He was dubbed “The Wizard of Weston” and enjoyed the allusion to Thomas Edison, “The Wizard of Menlo Park”. Stanley Mason may not be a household name, but his inventions are. It seems we’ve always lived with granola bars, microwave cookware and dental floss dispensers.
Let’s take a peek into how his mind worked. It was 1949. “My wife asked me to put the diaper on the baby. I held up the cloth diaper, and it was square. I looked at the baby, and it was round. I knew there was an engineering problem.” What resulted was a form fitting disposable diaper.
Mason taught innovative thinking at the University of Connecticut. He felt corporations squashed creativity and was fired several times for his unconventional solutions. In spite of bureaucratic lethargy, many big organizations turned to him for new product ideas through his eight man think tank, Simco.
When his daughter’s dorm room was burgled, he designed a doorknob mounted alarm system. He collaborated with a toilet manufacturer, an expert in ceramics, to develop microwaveable cookware. He’s the guy who invented the stringless Band aid package, plastic dental floss, baby wipes, a sonic method for sealing chip bags, Depends, and hundreds of other things.
So what does all this have to do with frugality? It’s seeing the need and figuring a way to solve it with what you have. It’s our brother in law Dave, who coming up north to face car inspections for the first time, rigged small Christmas lights over the dashboard to illuminate it. (Dave also “grilled” cheese sandwiches on his dashboard during a drive to California, but we won’t go there.)
So what are your needs? When tackling them, remember the Wizard of Weston.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Being Different
I went to a funeral Wednesday morning and felt strangely apart from everyone there. Almost like an alien observer from another planet. The lady had worked for a florist almost 30 years. I was struck by the fact all the ladies attending worked outside the home even when their kids were young.
Art and I talked during our afternoon walk about the assumption I’d get a job. Again it revolved around easing our finances a bit. He asked, “Is Christ pleased with you?” I thought I could use my time better. He said, “The people who expect it don’t take into consideration my schedule. I like to know that everything is in order at home. That I can trust you to take care of things.”
This quote has been rattling around as well, “Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.”- Horace (65-8 BC) Roman Poet. Isaac observed that same truth several years ago. He said, “being poor” made me more creative. I would never in a million years have attempted a garden, or taught my self to cook and can, rewire lamps, repair furniture, mend socks, quilt, cut hair, keep a written budget, write articles, unless we were in this situation. I might have considered foraging, if only for the romance of it, but not in earnest. Even my mom, married to a sculptor, attempted very few of these things. “Adversity” pushed me into scary places. Past the “plant killer” stage. Past early canning failures. Past indestructible pie crust. To make do in oddball ways, by using things for unintended purposes.
Being different is lonely though. What do you talk about when there’s assumed equity? “What’s your cell phone number?” “I told my hairdresser I wanted a different color.” “This place has the best crab cakes.” “Where are you going for vacation?” “You’d really like this (cable) TV program.” How do you untangle that kind of presuppositionalism? You can’t. I’m tempted sometimes to talk about cooking burdock roots, gathering places for mulberries and wild raspberries, trash picked finds. Just to throw a wrench in. But it’s sort of like the Far Side cartoon of a dog cocktail party. First frame. One dog says to another as everyone is chatting away. “The doctor says I have worms.” Second frame. Silence.
Being the introspective type, I have to consciously pull away from self pity. To change context. This is not my home. This will not last. It finally revolves around Art’s question. “Is Christ pleased?”
Art and I talked during our afternoon walk about the assumption I’d get a job. Again it revolved around easing our finances a bit. He asked, “Is Christ pleased with you?” I thought I could use my time better. He said, “The people who expect it don’t take into consideration my schedule. I like to know that everything is in order at home. That I can trust you to take care of things.”
