Gathering Up the Fragments 23 August 2020

What fragments have I gathered this week?

I should have been keeping a running list!

This week I found some small bottles of body wash from gift packs. I tipped them into the big bottle in our shower. It took all day - I wanted to make sure every drip transferred.  Next day I swished the bottles with water, poured it onto the sponge and used it to clean the bathrooms. They smelled beautiful all day.

In the kitchen there were a couple of just spoonful's of things left. One was just a spoonful of burrito mix. I added a spoon of cooked rice, heated it up and it was lunch.

The boys emptied two boxes of cereal this week. I tipped the crumbs from both packets into the crumb jar (I save the cereal crumbs, cracker crumbs, toast crumbs etc. and use them to make Shake'n'Bake), then carefully opened the liners, washed them and put them to dry. When they were dry they were folded and put away to use instead of freezer film or tracing paper. It may only keep a few cents in my purse, but they add up over time and that money is much better in my purse than the supermarkets.

Not so much gathering the fragments, but I put the last batch of soap I made away. It's been sitting on the racks in the laundry to dry. Truthfully, it's been ready for a couple of weeks, but wasn't high on my radar. Once the soap is dry and cured, I put it in the linen cupboard on the shelves under the sheets, in my wardrobe on the shelves under the jumpers, in  desk drawers etc. I have sheets of scented paper (well they're old, so not so scented any more but they were once) on top of them so they don't mark the linen or clothes because my homemade soap is quite high in fats and over time they can stain fabric. They stay there until they get used. The longer they are on the shelf, the harder they get, and the harder they are the longer they last in the bathrooms or kitchen or laundry. Well that's the theory I learned from Mum. If all the linen and clothes shelves and drawers are full of soap I've been known to put them on the bookshelves behind the books. They keep the books from getting musty and keep moths and silverfish away too.

There were more oranges to pick. This time they were juiced, so the peels are soaking in a bucket of vinegar to make orange scented vinegar that I'll use for cleaning.

I made a triple recipe of Miracle Spray - love this stuff! I noticed on TV today that 9Honey was talking about it and giving the recipe. It wouldn't bother me so much except they don't give Joy the credit for the recipe and they give the wrong quantities of ingredients!

With our roast chicken tonight I used up the sad veggies - one sweet potato, a couple of about to get hairy carrots, an onion that looked a little soft, and some potatoes that had started to sprout. I par-boiled them, then tossed them in olive oil and crushed garlic and browned them in the electric frying pan. They were so good and now the sad veggies have been used.

During the week I swished a mayo jar with a little milk to get it all out, and then swished the Vegemite jar with a little warm water and added it to the gravy for the meat pie. I think it's really important to make sure bottles and jars are completely empty before we put them in the recycle bin. There is often enough left for another sandwich or to season another recipe. When we don't scrape or swish those containers we are putting money in the bin. It's not being mean or stingy, it's just making sure you use up every little bit of what you have.

I noticed after washing up tonight that my hand cream had stopped pumping. Time to cut the bottom off and scrape it out too. I buy it on half-price, but it's still around $8 a bottle, so I need to use it all up. There's usually enough for at least another two weeks clinging to the sides and bottom of the bottle, so it's worth the two minutes it takes to do this.

As I said, I should have kept a running list, I can't think of anything else. So much of gathering up the fragments is done on autopilot, I tend to not even realise I'm doing it.  I'll try to keep a list going this week.

What fragments did you gather up this week?