Hi, welcome back. Happy Tuesday! Time to check in on progress. How are you doing with our mini-mission to a lighter life? Today kicks off day 4 of our quest for parting with 12 items a day? Are you filling your collection box as you promised you would? Great if you are!! Hope you’re feeling a bit lighter being free of 36 items!?!
What’s with the tallying you ask? Silly – didn’t you know this was going to be a math lesson too? We tend to benefit when we quantify our actions in some way. At the end of 22 days, we’ll have parted with a lot of stuff (feel free to do the math on your own!).
Awesome right?
At this stage of our mission, it is still pretty easy to find small miscellaneous clutter sitting around. Stuff that has kind of just blended into the background.
Sometimes our clutter becomes a bit invisible to us. If you haven’t noticed it in two years, you’re probably safe to “let it go.”
In my case, I found several items I can see right through so I haven’t really paid too much attention to them until I had to meet my quota for yesterday. Not really desperation aisle stuff. But you may think close to it after I confess what I found to add to my box.
My dorkiest finds? Oh sigh…apparently I have a slight compulsion for glass jars?
A cute little one. I just can’t resist little containers. They are so adorable. Even cuter when they are only two inches tall. I must have longed for finding a purpose for it? I set it aside, um, how long ago? Yes, it was 2 years ago. Oh, my good graycious, time to be tough! It is glassware, and recyclable so I “let it go” to the recycling box.
An old spicy kimchi jar, with a dollar bill in it. Well…you know I saw on Pinterest (or was it Facebook? I can’t remember) that if you put a dollar a week in a jar on week 1, 2 dollars in week 2, and 3 dollars in week 3, etc. through 52 weeks you’ll have ____ $ in your jar (feel free to do the math on your own!). Oh my, after setting the jar aside way back when, it didn’t multiply as I planned. I definitely don’t have extra cash to spare after 2 years of trying the jar method.
I’ve rescued the dollar bill, now extra spicy smelling, and transferred it to a different container. Holy crap…I found $31 dollars in there when I took the cork off this treasured container. I can’t even remember when I put the money in there! It must be a good sign! I can save when I can’t see the stash of cash in the jar. Yes, good graycious, the kimchi jar is glassware, and recyclable so I “let it go” to the recycling box too.
An old Grey Poupon jar, with my handwriting on the top with the date 6/7/14. Yes, over 2 years ago. And the contents in the jar? Warning, you may not like what you are about to read here.
Contents of the jar? Two wood ticks soaked in rubbing alcohol.
Gasp…WTH?
Okay, I know, yuck right? There’s a legit story, really. REALLY? REALLY!?! Yes, in 2014, Copper had picked up a wood tick. After removing it, (oh…I remember the trauma it caused him), I was worried he may catch Lyme’s disease since the tick had bitten him. I wanted to preserve the tick just in case he came down with symptoms and the vet would want to see it? They do want to see them if you have the tick don’t they? After researching the trusty internet, I found that you can kill ticks as well as store them in rubbing alcohol in a glass jar.
WTH? Yes, I did it, I saved the big tick and the skin scrap that came off Copper. Traumatic right? Poor little guy. So yeah…that’s the bigger dot in the picture.
The second tick was from this past summer. It was a smaller one when I found it on him and it hadn’t bitten him, (no skin hanging) so I figured the alcohol death would be more interesting than the death by lighter burning method. Just in case it had bitten him and scurried off to a different spot, (aka where I found it on him). Being a smaller tick, it may just be one carrying Lyme’s disease, for sure it was a good idea to save that tick? Therefore it was legit to toss it in the jar along with the other lonely floating tick. Hmmm, interesting.
Jeez…What a sucker? What an idiot? But a very cool science experiment nonetheless! The ticks absorbed the alcohol, swelled up and are actually pretty interesting to look at. (Go ahead, check it out in the picture. Busted! You were curious weren’t you?)
Yuck, double yuck, and triple yuck!?!
Yes, good graycious, the Grey (although, I do like the word “grey” in the name) Poupon jar, (ticks flushed down the toilet first), is glassware, and recyclable so I “let it go” in the recycling box too. Note to self: I’ll have to remember how to preserve a tick technique next year, or maybe not? I’ve been there done that, and am kind of over my compulsion of tick collecting. Whew!
I don’t know about you, but that’s enough treasures to remember from Day 3! What treasures have you found to part with? Can you top my finds? Please do share, I’d love to learn from you! See you again soon during our next check in! “Let it snow, (heck yeah), let it go!”