This quote has been rattling around as well, “Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.”- Horace (65-8 BC) Roman Poet. Isaac observed that same truth several years ago. He said, “being poor” made me more creative. I would never in a million years have attempted a garden, or taught my self to cook and can, rewire lamps, repair furniture, mend socks, quilt, cut hair, keep a written budget, write articles, unless we were in this situation. I might have considered foraging, if only for the romance of it, but not in earnest. Even my mom, married to a sculptor, attempted very few of these things. “Adversity” pushed me into scary places. Past the “plant killer” stage. Past early canning failures. Past indestructible pie crust. To make do in oddball ways, by using things for unintended purposes.
Being different is lonely though. What do you talk about when there’s assumed equity? “What’s your cell phone number?” “I told my hairdresser I wanted a different color.” “This place has the best crab cakes.” “Where are you going for vacation?” “You’d really like this (cable) TV program.” How do you untangle that kind of presuppositionalism? You can’t. I’m tempted sometimes to talk about cooking burdock roots, gathering places for mulberries and wild raspberries, trash picked finds. Just to throw a wrench in. But it’s sort of like the Far Side cartoon of a dog cocktail party. First frame. One dog says to another as everyone is chatting away. “The doctor says I have worms.” Second frame. Silence.
Being the introspective type, I have to consciously pull away from self pity. To change context. This is not my home. This will not last. It finally revolves around Art’s question. “Is Christ pleased?”
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Boxes
Those who know me are aware of my container love. Some are tins. But most are old boxes. Wooden ones especially. But shell encrusted, fabric covered, and painted ones find their way into the collection as well. Perhaps it’s a sense of mystery surrounding any enclosed object that draws me to them. Like stumbling upon a secret room or an overgrown path in the woods. What does it contain? What was it’s purpose? Who used it?
Boxes have histories. They tell stories. Some are muffled, some clear.
A collar box covered in swirly apricot mohair sits on my dresser. Uncle Lou picked it up at an antique store. A natty dresser once kept it on his bureau. He’d open it in the mornings as he prepared for his workday, looking at himself in the mirror as he knotted his tie and fished around for cufflinks and arm garters. He’d give a final glance to make sure his hair was perfectly parted and slicked down before he left.
On the living room mantle a thumb length oxblood colored hinged box sits. It looks a bit like a mouse sized violin case, but it’s velvet lined interior once housed a pipe’s mouth piece. I don’t know who owned it, but it was in my dad’s things after he died. Why did he keep it? I wonder if it belonged to his father. Who could even venture a guess at this point? But it was empty. No mouth piece with bite marks or pristine one without. A mute vacant box.
Several shell encrusted souvenir boxes grace my grandmom’s old vanity. “Nassau” and “Bahamas” are their names. Thrift store purchases. Places I doubt I’ll ever see. Who gathered all the makings from sandy beaches? What agile hands carefully glued each shell in place? Who sold them to tourists as they poured out of busses blinking in bright sunlight? What vendors pressed them upon reluctant buyers in makeshift markets? How did the seller’s meager earnings cover household expenses? Or did it? And when tourist season ended what did the sellers do? Go into their small homes to craft more boxes.
Each piece carries a bit of the persons who touched them. Like the thumb print of God on what He made. Listen, listen hard, to the stories told.
Boxes have histories. They tell stories. Some are muffled, some clear.
A collar box covered in swirly apricot mohair sits on my dresser. Uncle Lou picked it up at an antique store. A natty dresser once kept it on his bureau. He’d open it in the mornings as he prepared for his workday, looking at himself in the mirror as he knotted his tie and fished around for cufflinks and arm garters. He’d give a final glance to make sure his hair was perfectly parted and slicked down before he left.
On the living room mantle a thumb length oxblood colored hinged box sits. It looks a bit like a mouse sized violin case, but it’s velvet lined interior once housed a pipe’s mouth piece. I don’t know who owned it, but it was in my dad’s things after he died. Why did he keep it? I wonder if it belonged to his father. Who could even venture a guess at this point? But it was empty. No mouth piece with bite marks or pristine one without. A mute vacant box.
