A few tips 2002

- When you have too many lemons or limes or oranges and some are going to spoil, slice some thinly and then freeze the slices. Use them in place of ice cubes in water glasses.

- Sliced bread can also be frozen and used for toast with no ill effects.

- In cities, you can pay people to do laundry for you instead of going to the laundromat. The clothing comes back folded and you will get string which you can use to make a ball. Whee!

- Every year, take a day to go through your closet and pull out items to go to Goodwill or sell/trade at Buffalo Exchange or similar second-hand stores. If you're keeping an outfit purely for sentimental reasons, but you actually never wear it, see if there's another way to keep the sentiment and not have the outfit taking up space. Could you take a picture of it and keep that? Or make a pillow or scarf out of some of the fabric? As you go through the closet, watch for items you don't recall wearing in the last year. If you can't bear to part with them right away, mark them with a clothespin on their hangers. If you wear the item, take off the clothespin. Six months later, get rid of all the things that still have clothespins on them. During this process, it's a great idea to take everything out of the closet, vacuum in there and then put things back sorted by type (shirts, pants, etc.) this really saves time when getting putting together an outfit when you're half-asleep in the morning or just going for a particular style ("Hmm, soft comfy pants and a flannel shirt. Which flannel? Ah, red. Good.")

- You will make clothing shopping less horrid if you pick just a few colors as "yours" and ignore things that don't fit your palette. It also makes your clothes more flexible as more things can be worn with each other. For example, my main colors are sage green, very pale pink, very pale blue, cream, taupe, black and greys from dove to charcoal. For fun, non-work clothes I also still wind up buying red things, but those go with the greys and blacks.

- Paradoxically, the best way to feel like you have more is to get rid of things. Weeding out things that no longer need to be in my home (that juicer I never use, those books I'll never reread, that old beloved decorative object which has morphed somewhere along the way into just a thing to dust) always leaves me uplifted and energized and draws my attention back to those things that do still matter to me.

- The library now rents CDs, videos, DVDs and software in addition to books.

- Ben & Jerry's CoffeeCoffeeBuzzBuzzBuzz does not make a good bedtime snack.

Comments

A few tips

- When you have too many lemons or limes or oranges and some are going to spoil, slice some thinly and then freeze the slices. Use them in place of ice cubes in water glasses.

- Sliced bread can also be frozen and used for toast with no ill effects.

- In cities, you can pay people to do laundry for you instead of going to the laundromat. The clothing comes back folded and you will get string which you can use to make a ball. Whee!

- Every year, take a day to go through your closet and pull out items to go to Goodwill or sell/trade at Buffalo Exchange or similar second-hand stores. If you're keeping an outfit purely for sentimental reasons, but you actually never wear it, see if there's another way to keep the sentiment and not have the outfit taking up space. Could you take a picture of it and keep that? Or make a pillow or scarf out of some of the fabric? As you go through the closet, watch for items you don't recall wearing in the last year. If you can't bear to part with them right away, mark them with a clothespin on their hangers. If you wear the item, take off the clothespin. Six months later, get rid of all the things that still have clothespins on them. During this process, it's a great idea to take everything out of the closet, vacuum in there and then put things back sorted by type (shirts, pants, etc.) this really saves time when getting putting together an outfit when you're half-asleep in the morning or just going for a particular style ("Hmm, soft comfy pants and a flannel shirt. Which flannel? Ah, red. Good.")

- You will make clothing shopping less horrid if you pick just a few colors as "yours" and ignore things that don't fit your palette. It also makes your clothes more flexible as more things can be worn with each other. For example, my main colors are sage green, very pale pink, very pale blue, cream, taupe, black and greys from dove to charcoal. For fun, non-work clothes I also still wind up buying red things, but those go with the greys and blacks.

- Paradoxically, the best way to feel like you have more is to get rid of things. Weeding out things that no longer need to be in my home (that juicer I never use, those books I'll never reread, that old beloved decorative object which has morphed somewhere along the way into just a thing to dust) always leaves me uplifted and energized and draws my attention back to those things that do still matter to me.

- The library now rents CDs, videos, DVDs and software in addition to books.

- Ben & Jerry's CoffeeCoffeeBuzzBuzzBuzz does not make a good bedtime snack.

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