Things nobody wants (pushbutton landline phones)

Way back in the the early 2000's, I helped organize a summer residential workshop in the college dorms. This was before everyone traveled with cell phones, and the usual dorm phones provided to students were stored away for the summer.  So we bought about 20 landline phones for our workshop participants to use.  We used these for all six years of the workshop.

Since I've recently retired, I was helping our new-ish department coordinator clean out the storage areas in the department and came across this box of phones.  

Corded landlines phones, in excellent condition.
Not like anyone cares, though.

One the one hand, they're in great condition: they've been stored away in ziploc bags, so they're clean -- no dust. They're all pushbutton, hardly ever used. They can go on a table or be installed on a wall.

On the other hand, no one wants them.  In particular, these people don't want them:

• The Facilities & Operations folks at our college refused the phones when I offered.  I figured F&O got first shot, since the phones were bought with grant money for a program on our college campus. But they basically said, "Ha, ha, ha; no."
• Habitat Restore said no.  (Really? I figured the local Amish/Mennonite population might be potential customers, but the guy at the donation drop-off said, no, they all use cell phones).
• Posting them on Freecycle netted only one person who was interested, who took three of the phones. 

Phones feeling unwanted.

I've just finished reading the book "Waste Wars: The Wild Afterlife of your Trash", which has an entire chapter devoted to discarded cell phones that go to Ghana for reprocessing/burning/dumping, and of course I didn't need to be reminded of how our throwaway culture is degrading our planet and our communities.  These landline phones, from a different era, were designed for much longer lives. (Could you imagine using the same cell phone during 6 years of workshops? Or pulling them out of a box a quarter century later and having them be just as functional as they were when you bought them?). 

The sad irony is that our throwaway cellphone culture has now made these other, durable phones worthless.  And, a quarter century later, I see even more than I did back then how these objects are, in fact, worse than worthless.  They're conglomerations of plastic with possibly useful metal pieces that are hidden away inside, inaccessible for simple reuse/recycling.  

So, while I try to find places where these phones would actually be used -- possibly even helping to avert a new purchase for someone -- I'm starting to switch my head over into thinking about how to dispose of them in the least environmentally irresponsible way. 

super glue ceramic fixes

Fixing a plant pot with super glue is hardly dramatic, but I've been distracted with family stuff and need a nudge to get back in the blogging habit, so I'm plopping in this quick-and-easy fix . . . although I am not sure it's fair to call it a "fix", because cracked ceramic remains cracked looking, even with super glue.

A pot that I think is pretty tipped over and cracked, and I super-glued it back together.

Voila!

Thoughts:

• One of the advantages of it being a flower pot is that crinkly cracks look organic, and they don't detract too much from the aesthetic.  A re-glued serving dish would be decidedly less pleasing to look at.  
• Piecing together ceramic is a little bit like jigsaw puzzles, and therefore a fun activity in and of itself.  It's not like I think I should break other pots just for the entertainment of reassembling them, mind you.  But the reassembly is enjoyable.

While I was at it, I used the glue to reassemble the handle on this mug.

The handle isn't a handle, at least not in this configuration.

The mug arrived in the mail for me today, a surprise thank-you gift from my professional association for serving on a committee.  I happened to find that particular committee fairly annoying, and full of crackpots, so I see a deep symbolism in that this mug arrived cracked -- flown off the handle, so to speak. Inside the mug was a set of helpful instructions: don't give this to children when it's full of hot liquid; don't drink boiling liquid until it has cooled sufficiently; hand-wash the mug.  

A hand-wash-only mug with a cracked handle -- a gift that I didn't even ask for -- hmmmm . . . I think some day I need to write a blog post entitled, "Top Ten Gifts for the Environmentally Conscious Minimalist".   That would be a really fun list to compile!  (But this mug would not be on the list). 

Since I had the super glue out anyway, I did the jigsaw puzzle thing and reattached the handle.  Maybe I'll turn this into another planter; not sure yet.

The wooden lid for the mug fits a wide mouth canning jar.
A small redeeming feature!

Big and little frugal tools

As my campus was gearing up for the beginning of the semester, one of our department coordinators announced that a departing professor had abandoned shelves in the hallway: did anyone want them?