Several shell encrusted souvenir boxes grace my grandmom’s old vanity. “Nassau” and “Bahamas” are their names. Thrift store purchases. Places I doubt I’ll ever see. Who gathered all the makings from sandy beaches? What agile hands carefully glued each shell in place? Who sold them to tourists as they poured out of busses blinking in bright sunlight? What vendors pressed them upon reluctant buyers in makeshift markets? How did the seller’s meager earnings cover household expenses? Or did it? And when tourist season ended what did the sellers do? Go into their small homes to craft more boxes.
Each piece carries a bit of the persons who touched them. Like the thumb print of God on what He made. Listen, listen hard, to the stories told.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
In the Society of Bottom Feeders
One is apt to keep company with creative types as one stretches the boundaries of frugality. It’s no wonder we hang with trash pickers, recyclable metal scavengers, and artists. Lately I’ve been having a wonderful email back and forth with a friend who is familiar with the more rural joys of creek fishing, brewing sassafras tea, chomping on red clover flowers, and making what she calls “weed jam”.
I smile when I think of her. In a non sequitur sort of way she reminds me of some favorite things. On our mantle, sitting atop Mr. Man’s head is a primitively painted red wooden toy bird. When rolled on the floor it’s wings flap. As far as I can figure it’s cut from fruit crate wood and thick wire. On the mantle next to it is an acrobatic clown. He’s suspended from two strings through the hands between two sticks. When the sticks are squeezed or released the clown tumbles and dances. He’s made from popsicle sticks and tongue depressors. What binds these things together? It’s the concept of taking what you have and creating something from it. We consider the final products folk art and pay good money for them. But most people would toss these original bits and pieces with little thought to their pleasure giving possibilities.
A while back Buck Weber of The Buck List blog, mentioned a colleague from another country who took all manner of discarded things home with him to repair or re-purpose. Some even Buck scratched his head over. But you never know what kind of vision can be brought to something.
Perhaps it’s because we have too much. We lose sight of beauty potential in the things around us. We play video games instead of waking for a meteor shower. Pity.
I smile when I think of her. In a non sequitur sort of way she reminds me of some favorite things. On our mantle, sitting atop Mr. Man’s head is a primitively painted red wooden toy bird. When rolled on the floor it’s wings flap. As far as I can figure it’s cut from fruit crate wood and thick wire. On the mantle next to it is an acrobatic clown. He’s suspended from two strings through the hands between two sticks. When the sticks are squeezed or released the clown tumbles and dances. He’s made from popsicle sticks and tongue depressors. What binds these things together? It’s the concept of taking what you have and creating something from it. We consider the final products folk art and pay good money for them. But most people would toss these original bits and pieces with little thought to their pleasure giving possibilities.
A while back Buck Weber of The Buck List blog, mentioned a colleague from another country who took all manner of discarded things home with him to repair or re-purpose. Some even Buck scratched his head over. But you never know what kind of vision can be brought to something.
Perhaps it’s because we have too much. We lose sight of beauty potential in the things around us. We play video games instead of waking for a meteor shower. Pity.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Cooking With Purslane
A little song to sing while stirring the pot.
“O humble plant in sidewalk cracks, what treasures do your leaves contain?
Who knows? Perhaps you're a Cinderella in disguise.”
About a year ago, Pat Veretto, moderator for the Dollar Stretcher Community, mentioned this spreading-red-stemmed-succulent in passing as a good foraging plant. Yikes! I had been pulling it up as a weed for years. Being a bit of a bohemian, I tried it out. It tasted like lemony spinach. We ate it twice in a salad that spring with cut grape tomatoes, a bit of chopped sweet onion, in a vinaigrette. Quite pretty and good. The only downside, the leaves are the size of a pinky nail or smaller and a bit hard to pick up with a fork.
