Show and Tell

Plastic freaks me out. I don't like what happens when it's being manufactured. I don't like keeping it in my house. I don't like the fact that it is going to outlive me...by a lot. One of my earliest stands against plastic was the plastic bag. A few readers have asked about my personal stash of bags...

Back maybe six or so years ago I started bringing my own bags to the food store. Huge, bulky canvas bags that I collected in my travels. The bags took up half of the cart. It took me a few months to start remembering to bring them regularly. Now, the bags are second nature.


Last year I found a great bag company called Envirosax. They bundle five large bags into one small pouch. Much easier to tote around than my old bags. The cashiers watch me like I'm performing a magic trick when I pull them out.


The old bags went to Freecycle and two were slated to be snow pants bags for those snowy days when the kids have to bring their snow gear to school for recess.


Just over a year ago another light bulb went off in my head. Even though I wasn't using plastic bags at the food store, I was still grabbing bags at the hardware store, pharmacy, etc. So I found the cutest bag made of mattress ticking on etsy. I keep it in my car for those quick run-in trips that I don't plan for.


Finally, my bag dreams were fulfilled this Christmas when hubby gave me lightweight, mesh produce bags. No more plastic bags for my grapefruit.





Here is the "show" of the show and tell post.




Congrats to all of those readers who remember to bring their bags to the store! Congrats to all of those who are planning to remember in the near future!

You've Got To Bag It, Bag It Up

My Little Guy has taken a real shine to woodworking. A creative outlet for a little one you might say. I say that "knocking down" my living room using only window candles is a very bad idea.

With that said, today I went to the crafty store for the second time this week to buy replacement window candles. Which, by the way, I bought the sensor candles by mistake. I will be going back again tomorrow to exchange them. Make that three trips this week.

My trip to the crafty store was timed to the second to fit in between Little Guy's nursery school pick-up and Girlie's bus drop-off. The store was a mob scene with only two registers open. My friendly cashier seemed to be the slowest according to Murphy's Law. When it was finally my turn to check out she tried to charge me for my cloth shopping bag.

Cashiers who try to find the price tags on my cute cloth bags seem to follow me all. The pharmacy, hardware store, food store and practically everywhere I go. Am I really the only customer they are seeing with cloth bags or are mine just so cute that I should be paying for them twice?

I try to be a glass half-full type of girl and look at the confused cashiers as a way for me to educate. I am probably not going to change the habits of the retired lady cashiers at the food store, but I love the teenage boy cashiers. Not love, love the teenage boys (as my Girlie would say). But, I love when they ask me about the bags because the are open to new ideas and have a lot of consumer years in front of them. Maybe they will reuse their shopping bags someday?



Brownie points to anyone who knows where I got the title for this post. Hint; it is Hubby's and my song. Yes, we are cheesy.