I said, yes please: my husband's books are overflowing the rag-tag collections of homemade shelves I'd assembled.

So she put a post-it note on the shelves with my name on it. Even better, she arranged to have a hand-cart sitting next to the shelves.  So I walked the shelves four blocks along our neighborhood streets, from the campus building to my house.  Hurray for hand-carts!

 

A couple of days later, I passed by a free pile of clothing that included a top that is exactly the kind of thing I like to wear.  Well, almost exactly: when I put it on, I realized the tag in the neck was super scratchy.  So I spent a pair of minutes with my trusty seam ripper, removing the threads that stitched the tag to the shirt,  . . . 

. . . and now it's exactly exactly the kind of shirt I like to wear!

Ahhh, tag off!

When I was overseas for nine months, I really missed the free piles that grace the streets of my neighborhood here back home.

By the seat of his pants (repair)

 In our family, we get a lot of wear-and-tear on the inside thighs of our jeans.  Perhaps everyone does, but bicycle riding I'm sure enhances it.

Holes on the inside thigh aren't all that visible, but I guess they're visible enough that we don't want them to get too big.  The good part of that location is that patches there aren't too visible, either; a patch not only keeps our skin from showing, but it also helps to prevent further ripping.

So here's me, patching my husband's jeans. 

To the left, a rip.  To the right, a previous rip that's been patched. 
I certainly could have used a patch that was closer to the same color as the jeans!

I use scraps of fabric leftover from sacrificial jeans that out-lived their usefulness.  Having a stash of denim on hand is so handy!

Jeans with a pinned patch from the correct side (left) 
and inside out (right).

I pin the patch fabric to the inside of the jeans, and also pin down the edges of the rip. (The lighter side of this patch matches the color of the jeans a lot better than the dark side!)  It's good to use a lot of pins; the patch and jeans move around a lot when I stick them in the sewing machine, and having the patch well-pinned helps to prevent bunching or awkward folds.

Then comes the sewing.  A zigzag stitch holds down frayed ends.  If the fabric nearby is also getting weak, sometimes I'll sew across it in several lines nearby, kind of like quilting the jeans to the patch.  Then I sew down a circle around the hole for the edges of the patch.  

I love using my sewing machine!

When I'm done with sewing, I turn the pants inside out and trim the edges of the patch with pinking shears (to prevent fraying).  I'm constantly nervous that I'll cut the jeans instead of just the excess patch material, but so far I never have!  Phew!

Also, pinking shears are wonderful.  
(I drew the zig-zags on the handles with a sharpie,
 so I could more easily tell them from my regular sewing scissors).

And then, done! This takes me, I dunno, 10-15 minutes?  Certainly faster than shopping for another pair of jeans, and definitely much less expensive.  

Behold the repaired jeans! There's a bit of a "scar" still, 
but it's still a satisfying patch.

It worked: the watermelon popsicles were a hit!

During the hottest days of this past summer, I bought a watermelon.  A whole watermelon is not only full of refreshment, but it also gave me a good workout carrying it back from market in my backpack.

As I was cutting it up back at home, I had one of those thoughts that solved two problems at once.  

• Problem 1: I'd been to a bunch of recent outdoor events where people were serving popsicles, which I both loved (cold treats on a hot day) and regretted (artificial ingredients, plastic trash).  Could I make cute popsicles myself that didn't involve purchasing plastic?  I used to have popsicle molds, but gave them away long ago.
• Problem 2:  A whole watermelon is more than I could eat by myself easily before it goes bad.

Clearly, there must be a way to synergise, and the aha! moment came when I realized could use chunks of watermelon instead of juice-in-molds to make popsicles.  So, I cut the watermelon in rectangular-y shapes rather than the usual pizza-slice shapes.  And for popsicle sticks, I just stuck wooden chopsticks* in the pieces I cut. Then I laid the popsicle-experiments flat on a tray and froze them; once they were frozen I could combine them into a single bag.

*We happen to have a bunch of these that we've saved from various restaurant meals over the years; chopsticks don't take up much room and can be eventually useful in a variety of ways.  

