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| I Spy quilt with pleated borders and buttons |
Am I just procrastinating because I don't actually really want to be finished? Maybe. But also, what am I going to do once I am finished these two big projects?
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| More buttons on the I Spy quilt |
And I do have about 30 dress shirts that are in a box downstairs waiting for me.
Or maybe I'll play with my kids more. I can't hide behind unfinished quilts all of the time!
PS My number one comment about this blog thus far has been about the "pre-cut dental floss." I admit, I thought this was very funny. Unfortunately, I am not the funniest member of my household and it was my darling husband who, regarding a new great idea I had for economizing from my favourite book*, said, "I hope you don't read something about cutting my dental floss."
How crazy is that? So I asked him how crazy he thought I was. The short answer: very.
He elaborated: "I wouldn't be surprised that after some type of analysis, you would have us all wearing black garbage bags with holes cut for the head and arms."
I questioned this: "Aren't plastic garbage bags very unenvironmental?"
Then he used my greatest asset against me: my inability to take anything on feel ("Kraft Dinner doesn't feel expensive") and instead get out the calculator and crunch the numbers** ("Kraft Dinner is ridiculously expensive compared to homemade macaroni! We are never buying it again!"***).
Him: "You'll factor in the resources used in black plastic bags compared to the pollutants created per article of clothing from harvesting the cotton, to sewing it in a factory, shipping it to Canada, and driving it to the store... You are just too rational."
*The Complete Tightwad's Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn
**In the past week, I have have calculated:
1. How much my iron costs to run (4 cents per hour on cotton with high steam)
2. How much it costs to make a pot of coffee at home with a paper filter (2.5 cents/filter, 3.5 cents/coffee grounds, water and electricity are negligible)
3. The return on keeping $1500 in our chequing account so they don't charge us fees ($72/year equals 4.8%--much better than putting this money into savings)
4. How much money we have spent on Cadbury Cream Eggs since Easter (much too much, but I won't go into those details)
***He told me that we could have it for "special occasions." I took this to mean our 9th anniversary coming up this summer. Romantic. If you would like to come, tell us ahead of time and we'll splurge and get two boxes!
I might also add that I calculated that it cost me $71.24 to plumb in my portable dishwasher (with 5 trips to the hardware store). I mercifully had help from my friend Anne H who knew something about plumbing. I knew something about torches and welding and together we did it in a weekend.
ReplyDeletehahaha
ReplyDeleteok i have to admit i actually think all this calculating is really cool. that's SO helpful and awesome to know! (ok, maybe not the iron thing- but the coffee for sure).
speaking of calculating... i seem to remember something about you having a list of things you could do in 15 minutes and "make muffins" was on the list. maybe elena told me this. is it true? i think of it all the time. but you must have meant without clean-up, and baking, right? i can't tell you how many times I've had to leave for somewhere in 15 minutes and then i remember your list and think i have time to make muffins. and i ALWAYS end up pretty late. something tells me i'm remembering it wrong.
what do you think about sharing that list too?