Practical or Cheap?

So I've had this post in my head for months and months. It comes up daily for me and I often wonder who else is like this or if I'm just a bit odd or over the top. Or maybe anyone who does think like this is odd and over the top with me, either way, I think about it, a lot. I can get a bit obsessed with things, in case you haven't noticed. What is the "this" you might be wondering. Well, it's many, many things so shall we begin?

I placed a nearly empty tube of desitin on the table before going away because there wasn't enough for our weekend trip, but I was SURE I could get just one more use from it, so of course, I saved it until we got back. Today I finally grabbed it off the table where it's been sitting on for two weeks and I desperately tried to squeeze the very last teensy little bit out of the tube. It's times like these, multiple times each day, that make me question if I'm being practical or am I just cheap.

Then, as luck would have it, I finished How Yoga Works early this week. If you're on my Facebook blog page then you know all about this book. If not, read it, it's wonderful, here's the link. K, housekeeping over, moving on. What I realized is maybe I'm not either, or maybe I'm both, but ultimately I'm more of a yogi than I thought. No wonder yoga found me, it was already in me.This was a very exciting realization. It reminded me I made the right choice with my teacher training program and I am on the right path at a time when my personal life has been, well, less than easy. It reminded me, in a deja vu sort of way, of when I realized that all the things I thought about God after many years of thinking maybe I was crazy for believing such things, were in fact exactly what Jews around the world have believed for thousands of years! It was in me, in my soul, the being a Yogi I mean, maybe even before I was dreamed of... if I really want to get yogi-ish about it.

Seriously though, this overwhelming desire to help others and to make the world a better place were all in me from the start and are precisely what it means to be not only a Jew but a Yogi. (and many other things that some of you may identify with I'm sure too but these are the two that resonate with me) And not just as simple as always wanting to donate to every cause I see, my overwhelming compassion even for people others don't think deserve compassion, like criminals, or dreaming of a day when the kids allow me to volunteer again, but it's in how I look at everything. And how everything is connected and can mean more than what it appears.

I do this, often actually. The looking at everything part I mean, and then I take it to the next level. The part I question if I'm a bit crazy is how I then take it all the freaking way to Mars pondering how what may seem a small thing or even how a small act of my own can have an immense impact on just about everything. I can get a bit carried away sometimes.

My New Years Resolution this year, which I put off telling you all after my very concrete thinking husband laughed at me, was to be more conscious of turning the water off when I brush my teeth, wash my face and do the dishes. Now, if I lived in Israel this would be a no brainer and you would be looked at negatively for NOT doing this all the time. It's not something you think about there. But we Americans, and many others around the world, but mostly us, are well, a bit wasteful. Sorry, it's true. Some may not consider letting water run as something wasteful really. Yes, that's true too! It's something that's always there so we take it for granted. Yet in some places people still wait at a community well, some still have to walk miles and carry their days supply back home and others would do anything for clean drinking water. Water is a life source, one we owe to our future generations thousands of years from now not to waste or take for granted or they quite simply won't ever exist.

And that's what I mean by over thinking it all and wondering if I'm a bit crazy sometimes for considering something as seemingly innocent as water in such a way. Ironically, we pay $80 per month for water here. Which is triple what it was in PA. It just keeps going up despite my efforts. Not that lowering our water bill crossed my mind when I made this resolution but it would have been a nice bit of karma!

The thing is, I do this with nearly EVERYTHING. I send Ecards or simply make a phone call because I see no point in wasting my money to plow down trees in order to send someone a card that will just go in the trash and take years to decompose. I don't do holiday cards and I honestly never know what to do with all the ones I get. I love them, but if I saved everything my house would look like I should be on that hoarders show. My husband and I don't even exchange cards, well, rarely. Sorry Hallmark but we can make people feel special and keep our trees too, considering they are also a life source. One might say, buy recycled cards. Why yes, and pay $5 for something that will, what... go in the trash? That's a latte for this sleep deprived mommy people! And there you have it... Practical or cheap or even just a yogi. What am I?

My list goes on and on....and on. I refuse to buy something I can get for less BUT I also attempt to buy quality because "cheap" things are just that. They fall apart, break, tear, taste crappy... You get my point. Heinz ketchup and Philadelphia cream cheese for example can not be duplicated. Now my husband is totally on board with this part of my obsessiveness, the not buying what we don't need and not paying more for something I can find for less obsessiveness. If you need proof, his closet full of American Eagle and Abercrombie polos from as far back as our college days is exhibit A. Granted, my closet isn't much better! I have jeans from high school, no lie. I did tear the Z Cavaracci tag off just so no one would be the wiser. Yes friends, I said Z Cavaracci. I'm hanging my head.... but I love them!

So my other crazy practical or cheap quirks? I read price per unit labels and truly go back and forth looking at the best value for things, particularly toilet paper, paper towels, napkins and even baby wipes which honestly is usually a difference of one cent or less! As the life skills coordinator at a transitional living program back in the day I taught our kids how to shop and shop wisely, and made them do this too! Writing that just made me laugh out loud and literally shake my head. They must have thought I was such a whack job! But my boss sure liked those receipts showing how I saved $20 or $30 or even more. Now I'm not one of those extreme coupon people. I rarely have coupons to be honest. I used to more before kids. I wish I had the time and patience for something like that but I don't. I do have limits, albeit, they are stretched a bit far.

I hate getting flowers, it's a waste of money to me. They look nice for awhile and then die and smell and you have to clean the vase. I'd rather plant something in the yard that comes back each year. It's pretty for everyone to see, adds to nature, and well, it's easy. I like easy. A perfect birthday present for me would be my husband taking my car for an oil change because it's a big to do with the kids in tow. Making my hectic life easier is the best gift of all!