So far, the experiment ticked off many of my requirements: low trash (in fact, no trash -- the chopsticks are reusable), unprocessed ingredients, and avoiding letting a large watermelon go to waste.

The only question remaining was would it actually be edible?  Would the watermelon fall off the stick? Would the frozen watermelon it be too hard to munch on as a popsicle? (That used to happen with the juice popsicles I'd made in molds).  Would the taste be yummy enough for discerning palates--in particular, for those of my treat-loving grandkids?

Earlier taste tests on my own were quite positive. Then, this week, I got to test these out on the grandlings, and I can say confidently that watermelon popsicles were a success!

We love 'em!

I'll add that I like these popsicles, too: they're a treat that's not only cool and refreshing on a hot day, but better yet, the chopsticks make them even more convenient and less messy than eating regular watermelon slices. I'm definitely going to repeat this in future summers.

Travel Trail Mix

 My husband and I just spent a week on the road together, and of course I packed a large container of trail mix.

By the end of the trip,
the box was getting low.

I bulk-purchase the ingredients at our local Amish store: a few pounds of nuts, raisins, banana chips.  I store the mixture of these ingredients in gallon-size glass jars down in the basement, bringing up smaller quantities for snacking around the house.  There's a small stash of it in my emergency "grab and go" bag.  When I go on trips, I'll mix in additional ingredients: generic cheerios, in this case; sometimes I'll add m&m's, especially if I want to make the trail mix more family friendly.

I learned to appreciate the magic of this mixture many decades ago, when I was pregnant and nauseous.  I coasted nearly through my first trimester without any hint of morning sickness, and then all of a sudden, BAM!  It all caught up with me. Every food that had an odor (ketchup! soy sauce! cheese!) would set me over the edge.  My OB-Gyn recommended trail mix for its lack of smell and overall health: it had protein, carbs, fruit.  

Now I keep trail mix on my basement shelves just like my bulk-purchased flour and oats, like my emergency stash of water, like the jars of fruits and tomatoes I've canned.  It's a staple that's super-handy to have both for everyday use and in case of emergencies.  And it's great to have on hand when I travel.

On a long trip, bringing along a giant stash of trail mix means we can eat snacks when we want, not when the flight attendants finally show up or the car finally passes a restaurant.  It means I can avoid the trash of packaged snacks on airlines or of fast-food joints.  It means we don't have to make detours to a restaurant just because someone gets hungry.  It means I don't have to purchase overpriced food in convention centers or airports.  It can be a meal, or it can tide me over until I find a place for a meal that hits the health/cost/low-trash trifecta I strive for.

Not everyone in my family loves trail mix as much as I do, but that's okay: for them, it's an option they can choose or not.  (It's part of my "don't drive them crazy" philosophy: if they want to eat snacks wrapped in trash, I don't get in the way.  But the trail mix is there if they'd rather).  Sometimes they roll their eyes at my trail mix because they'd rather stand in a long line and then pay a lot of money for food; sometimes I'm the rescuer who feeds a hungry horde while we're stranded in a food desert.  Trail mix gives us choices and options: it's not a mandate.

On a road trip two summers ago, we stopped at a service plaza for gas, and my daughter burst into giggles when I popped open the trunk and pulled out a gallon jar of trail mix.  She sent a picture to N-son: this is what traveling with Miser Mom means, was her gist.  Recently, N-son called me up saying he had a question for me: his question was, when we go visit him next, could I bring some trail mix? He's nostalgic for it.  

And so this is my little ode to a mighty mix of ingredients: there are no trails in my basement, so I guess that out on the road is where my trail mix actually wants to be.  I'm glad it can come along with me.

Rubbish reclamation | bottles to birdfeeder

Some early mornings walks yield surprising amounts of discarded treasures.  Maybe it's because it's a Monday, and the weekend meant people did a combination of cleaning (free piles) and sports fun (leaving behind clothes and water bottles).  Sunday night at the local free outdoor concert, my daughter and I walked past an orphaned Yeti bottle, sitting in the grass, far from any human beings. I'm guessing someone's going to miss it, but I rescued it to put it back in human circulation.