So this year I’m experimenting. Last week I cooked whole tender plants in a pasta dish with crushed tomato, a bit of extra garlic, some leftover spinach, mozzarella and ricotta. Good. The second experiment was inspired by an online mention of purslane casserole using corn meal and egg. “Why not bake it in corn bread?” So I added a cup of leaves and a cup of grated cheddar to this terrific cornbread recipe. It was a hit. Today I made purslane pesto. The guys will have it tonight. During preliminary tests John thought it tasted a bit too “green”. It seems quite similar to a spinach pesto I make during winter months, so we’ll see how it flies over a mound of hot angel hair pasta. With boys, pasta helps.
Here’s the recipe. Without a net.
Wash whole plants in a salad spinner, spin away, then pick the leaves off.
1 cup purslane leaves
1/3 cup olive oil
Blend until smooth.
Add and blend until fairly smooth..
1/3 cup Parmesan
1/3 cup English Walnuts
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt or more to taste
2 Tablespoons dried basil leaves
You may need to add a tad of pasta water to it before mixing with the pasta as it’s thick. Should be enough for about a pound’s worth.
“O humble plant in sidewalk cracks, what treasures do your leaves contain?
Who knows? Perhaps you're a Cinderella in disguise.”
About a year ago, Pat Veretto, moderator for the Dollar Stretcher Community, mentioned this spreading-red-stemmed-succulent in passing as a good foraging plant. Yikes! I had been pulling it up as a weed for years. Being a bit of a bohemian, I tried it out. It tasted like lemony spinach. We ate it twice in a salad that spring with cut grape tomatoes, a bit of chopped sweet onion, in a vinaigrette. Quite pretty and good. The only downside, the leaves are the size of a pinky nail or smaller and a bit hard to pick up with a fork.
So this year I’m experimenting. Last week I cooked whole tender plants in a pasta dish with crushed tomato, a bit of extra garlic, some leftover spinach, mozzarella and ricotta. Good. The second experiment was inspired by an online mention of purslane casserole using corn meal and egg. “Why not bake it in corn bread?” So I added a cup of leaves and a cup of grated cheddar to this terrific cornbread recipe. It was a hit. Today I made purslane pesto. The guys will have it tonight. During preliminary tests John thought it tasted a bit too “green”. It seems quite similar to a spinach pesto I make during winter months, so we’ll see how it flies over a mound of hot angel hair pasta. With boys, pasta helps.
Here’s the recipe. Without a net.
Wash whole plants in a salad spinner, spin away, then pick the leaves off.
1 cup purslane leaves
1/3 cup olive oil
Blend until smooth.
Add and blend until fairly smooth..
1/3 cup Parmesan
1/3 cup English Walnuts
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt or more to taste
2 Tablespoons dried basil leaves
You may need to add a tad of pasta water to it before mixing with the pasta as it’s thick. Should be enough for about a pound’s worth.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
I’m Dreaming of an Almost Free Christmas
The race is on. 204 days to go. Actually, I followed my sister’s example by starting Christmas shopping right after the holiday. (When wrapping paper and ribbons are half price.) In addition to her discount strategy, a new idea popped up last year on a personal finance blog. This particular couple were on a mission to put their financial house in order, so they axed their discretionary budget. They challenged themselves to use accumulated “points” from credit cards, cash backs, rebates and the like to get gifts for each other. Even with these restraints, the presents were quite wonderful. It was sort of a financial epiphany for them. And for me.
I’ve always been one to make homemade items as part of the gifts. Special foods for the diabetics, or hand crafted things for the kids are my way of expressing love. Besides, it stretches a tight budget to accommodate eight siblings and spouses, eight nieces and nephews, three other relations, a grandmom, and the four of us.
This year in my quest for the perfect outlay, we’re pulling all the methods together. Survey points should cover several gift cards (for a couple of cash strapped relatives), a Cross pen, and an artist’s sketchbook. Not too shabby.
I’m skimming from the grocery cash each paycheck to stock up on food supplies and collecting recipes for terrific homemade treats. Plus, I’m setting aside the occasional very crispy dollar bill. Ah you ask, what are they for? Following online instructions, they’re transforming into a bit of money origami. Regular cash is so boring. This is spendable, with a twist.
