The Three Rs

My late night adventure two nights ago has got me thinking about how I can do more than my standard recycling and composting. I haven't really come up with anything yet, but I would really like to reduce my overall consumption...of everything, really. I have so much...stuff...I'm a bit of a packrat and I'm generally very gentle on all of my belongings so they last forever. This means that I have multiple closets and chests of drawers filled with clothes of all types...I have hundreds of books and CDs and videogames and films...I have two VCRs and three TVs in my one-bedroom apartment @ the moment! I just have...stuff. Much of it I don't use. But i can't seem to rid myself of a meaningful amount of it. Each time we move, we throw away and give away bags and bags of clothing and household items. But it all seems to come back. And I like to think of myself as being an extremely frugal chica - I feel like there's just too much stuff out there and the temptation to buy it is too great...even for someone like me who hates shopping and crass consumerism.

So...what I'm really interested in is how I can reuse the stuff I currently have. Or, how I can recycle it in a meaningful fashion [ie. not just putting it in the blue bin]. For example, last summer Joseph and I donated our old computers and monitors to a charitable organization that refurbishes them for under privileged kids. But yeah, I'm mostly interested in how I can reuse my current crap for a slightly different purpose. Any creative suggestions would be greatly appreciated [I don't like feeling like a gigantic hypocrite turd burgler]. On the other hand, I don't want to end up like my mum with her eight million margarine and yogurt tubs that have been cleaned and currently take up more than two of her kitchen cabinets [that's valuable real estate for something I don't think she ever uses].

It's also been quite cold in our house for the past few days [it's been warmer outside than in]. We don't control our own heating and I'm not about to waste more energy by getting a space heater. Generally, I put on an extra jumper and/or my warmest dressing gown and then within a matter of hours the heat magically returns and we're back to our usual bikini party summer in here [my house is generally excessively hot year round]. Today I decided to bust out my new gloves. That's right, gloves for indoors. What does this have to do with reusing? Well, I'm reusing the energy that's already being produced by my laptop [which is on pretty much whenever I am] to heat up my hands [my hands/feet get very cold with my new meds]. Joseph bought me these gloves to use in my next office job [in my old office job the office was so cold that I did have to employ the use of a space heater year round]. They are pretty nifty - they have two little pads in each glove that heat up when plugged into your USB port thinger. I've seen USB port thinger gadgets @ the evil Active Surplus shop and always thought they were neat-o [things like little heaters to rest your coffee cup on]. But no one ever uses them. Anyway, here's a picture of my new gloves - well, just the one glove as I have to take the photo with the other hand.


[PS - It has been officially one month since I started my new preventative migraine meds. Thus far I have had ZERO full-blown migraine attacks. Generally I have two or three per month. I feel like a new person. And the pleasant side effects are excessively pleasant.]