2 Stories, One About Frugality and One About Disposing of Clutter

Story #1-



Last week Noah decided to cook. Of course since he was cooking it was going to be a new recipe from his Bon Appetit magazine. And of course the ingredients are not the normal ones I stock in my kitchen. (as an aside, why do you think I have a half used bag of organic pastry flour in my fridge?)



Anyway, we invited company to come over Thursday night and Noah and I spent Wednesday night peeling pearl onions and chopping vegetables. When all the pre-work was done, Noah wrote out instructions for me for the next day and we went to bed.



Late the next afternoon I pulled out my instructions (which, by the way, were written in a Color Wonder book that had almost been spirited away by the kids during the day).



Instruction #1: combine 2 cups chicken broth and one bottle of hard cider with the premade food in the fridge.



Ok. I see the bottle on the counter. Now remember, we don't drink. Noah had gotten 1 bottle of hard cider from somewhere to use in the recipe.



I try to twist the cap. That is how you open premium rootbeer, after all.



It was not a twist top.



I look in my utensil drawer. I remembered I had gotten rid of the bottle opener on my last "declutter" crazy fest.



Now what. I continued looking around the kitchen, trying to find something to open it with- getting rather irritated, I might add.

My can opener is electric, and doesn't have a bottle opener thingie on it.

A knife, a screwdriver? Both seemed like bad options. I could envision the glass bottle flying across the room and shattering.

A-ha! Suddenly I remembered something. 18 months ago I had inadvertently taken a hand can opener home from church (oops). I had recently come across it and stuck it in my purse to bring back. Only I had been back and forth to church a number of times and had continued to forget to take it out of my purse.

And it was still there.

Nice. Disaster averted. Bottle opened, and can opener returned to purse.

Husband walked in door 5 minutes later and upon hearing about my dilemma and rather immoral solution (the stolen can opener being the immoral part), picked up the kitchen shears on the counter and pointed out the bottle opener on them.

I suggested that the next time he cook his own food.

Story #2

I buy new swimming suits frequently, and this annoys my frugal self.

I have to do it though because I am in the pool a lot for lap swimming as well as playing with the kids, and suits just don't last that long in the big, bad vat of chlorine. It also probably doesn't help that I just buy regular suits from the store that are probably more for the occasional swimmer.

Anyway, I was at Target last week and found 2 one piece suits on clearance. They both sort of fit. (by the way, this wasn't Target totally lame clearance, this was get a suit for $8 kind of clearance). I haven't worn a one piece suit for a long time, but they are nicer to swim laps in and besides that, they were cheap.

As I said though, they sort of fit. The black one had a semi plunging neckline that I knew would be a problem (especially while I am nursing) while swimming laps.

But, ever resourceful, I knew I could just wear something underneath it.

So today I went to swim and put a (rather large) tank top made out of swim suit material underneath the black suit.

I had gone one lap when I discovered the problem. Somehow the tank (which of course was too big) was pulling air and water in under the suit. I could fill the air under my back as I swam and then it would bubble out.

Awkward.

Yeah, I must have had a continuous bubbling coming from my suit as I swam laps.

Great.

All I could do was hope that my non-streamlined front crawl was creating enough turbulence in the water to mask the bubble.

Maybe that will be my new tactic for keeping people out of my lane.