Light Comes in Many Colors

The Joys of Being a Tightwad

I had a wee moment of joy this a.m. when I started a load of clothes.

A little background. I am a tightwad. I enjoy good food, nice clothes, a comfortable life. My standard of living is probably several steps above our income level, though, because I am a tightwad. I want my good food, nice clothes, etc., at a much lower cost than society in general seems to be satisfied paying, and so I make it so by various means.

That's being a tightwad. I am not a miser, I spend freely, just always with an eye to the biggest bang for my buck. That doesn't mean "settling for" lower quality in anything that I deem a "quality of life" purchase.

I recycle. No, not send stuff off for others to recycle. Example: I was watching a DVD of an old Bob Hope/Bing Crosby movie the other day. While doing so, I was sitting on the floor with my grandfather's mini-anvil (made, appropriately enough, from a scrap of railroad steel :-), straightening nails taken from a bunch of lumber scraps discarded from a neighbor's demolition project.

Pure pleasure. Recycling used nails (which I could have purchased for pennies... pennies I now have for other things) while watching an old movie. At the end, a slightly sore wrist from wielding a 2# machinist's hammer (some of the nails were concrete nails), a bag of mixed nails I can use in projects recycling the discarded lumber scraps and a sense of satisfaction that I had not wasted the time enjoying the movie by simply slumping on the couch.

That's being a tightwad.

And then there was the tightwad's joy I experienced this a.m. when I started a load of clothes. Because I use a laundry soap that is rather special, it has a higher price per purchase than equivalent volumes of store brand laundry detergents. Not to worry. It's per use cost at the manufacturer's recommended usage is lower than store brand detergents. But being the tightwad that I am, by experimentation I have discovered that in our machine and with our water, we can get our clothes clean using half the recommended amounts. And its more effective formulation allows us to wash almost all our washloads on the washer's "delicate" setting, which uses less energy, is less wearing on the machine, is less wearing on the clothes themselves, etc.

Now, do you understand my smile when I do laundry? I get to have clean clothes, clothes that will last longer because of less stressful washings, using a less expensive (per use) cleaning agent, all the while lessening wear and tear on an expensive appliance and using less electricity to boot.

A tightwad's joy. All from making the choice to use one product that is more expensive per unit amount, while keeping an eye on the total picture regarding that price. Cost in many ways is less. For an end resut of a higher quality of life. (Now you know why I have virtually taken over doing laundry: it's a pleasure. A lil grin each time I do it. :-)

And so it goes. A bread machine, you say? What an extravagance! Well, consider just the cost of buying pizza versus making your own. In just that one example, one can save enough in a year to buy two bread machines...

Being a tightwad is such a joy.

Spreading the light of tightwaddery...

:-)

Will Wonders Never Cease?

Well, actually, no.

Wonders will never cease. There's is just too much "out there" (and in "here") to discover, see, explore. Witness this set of pics (link via Instapundit ) of Titan.

Amazing. What a wonder.

O Blessed Holy Caffeine Tree!

Just the thing for a cold, wet, dreary winter's morn...


The Holy Brew. It's not the taste, although that can be great. It's not the aroma, although that is heavenly. It's that my IQ gets a three-point boost with every cup. OK, some days it takes 10 cups to bring my IQ to its normal level, but for folks like me who are NOT "morning people" the Holy Bean is one of God's most wondrous gifts, and so I celebrate it as a gift of love from the Creator.

So there.

Some see this as an argument for banning webcams

But I say silliness can be wonderful

This lil gem proves that silliness can be wonderful. Everyone (OK, all both of them [heh]) I have dragged in to watch it on my computer (so I could watch their recations) has reacted exactly the same. Not gonna tell you what their reactions were, but I bet your's will be the same. Check it out. I got such a kick outa it, I downloaded three versions...

(forgot earlier to credit Hog on Ice for pointing me to this day-brightener. Oh, and for cluing me in on Benno Moiseiwitsch WOW! How in the world have I missed hearing a pianist this great before now? He didn't "whistle" in the dark; he made his own light... Not silly, just wonderful!)

Not a Capital Offense—For ONE

"...sleep, that knits up the raveled sleeve of care..."

This post was almost over at Third World County, but... ...as I was about to go all curmudgeonly over this morning, I realized something. Let me backtrack a bit. I have often said that waking someone unnecessarily isn't a capital offense, the first time. (Not really so much in jest: I once physically threw a college room mate out cos he thought I was kidding... ) This morning, about 30 minutes earlier than necessary (or really, useful) I was wakened. Um, unnecessarily.

Have I mentioned that I'm not a good waker? A couple of cups of coffee and I'm nearly human. Being wakened unnecessarily, in the middle of a dream cycle, is ordinarily a solid way to assure a grumpy morning. And I was certainly ready to be grumpy.

But then... I have someone to wake me. Now, that's a joy. I very nearly missed out on that the last six of our twenty-six years together, since she more than very nearly didn't make it past October 4, 1998. So, if I have to suffer through an occasional loss of sleep, it's a small price to pay in order to have her here to wake me (unnecessarily or not).

So, one of my rules for living has fallen captive to love. [heh] Oh, well.

:-)