looks more
like cheese. Source.
We had one such instance come up recently: Our last bar of soap was in the process of disentigrating in the soap dish. We coped with smaller and smaller pieces of soap until I finally remembered to pick some up at the store. However, at that point I was pretty much committed to using the last of the previous bar, which by this point had more or less melted itself to the soap dish, so that when washing my hands, I just ran them over the dish to get them soapy. Chad came in while I was doing this one day, and I said, "I love how this whole soap dish has turned into our bar of soap." He laughed and said "Yeah," which I took to mean "And I don't mind if we keep doing that."

Truthfully, I didn't intend to turn our soap dish into the final resting place of soap slivers, which were to be extracted from their watery grave a little at a time. It was the result of never thinking about the soap except while actually washing my hands, and when my hands are dirty is not a time when I want to go rummaging through my bathroom cabinets. So, I let it go to this point.

It happens that about the same time, I was running out of bodywash. Since I'm a fan of all things homemade and also of reusing, I thought I would just scrape the old soap out of the dish and put the scrapings into the bottle with a little bit of water to see if I could stretch my bodywash a little bit further. Fortuitously, Chad's bar of soap in the shower went to bits about this time as well, so all told I had quite a collection of soap slivers to stick into my bottle.

Now if at this point you're thinking that this story is getting a bit silly, well, I can only agree. The resulting soap is a bit thinner than my usual bodywash (big surprise, since there's so much water), so I've been using a washcloth instead of my shower puff. Otherwise, I'm still getting clean and basking in the knowledge that I saved a few pennies, and that my grandmother (all my grandmothers, if it comes to that) would be happy that I didn't throw out something that was still usable.

What's a goofy thing that you do to save a few pennies/minutes/grey hairs/whatever?

12 comments:

erica and christy said...

My mother-in-law takes all the soap slivers from the shower and puts them at the side of the sink (in a dish) for handwashing, so she'd love your body wash solution.

My grandma always said it's a waste to throw away perfectly good aluminum foil. I haven't quite picked that up yet, but sometimes I feel guilty when I ball it up and toss it.
erica

Susan Gourley/Kelley said...

We stopped using paper plates completely, more for the environment than money.

Jenni at talking hairdryer said...

It drives me crazy when I can't get the last inch or so out of my lotion bottle. So when the pump stops pumping out the lotion, I cut the top of the bottle off and reach my hand down in the bottle and use it til it's gone.

Grahame said...

Similar to Jenni, I cut the tops of off lotion bottles when no more will pump or squeeze out. I also unplug things when they're not being used, because I read that they still use electricity.

Donna Shields said...

Same as Jenni, but I do that with my shampoo and conditioner.

Su said...

Wow, you are all amazing!

Danette said...

Alright... I do some of the above but and some other that you would think are weirdnesses but one that pops to mind is that I wash out sandwich bags and let them dry and reuse them. :D

Su said...

Oh, yeah, I totally do that! Also, try me... I bet I wouldn't think it was weird! ;)

Marian Allen said...

I wash and reuse sandwich bags, too, but not aluminum foil. I save glass and plastic containers to store stuff and send leftovers home with people. When I cut up a pineapple, I wring out the rind and collect the juice!

Marian Allen
Fantasies, mysteries, comedies, recipes

Su said...

I've tried washing aluminium foil, but unless if there's anything more than mere condensation on it, I always tear it. :(

Charlie's Church of Christ said...

I used to wash ziploc bags, but I can't do it anymore. And the dishwasher doesn't work. But I get ridiculous over small things like that. I wish I could reuse aluminum foil, that stuff is so pricey.

Su said...

Yeah, it is. And it's one of the few products that the store brand isn't worth it because of the lower quality. :(