Pie Pans & Pigtails

Remember when your other half could do no wrong.  You overlooked the little weird things that now get under your skin.  Like the way they eat soup.  Well I have no less than three quirks that irk my husband.  Bless him, he is very patient and would NEVER verbalize this.  But I know they bug him because they bug me too.  I’ll wash four loads of laundry and then fail to fold for as many days.  I buy yards of sewing fabric with the best intentions.  Sadly it sits in the closet next to the machine (along with all the items he’s asked me to mend over the years.)  But I think the one that gets him the most is my unwillingness to throw away things.  I’m hopeless.  I even scour our recycle bin to be sure he hasn’t tossed something that might be useful. 

Used to be that he’d ask before throwing out something.  I’d simply relay that I had a use for it.  He’d leave it alone.  End of story.  But now he’s using some crazy psychology on me.  He’s peppering me with questions like “Really, and what do you have in mind?”  Dang it.  You see, I am an habitual multi-purposer.  And lots of times, even when I cannot quite envision an item’s second use, I’ll still keep it…just in case.  Not on the level of those hoarders you see on television.  I vacuum at least every other day and I swear the piles of laundry are all clean.  My bath towels are crisp white and folded in a uniform fashion.  All pillow cases must lie with the hem facing the outside edge of the bed.  OK those last two should have been saved for my OCD post, but you get the point.    

The husband must have read a book on passive discouragement because yesterday he threw a new tactic at me.  We were visiting my mama and she offered me a very useful looking gallon-size plastic jar.  And I really, really wanted that jar.  It could be a coin bank for the kids, but they’re already using a glass pickle jar for that.  Then I thought of all my buttons.  Thousands of them – big, little, fancy, plain.  Most from my grandma’s sewing stash.  Some from the little baggies that are attached to clothing tags.  (And always save those baggies, you just never know!)  Yes, my buttons would be right at home in that wonderful, ginormous jar.  But my zeal was crushed when my beloved quietly reminded me that the buttons already had a nice place to stay. In the matched set of circa 1970 antacid jars that they arrived in when I brought them home from Grandma’s.  It probably took her years of following Granddaddy around to collect them.  And he was likely popping the Rolaids to deal with her passion for multi-purposing.  I’m thinking she might have yelled some about his throwing good stuff out because her sewing needles were tucked inside Sucrets throat lozenge tins from the same era.

We saved coffee cans for my granddaddy to use in the barn and torn pantyhose to stake tomatoes.  Cool Whip containers were her fancy Tupperware.  She even rinsed and reused Ziploc bags.  And it’s a cardinal rule that you never, ever throw out mason jars.  See, Honey, it’s genetic.  It’s like the fat gene.  It cannot be helped!

I do have a few self-imposed rules.  I like containers that I can collect multiples of and I prefer the kind with removable labels.  No need in remembering their past life – kind of the way I’d be way unhappy if my sweetheart had an ex-girlfriend’s name tattooed on his forearm.  Just a wee bit PWT for me.  So pay no mind to my nine piece Texmati Rice canister set.  The squared tubs were just too perfect to give up even though the darn labels wouldn’t cooperate.  I keep them on their sides and hidden in the pantry to satisfy my OCD. 

No, I didn’t get the dang jar.  But Mama put it back in her pantry.  Maybe there’ll be another chance…so long as Daddy doesn’t throw it out first.  So what’s the weird thing that most peeves your other half?  Or better yet, have any good recycling tips?!  I’m running out of excuses.