The power of little things

Towards the end of my time off work when I started to have moments of feeling good, I started to go through some of my drawers and such. I actually was looking for a paper I didn't find, but it was a catalyst for that simple act of remembering the little things.

It started with finding the pile of hotel shampoos, conditioners, soaps and lotions. Between DH's taking DS down to the US last year, my driving down in Aug to get him settled and our visit down, there was a whack of 'hotel stuff'. I brought it home in my luggage yet there it sat, taking up space and unused. So the good shampoos went into a basket to be used for my hair, the lotions went into a basket I could use in the mornings on my legs before I went to school, and the iffy shampoos and conditioners could be used as body wash. Soap...well...as soap.

There was a month's worth of supplies there!  Now I certainly am not planning early retirement on the 'savings' from not buying these products for a month. At best I 'saved' $20 I am guessing. But it reminded me that little things have power and apparently every few months I need this kind of reminder.

It led me to go through the freezer in my fridge to see what little things were in there; frozen bananas, very small packs of frozen ground beef or a pork chop, a chicken breast; bags with a dibble of frozen peas or carrots or perogies. Things like that.  Am I going to use them or just keep those little bits in there until one day I clean and find them all freezer burnt?  So I used them up. Stew, chicken fried rice or a chicken breast in pasta, banana bread. etc.  Lots of little meals where I didn't need to buy something and use 'almost' all of it, only to freeze a bit more.

So off to the freezer in the garage. So many containers of frozen soups and stews, buns from my mom, mozza sticks....all kinds of stuff.

I either need to learn to shop for 3 people (soon to be 2), or else I need to keep a list so I know what's in there, so I use it.

Which led to the cleaning and yard products. Four bottles of fantastic with a splash in the bottom? Ditto toilet bowl cleaner or stain remover.  DH had four bottles of ant killer in the garage. Did you know those things have a lock built into the cap so no one can accidentally dump it? So I couldn't combine those into one bottle, but we now have them lined up so DH can use one and then recycle it. The number of different containers of OFF? holy wow. They are all lined up ready on  shelf in order of least left in the can to most.   And on and on it went.

In the busy-ness (or laziness) of life, these things get shoved aside and forgotten and not used.

It was a good reminder for me that even when I think I don't have a lot in my life, I have a lot of little things, and they each have a little bit of power to enrich or sustain my life if I remember they exist.