Ice Cube Tray

Life Cycle of the Ice Cube Tray
 

Before kids - the ice cube tray is for ice cubes.
Raising babies - freeze lil portions of homemade baby food in it.
Tween girl - uses the ice cube tray to corral earrings :)
Busy Mom - tidies the junk drawer with it.
Garage - relegated to nails, screws, and bits.
Recycle bin - Recycled - into another ice cube tray?

Declaring Order in a Storage Room - The Gift That Keeps on Giving

With the fast and furious
dump/recycle complete...
(please refer to blog archives) 

What is "left" in the leftovers?

Photo 1 - Colorful Donations for Goodwill

Photo 2 - School Papers for Recycling

Photo 3 - A Gift Certificate for a Beloved Teacher?!?

Expires 6/2011

...OOPS!

Brought it to school and gave it to her.
Seven months late!  She was tickled :)

Shredder War

     January 2011.  Stacks of paper replete with personal and confidential information are gathering for a proper recycle.  While mechanized shredding can be a precise method of reusing or reducing these stacks, I prefer to RIP 'em to shreds.

Case and Point

In this corner -
10 pieces of paper and a standard light duty shredder
Ready...steady...go!

5 minutes and 42 seconds later...
Paper jam.  Give up.

            SHREDDER       

In that corner -

10 pieces of paper and a standard light duty pair of hands

Ready...steady...go! 

1 minute and 31 seconds later... 

Done.  Ripped up to three pieces at one time!

 

RIPPED 'EM            

    

     One hundred sheets ripped by hand takes 15 minutes and provides a free forearm workout.  With all hands on deck, it might be possible to knock off 100 in less than 5 minutes!  Hands win.  Hands down.  Shredder, may you R.I.P.

p.s. Shredder Wars TMNT Shredder Wars

  

Smart Balance

     While raising a child with severe food allergies, our family has developed intense brand loyalty.  One staple in our fridge is a dairy-free butter substitute called, Smart Balance.  We knife our way through about two containers of the stuff per week.
     Somewhere along the way, we began to keep and reuse the containers.  They hold up nicely in the top rack of the dishwasher and the petite size comes in handy for a variety of mini storage needs.  Our tween draws the line at using them in her school lunch, but they are our "go to" containers for snacks on the run.

Life is a balance.  Stack smart.

     The lids deserve a mention as they are secure, yet easy enough for little hands to manipulate.  Lids for traditional small-sized plastic containers can be cumbersome to remove, resulting in orange Cheddar Bunnies explosions.  Yikes!
     When the color on the Smart Balance containers begin to fade, they are used for non-food purposes.  Most recently, we used them during Junior Great Books to hold crayons.  Eventually, they find their way to the recycle bin.