Monday morning, my walk home from my run with my friend took me past the basketball courts in the park; there were empty plastic water bottles all the heck over the place, and I picked up a handful of these to carry them to the recycling bins, which were across the street, so not exactly right nearby -- on the one hand, you'd think athletes who play basketball could walk across the street to toss their discards. On the other hand, I know the psychology says people don't make that kind of effort, and the city really ought to have trash bins next to the picnic tables along the side of the court where all the trash accumulates.  So, I cleaned up some of the bottles, and I also nabbed a white cotton undershirt left in the parking lot.

Further along on my way home, I picked up a black apron from the sidewalk; it had been there a few days.  I'll launder it and take it to our local soup kitchen, where it'll get put to good use.

And maybe because I'd been generating some good rubbish karma, when I passed by William's house -- the place that has the most amazing on-going free piles I've ever had the privilege of admiring -- there was a bird feeder.  Huzzah! I'd been contemplating getting a bird feeder for my back porch ever since I got back from my travels abroad; I'd even gone so far as to look on Craigslist and to do internet searches for "build your own".  And then there was a bird feeder sitting on William's Wall, just waiting for me to take it home.  Good rubbish karma, indeed!

Yeti insulated water bottle, black apron,
white undershirt, bird feeder . . . reclaimed!

Sewing Saturdays: a gathering

My mom did a great job of teaching me and my sisters useful skills: sewing, carpentry, cooking, plumbing.  Mind you, we did NOT always appreciate it at the time.  We'd ask, "Mama, can you fix my zipper/door knob/whatever?", and she'd say, "Sit down: here's the sewing machine/screwdriver/tool."  And then we'd groan inwardly, and then muddle our way through the task while she watched us struggle and offered guiding advice when we went too far astray or got too lost.

I have given my own kids intermittent repair lessons, but I didn't do as good a job at letting them struggle through the tasks on their own.  I know this because they are grown adults and still ask, "Mama, can you fix . . . ?".  

Dang it.  But fortunately, I'm still their mom even though I'm grown up, and so I decided to make a social event of these technical skills.  I declared to family and a few friends that I'm going to host "Sewing Saturdays".   Here's how I described it.

Bring things that need mending. Learn how to fix them, or just have someone else fix them.  

Bring a friend.  

I'll have some kind of bread and also veggie salad, and two sewing machines . . . [and no air conditioning, so dress accordingly].

The first-ever Sewing Saturday has come and gone.  My daughter brought over two shirts with some dissolved stitching in the arm pits, and also five pairs of jeans that have thigh holes needing patching.  Many other friends lamented they were busy this particular week but asked to be kept on the list for future events.

My daughter plunked her mending pile down on the table, and I handed the first shirt right back to her.  She groaned inwardly (maybe not so inwardly), and then muddled her way through the task while I watched her struggle and offered guiding advice when she got too lost.  (She did a great job, actually.)

I have a giant pile of denim from my brother-in-law's discarded work jeans, and my daughter and I traded off patching them; she did some muddling (but she's actually getting quite competent, she just needs encouragement), and I did some mending, too.  We made it all the way through both shirts and three of the five pairs of jeans, and we've pinned the patches on the next set of jeans so that we'll have something to do on the next Sewing Saturday, which will probably happen next month.

I declare succcess!

Rubbish Rescue --> fixing a Free-Pile folding chair for good juju

I don't need a folding chair -- and in fact, I didn't keep this folding chair. But I fixed it because (a) it was easy for me to do, and (b) I figured it would bring me a bit of good Free-Pile juju.  

There's a guy down the road that has one of the most amazingly lovely free piles.  When he moved into his fixer-upper of a house two or three years ago, it was stuffed to the gills with the previous owner's accumulated stuff.  William started putting all sorts of this stuff out on the lawn at the edge of his house.  What emerged was amazing combinations of antique trash and treasures.

That corner where he lived became its own minor version of a tourist attraction for a few months, as people figured out how to make use of what they found there on the lawn, and then William replaced what had been taken with new-to-see assorted marvels.

Meanwhile, he slowly rehabbed the property.  He added a knee-high retaining wall along the boundary of his lawn, made of scavenged stones, and he did all the work himself.  I'd stop and chat as he wiped the sweat from his brow.

