Monday, September 15, 2008

Waste Not, Want Not

Where does this come from?!

My mother?

I mean, she's too young to have lived through the Great Depression... did she pick it up from her mother and pass it on?

What is it about my upbringing that makes it SO HARD to throw something useful away?

Whether it's tin-foil pie pans, elastic bands, half full lotion bottles, plastic straws and forks or 2 tablespoons of mashed potatoes...

What IS that?!

I know I'm getting better than I was... at least I hope I am.

But it's still hard to think about wasting something.

Take That Rhubarb, for example... there it sits, 3 extra large freezer bags full... probably 25 or 30 pounds of rhubarb... and I'm kind of losing my interest in it.

But the fact that it's there- that it could be made into juice, or pie filling or any number of rhubarby things and is, instead, going to waste, drives me nuts!

(Probably more than the fact that I spent several hours sorting, cleaning and chopping it up.)

What's a girl to do?

Yeah.

Well.

Let's just blame our Mother.

I think we can pin "You have to eat the meat! It's the most expensive part of the meal" on her too... as well as "If you're too sick to go to school work, then you're too sick to go out tonight. So yes. Feel guilty. Absolutely."

Good thing our Mother is a good sport...

12 comments:

  1. Oh man, we MUST be sisters, since it sounds like we have the same mother.

    If you ever need several dozen yogurt containers, a bushel of twist ties, or a drawer full of toilet paper rolls, you'll let me know, won't you?

    And no, I still don't need any rhubarb, thanks.

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  2. And I save Cheez Whiz jars, Activia yogourt containers, peanut butter jars, and Becel tubs like they were going out of style. When I am feeling Laura Ingalls-ish, I'll throw leftovers in them and freeze them and then throw them away a year or so later when I say to Tracy "when the ____ did we have stew last?" (not a good indication that the frozen cheez whiz jar of slop is edible anymore).
    Oh - and from Tracy and I - don't move. I think the REAL calling was just to scare you that you had to move (well, we tried, anyway....)

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  3. For the most part, I have no trouble with filing things under "G". Maybe that's something more important to help you with tomorrow than the dishes in the high cupboards...

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  4. It's not that my parents encouraged wastefulness, but I can be a real pack rat and save things that really just add to the clutter in my clutter depositories around the house.

    I find myself spending too much time trying to fix or make something work that is of little monetary value. Today for example, I spent 3 hours building a lighting device that costs $25 and I'm about half done or less. Are my six hours of time worth only $25 + materials of about $4.00? If I were a lawyer or something highly paid (heck minimum wage) there wouldn't be a second thought. I suppose the sense of accomplishment is worth something too...

    Perhaps my saving of little things and raw material is my suppressed desire to have a garage like my dad's with enough stuff to fix anything just from the tools and items, materials and hardware in the rafters alone.

    You never know when a fake credit card that arrived in a "preapproved" application might be useful... I've used three so far. Thank you Capital One for encouraging my hoarding. :P

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  5. Like Jen, I could say that our mothers were the same - or sisters. And I think I am the same. So maybe that means we can be sisters forever? Or cousins or something.

    And I will take one of those bags of rhubarb off your hands. My rhubarb plant died off a few years ago and I love it.

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  6. Are you WANTING to give the rhubarb away? If so, pick me, too. And if you need help chucking things, I'm your man (er, woman).

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  7. Who else wants the rhubarb?! YES! It's going, going... but there's quite a bit to go before it's gone!

    : )

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  8. I'd take some rhubarb if you knew anyone coming down to Regina. I had to leave my rhubarb behind in Yellowknife.

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  9. i have a great recipe for a rhubarb slushy punch mix... you cook the rhubarb with sugar, puree it, add a few other ingredients and then freeze it. When you're ready to use it, you thaw it slightly, then pour sprite over it. Only takes abotu 10 min to prepare, and i find it handy to have in the freezer for impromptu guests/dinner parties/bbqs. Let me know if anyone wants the recipe.

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  10. Ahem,

    is that all that rhubarb that I hacked down for you this summer the night before we left for Edmonton, thinking I was doing you a great favour by trashing the lot of it, and you freaked out on me and so to show me what an ass I'd been you stood in the kitchen all night chopping and hacking it up into tiny pieces to throw in the freezer, IS THAT THAT RHUBARB????

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  11. YES.

    No, YOU shut up.

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