Most of all though I HATE wasting food. I mean, I really, really hate it. Which makes having young children very challenging at meal times. I will not lie, if they throw something on the floor intentionally because they just feel like being a snot, something that can be picked up that is, they are expected to pick it up, put it back on their plate and eat it. Now, if we are at a restaurant, if they toss it in the bathroom or something like that well, that's just nasty but at the dining room table, you bet your butt they are eating it! There are starving children all over the world, in our own country, which is just inexcusable to me, who pray for food and to have a full belly just for one day. I love our garden but this year it produced so much that things were falling off the vines and plants and rotting. We couldn't give it away fast enough. It was so frustrating.

Are some of these just common sense to you? Need more examples before you determine if I'm cheap or practical? No problem.

People tell me about sales on baby clothes. I think, awesome! Then I hear $8 for this, $10 for that and I think, seriously? I won't pay more than $5 for anything and that's pushing it. Well, on occasion I will but it's rare and it's usually unisex so both kids can get wear out of it. I splurged on a $25 Penn State zipper hoodie with a cute lion head on the hood. I bought it big too. But that took a lot! It was worth it. Honestly though, does anyone really pay full price for a Gymboree sweater? And if so, WHY?? I just don't get it. I won't pay that much for myself just out of principal. It in no way costs that much to make and to make money off it, especially considering where it's made and how much those workers are paid! I don't like greed. And charging that much over the top is greed, pure and simple.

Yes, my kids often wear Gap and Gymboree and Caleb even has a pair of stride rite's, which I have to admit are the cutest damn things I have seen, but nothing was full price and shoes nearly always come from consignment shops. And my mom buys them. But there are actually people who buy these things and their kids NEVER even wear them, which is to my benefit. This is more perplexing to me than my insane practical thinking or cheapness. I of course have donated things with tags but often they were gifts without receipts that never fit for the season or I got them crazy cheap, like a dollar find on a Kohls sale rack and they just never worked out.

Shutterfly rocks. I take my own pictures and create 8x10's or wallets myself. Yes, we've done the professional thing a few times. I get serious anxiety about spending so much money on, again, something that will be up for a bit and then what? It eventually just gets thrown away! Even if it's 50 years from now. Or you end up with old friend's school pictures from as far back as 7th grade, like I have. Why do I have these? Who the heck knows. I just don't know what to do with things like this. I also tend to do photo books or order prints when I get free coupons for both, or some crazy deal like 100 prints for $1 or something. I'll even wait to order because why would I pay more when I know I don't have to? It simply seems silly to do such a thing, even if you can afford to.

I hold off on watching True Blood or Dexter each year by ordering HBO or Showtime about 8 weeks into the season and catching up on demand. Which reminds me, I need to cancel HBO again. I research for weeks the best price on things I need or want from a new vacuum, a book, laptop, countless baby items, which by the way, the baby bargains book was the BEST hand me down I ever received! We still have the ugly roller shades up that were left when we moved in a year ago in a number of rooms because the cost of custom order blinds for our old house seems so ridiculous to me. So I search and search for the perfect deal so I can look at them and not cringe thinking of all the things I could have got instead. Instead of blinds. BLINDS! It's a vicious cycle.

More? Well, our recycling only takes cans and paper so I saved all our recycling when we first moved here until I found a recycling center and now we go every month or so with a big load of cardboard, junk mail and plastics. My glass sits and waits for my mom to visit and take it back home with her to recycle since I can't find anywhere here that will take glass. On vacation, Craig and I drove around the last day looking for a place to recycle all our plastic bottles, which my step dad planned to just throw out all week! Now that's crazy! Don't get me wrong, I'm far from the perfect green momma. I often forget to take my reusable bags with me shopping, I never remember to take my own coffee cup and I don't always buy the most energy efficient things, like light  bulbs. There are plenty of times I toss the toilet paper roll in the trash and think, I really should recycle that. I've even thought, a tree died to make it, maybe that tree possessed the cure for cancer! I don't actually think this often but I did think it since I started writing this post and held the empty roll in my hand. You just never know.

Okay, so some of you may be lost and thinking what in the world does buying baby clothes on sale, or not buying the latest fashion for myself and husband, recycling a toilet paper roll, researching the cheapest blinds I want, cutting coupons, turning the water off when I brush and not giving people greeting cards all have in common? Maybe you're thinking I'm cheap AND practical depending on the situation because all these things aren't related. .

Not so. They are. It all comes down to being wasteful. Or not wasteful.

Not wasting hard earned money when you can get the same exact thing for less, not wasting food or our resources such as water and trees, not wasting our time or our energy on things that aren't that important if you really look at the bigger picture. And living simply and not being wasteful, being mindful of how things are all connected is very much living the life of a yogi.

NOW, I'm far from perfect. I'm certainly far from the perfect yogi! I have clothes in my closet I haven't worn in years that I should donate. We have a TV downstairs we never even watch. The kids have way more toys than they need or use. Leftovers get thrown away each week, with much anxiety as I do this. I could use less napkins and paper towels cleaning up. I could find the drain stop and do all our dishes by hand and stop using the dishwasher. I could only use recyclable batteries. The list of all I could do is as endless as how many things I over think and wonder how it may impact our world and our futures.

Maybe I'm not cheap, or practical. Maybe this has nothing to do with the yogi born in me. Maybe I'm just stuck in my head thinking too much and I'm just a bit nutty! But, this is me nonetheless. It's part of how I think I'm helping to make this world a better place, to leave it a better place. Or at least I hope so. Is this you too? Even a little?

That's all for today friends. I have to go cook something with all this pumpkin puree I made before it goes to waste!