Our local bump and dent grocer, Sharp Shopper, offered Cracker Barrel cheese in wonderful sliding top dovetailed wooden boxes this past week. Since the cheeses are coated in wax, and come to $2 a pound, I bought four. Ah the ideas are flowing on that one. Boxes have so many possibilities.
A couple things just plopped into my lap. They were cool gifts, free with postage, on the back of bread bags and cereal boxes, perfect for kids.
This spring’s batch of homemade dandelion wine ages even as you read. It should be really mellow by the holidays. Something special for the older folks.
To be totally honest, a few items were purchased on sale. The standard is, are they things with a “wow” factor, and do they suit the giftee? (Without saying, they have to be amazing bargains.) So at a going out of business sale I found a detailed book on knights, for a nephew, and a couple of gorgeous, (no exaggeration), journals for my sisters. Online, at a one day only promotion, I snagged a handmade Christmas stocking. Using a special code it even had free shipping.
With half the year over and twelve people to go, the quest continues. Keeping my eyes peeled, I never know what will show up. Should be fun.
(By the way. Feel free to use these secrets, just don’t tell anyone what they got.)
I’ve always been one to make homemade items as part of the gifts. Special foods for the diabetics, or hand crafted things for the kids are my way of expressing love. Besides, it stretches a tight budget to accommodate eight siblings and spouses, eight nieces and nephews, three other relations, a grandmom, and the four of us.
This year in my quest for the perfect outlay, we’re pulling all the methods together. Survey points should cover several gift cards (for a couple of cash strapped relatives), a Cross pen, and an artist’s sketchbook. Not too shabby.
I’m skimming from the grocery cash each paycheck to stock up on food supplies and collecting recipes for terrific homemade treats. Plus, I’m setting aside the occasional very crispy dollar bill. Ah you ask, what are they for? Following online instructions, they’re transforming into a bit of money origami. Regular cash is so boring. This is spendable, with a twist.
Our local bump and dent grocer, Sharp Shopper, offered Cracker Barrel cheese in wonderful sliding top dovetailed wooden boxes this past week. Since the cheeses are coated in wax, and come to $2 a pound, I bought four. Ah the ideas are flowing on that one. Boxes have so many possibilities.
A couple things just plopped into my lap. They were cool gifts, free with postage, on the back of bread bags and cereal boxes, perfect for kids.
This spring’s batch of homemade dandelion wine ages even as you read. It should be really mellow by the holidays. Something special for the older folks.
To be totally honest, a few items were purchased on sale. The standard is, are they things with a “wow” factor, and do they suit the giftee? (Without saying, they have to be amazing bargains.) So at a going out of business sale I found a detailed book on knights, for a nephew, and a couple of gorgeous, (no exaggeration), journals for my sisters. Online, at a one day only promotion, I snagged a handmade Christmas stocking. Using a special code it even had free shipping.
With half the year over and twelve people to go, the quest continues. Keeping my eyes peeled, I never know what will show up. Should be fun.
(By the way. Feel free to use these secrets, just don’t tell anyone what they got.)
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Tree House for Sale
Constructed in 1996 with improvements/additions in 2008. Needs to be moved. A thirty-six square foot frame construction house perched four feet off the ground on four 4x4pressure treated posts. 80% green construction, from mostly salvaged materials. Shingled roof. One room. No electricity. No plumbing. No fireplace. No taxes. Natural light. Excellent ventilation. Sleeps one comfortably. Sports a large plexiglass (replacement) window, and two small escape hatches (one hidden in the floor to surprise bad guys). The additional entrance door is accessed by a drawbridge ladder. To discourage attack, appropriate warnings are painted on it. Friends may use the brass knocker to request entry. An additional interior ledge, accessible by ladder, is designed to hold a warrior type so that he may fling water balloons or shoot water guns at enemies below. Sold “as is”. Presently inhabited by a robin and her young. Lease is up once they fledge. All offers considered.
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