• I don’t want to open a new jar of salsa when there is an inch of it left in the old jar.  Just use it, and wait until it is gone before you open a new one.
• I don’t want to throw away 2 unused hot dog buns or dump the small amounts from 3 water bottles into the sink before tossing them in to recycle.
• I don’t want 6 bottles of shampoo or 3 cans of hairspray hanging around.  I want just what I need and to use it until it is gone.  And pul-eeze do not toss a roll of toilet paper with perfectly usable squares still on it.

You had no idea I was so compulsive in this area, did you?   :)

Maybe it all goes back to my childhood when my mom saved every Wonder Bread bag and reused them to cover food or wrap a dirty diaper for disposal or for our feet inside our boots for snowsledding (keeps your tootsies warm and dry).  Or maybe my commitment to not wasting anything was inspired by the cookbook I got at my co-worker bridal shower in 1981 which included a picture of a needlepoint quote: “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”  I’ve since learned that quote came from the WWII era when the value of saving-not-wasting was at its’ height.

I hate waste – whether it is food or time.  I believe in finishing what you start, eating what you take (yes, even at a Chinese lunch-buffet – don’t be a waster!).  Leftovers were meant to have a next-day life – not sit in Tupperware until the mold takes over.

And when you buy things: clothes, furniture, cars, computers, phones – you take care of them and use them well and don’t just move on when something looks shinier.  That is consumerism at its grossest.  #imho

I love to see people recycle and re-use and re-purpose materials and objects in unique new ways. I even have a whole Pinterest board devoted to my love of this type of thing {here}.  Waste in an anti-value for me.

I am at a crossroads.  It is time to go a new direction, try something different.  And, though I have no idea what the heck that will be or how it will look, I am adamant: I don’t want my life to be wasted.  I don’t have endless years to throw down the tubes or time that can be carelessly spent.  I want every moment to count.  I don’t want my days, or hours or even minutes, in whatever place I choose to spend them or give them away, to be squandered or valueless or meaningless when there is legacy to leave, heritage to share.  I want my ideas and creativity to flow freely towards a worthy cause, something trascendent – that will live long after I am gone. I don’t want to waste my life and my time.  There is just too much good around me (my lover, my parents and extended family, my children, my deep friendships, my garden and walking and talking with God there) to become a part of something, anything, where what is in {my hand/my heart/my soul} brings no value, adds nothing.  That would be a waste.

How about THAT paragraph for a cover letter on a resume?  Haha!   :)

I’m in an Ecclesiastes 12 mode, methinks…  :)