Reduce, Recycle, Reuse

"Save the Bows!!"

- my Grandma Louise

Piles of paper... (Dinah looks for a way around the tissue mountains.)

Boxes of boxes, Bags of bags...

Bows in a box.

All in an effort to reduce, recycle and reuse.

Years ago Grandma had it right, although as kids we laughed and mocked her running around on Christmas yelling "Save the bows!" at each other. I remember my Grandma with her bags feverishly collecting the discarded bows off the floor every year. I also remember the layers of scotch tape that had built up on the bottom from years of reuse. That was about the only thing I remember my Grandma reusing. Recycle and reduce weren't really words tossed around our house as a child. Saving things was considered "pack-ratting". If so, than I am just that - a pack rat. I haven't bought a gift bag, box or tissue paper in years. I noticed the price on the bottom of one of the bags I was folding - $2.99!! I must be sitting on a small fortune worth of gift wrap. My bags might be crinkled, my tissue slightly torn and my boxes somewhat misshaped but they are free every time. Neatly organized in a tote, I never have the need to rush to the store - just simply out to my shed.

May you find a second life
in the things you might otherwise throw out!!