Why a 98-cent bottle of salad dressing?
Because I’m super-classy. That’s why.
Happy Saturday.
Cheap
Better Butter… wait, I already used that title.
A couple of weeks ago, the ‘lid’ to my ‘new’ butter system slipped out of my hand and chipped. Surprise, surprise. What did I expect from buttery glass?
I spent a good long time thinking about how to replace it. At various stores, I looked at containers for holding pencils, toothbrushes, sewing goods, fishing tackle – nothing was right. But then ShopKo had this Snapware thing in the lunchbox section.
Perfect. It’s unbreakable, secures my butter with four, count ’em – four locks, and the best part? When I’m running low on butter, there’s room for another stick to get cozy and start a-softening for next time.
I think I might spend too much time thinking about butter.
Doin’ a duvet cover.
When we go to Heit’s Point for the Sommerer family reunion, we stay in a bunkhouse. It has twin bunkbeds and the mattresses are wrapped in plastic. While I appreciate the knowledge that my mattress isn’t pee-soaked from young campers, I don’t like sleeping on the plastic – it makes me all sweaty.
This year, after the first night, I put a towel under my fitted sheet to provide a little more air flow and that seemed to help. I should mention that we also have the air conditioner on and even with two blankets on, it can get a little chilly. The combination of shivering while sweating makes me feel like I have a weird fever.
So, I’ve been making plans for next year. I will bring the nice big towels that are otherwise never used around here, and also our twin down comforters.
Those comforters are the bomb. Light and fluffy, and they can squish down to nothing so they will be easily packed. But they needed some covers. I scrounged around the house and discovered that we had one from long ago, but needed another. Fortunately the closet-purging revealed a couple of extra twin sheets.
Sew, sew, sew.
(This is the one we already had. Lloyd has a feather bed-thing that used to belong to his grandma. We never use it, so I stole the cover we had put on it.)
Here’s the duvet. I don’t know why I felt the need to take a photo of it. Oh, well.
And, here it is in the cover. I added a couple of snaps to the end and it is cat-approved. This has also become the prime napping spot for cats and humans alike.
Take that, fever-sleep.
Experimenting with a cooler
Ever since we killed the little refrigerator in the basement, we haven’t had a place to put drinks to keep cold. It is absolutely not a problem since I am exclusively drinking Tang and instant coffee, but since people are coming over, I thought it might be nice to offer them a beverage that didn’t need to be reconstituted.
The solution? A cooler. The problem? Ice is messy. I am testing a system that will enable me to just switch out a frozen gallon of water without disturbing the contents. So far, so good. (Meaning that I assembled this an hour ago and have no idea how well it will work.)
Hmmmm. I see the problem. Needs more Tang.
The wind beneath my whiskers
My poor cats. They will never get to go outside because I am riddled with paranoia and would worry about all the harm they would come to (or havoc they would wreak), so they must suffer because of my craziness. I can’t even leave the windows open for them to see the outside because I’m pretty sure that Ralph could just push the screen out with one paw. (Hulk smash.)
I’ve seen window ‘veranda’ things for cats before, so once again I thought, “How hard could it be?” Fortunately, I was putting stuff away today and came across this wire basket, which made the whole process much easier than actually building something.
Problem? Too big for the window.
Solution? Bend the wires. Bend the wires in lots of places. Curse under your breath because holy cow – haven’t I bent a bazillion wires and this thing still won’t fit through the *%$# window??
One bazillion wire bends, three binder clips and two blisters later, Emme was able to look up and see the sky.
Huh. Windier than she thought.
This’ll do for now. Until the bugs start coming in, then it is back to pretending windows are televisions that are always playing the same nature show.
Instant Coffee – I’m a fan.
I ran out of the coffee bricks I was bragging about. The post in December showed a Folger’s brick, which was fine coffee. After that I bought two generic bricks from Super Saver in Lincoln, and I never thought I’d say it, but they were gross. Normally I love generic stuff – the price far outweighs any difference in taste – but not this time. This coffee had a distinctly….. ‘farmy’ aroma to it. It was like walking into the farm store and drinking coffee in the feed aisle. It was unnerving, but I am nothing if not cheap, so I drank those two bricks over the course of a couple months.
Well, I am out. I also forgot to buy coffee this weekend, so I’m working my way through a jar of freeze-dried stuff that I don’t remember ever buying. (It must be pretty old.) I like it. Zap a cup of water in the microwave, add a spoonful of coffee, a spoonful of sugar and a splash of milk – viola! I think this might be the way to go with summer coffee. I think this little jar will get me through the next couple of weeks.