The house is in pretty darn good shape now, and the wall around his lawn only occasionally has goodies to sift through.  But many of the pedestrians along the street keep an eye on the property, partly out of habit and partly out of respect for his propensity to surprise us with the latest unearthed goodie.

For a couple of days, I'd pass by the folding chair he had out, not paying it particular attention because --- as I noted above --- I don't really need one.  I was surprised it didn't get snapped up, though, and so one day I looked a bit more closely and saw that the strap of one armrest had been cut or ripped.

The armrest (lower left) doesn't have a strap connecting
it to the plastic guide (upper right).

Well, I could fix that.  And I did; I brought the chair home, used my mighty little seam ripper to remove the old snippet of a strap, dug through my nylon strap pile to find a suitably sized replacement, sewed that on with a bit of quick sewing machine work, and Done.

Now the armrest attaches to the support pole.

I carried the chair right back to William's corner, where it had waited patiently for a new owner. The next day when I returned to take a photo of the whole chair, it was gone.  Success.  

I hope whoever got this chair uses it in good health and happiness.  

Rubbish Rescue --> a Cutting board rack

It started with two small pieces of scrap wood: one, I know, came from my son's broken and then disassembled former bed frame, and the other from some random rescued thing I took apart.  I added in a dowel rod that I'd bought new for a project that didn't need as many dowel rods that I'd bought. 

I used a circular saw to trim down the bed frame piece, and also to cut the dowel rod into 5 equal sections. Then my sander.  Then my drill with the 1/2'' drill bit -- by clamping the two scraps of wood together and drilling holes in both at the same time, I didn't have to measure where they holes go in order to get things to line up.  Then a mallet to pound the dowel pieces into the holes.

Now our cutting boards stand up, and they have air underneath so they drain better. 

I figured this one was going to be a trial run: I'd see how it worked, figure out what I needed to adjust, and then design another one that worked better.  But instead, it seems to be exactly what we were looking for all these years. It frees up counter space (our boards had been lying flat in this corner), and allows damp boards to dry. This cutting board rack isn't going to win design aesthetic awards, but -- wow -- do we love it. 

So, not bad for a project that took 5 years of procrastination followed by ten minutes of sawing and sanding! 

Making my 80's costume happen

 My daughter invited me to an 80's themed theater event, and said we should dress the part. I was like, what does it mean to dress 80s?  I know I lived through it and all, but I'm not very fashion aware -- really, quite the opposite.

She told me, "leg warmers".  That's when I remembered seeing the movie Flashdance with my friends.  The song goes, "Take your passion; make it happen" -- but I thought the song went "Take your pants off; make it happen" (which also fit the plot of the movie, really).  My friends understandably ribbed me for that, so the movie sticks in my mind.

I never owned leg warmers that I recall, so I didn't happen to have an old pair lying around.  But I do have lots of hand-me-up clothes that other folks gift me.  One sweater was getting so loose around the neck, plus it had a stain, that I'd been thinking about turning it into rags.  Instead, I turned it into my 80's costume.

I cut off the sleeves and used rubber bands to help hold them up on my legs.  The top looked a bit like a work-out sweatshirt.  Add a neon-hued under shirt and some kicks that I'd rescued from the side of the road, plus a head band that was pretending to be a sweat band, and I had my costume.  

Take your sweater, and Make it happen!

Rescued Rainment

Each of these pieces of clothing had been abandoned on the ground somewhere.  

I walked past the winter coat pictured on the left and also the "Los Angeles 79" hoodie many times; they'd been rained on repeatedly before I decided their owners would never return to reclaim them.  The UnderArmor compression shirt was of more recent abandonment, but  it was in the middle of a grassy field where industrial lawnmowers threatened it if it hung out there much longer.  The grey hoodie was one my husband found by the side of an empty road and brought home as a gift to me.  (I tell people that he must truly love me if he's willing to bring me a gift that costs $0; most people I know would shudder at the thought, despite knowing me so well).

Aside from needing a good laundering, they were all in perfect condition.  Now they're laundered.  I'll release some of them back into the world via "Free" boxes and/or thrift shop donations.  The hoodie my husband gifted me, I'm keeping; it's become one of my favorites to cuddle up in.