Later when I was cleaning out my fridge, I found myself looking at the tail end of some salsa I made and thinking, "Hmm... Half a cup of salsa. That might be just exactly what I'm wanting for a snack one day." And then, as if on autopilot, I pour the salsa out of the larger container and into a smaller one. But I didn't break out a grease pen and label the contents, so really I wasn't being over the top.
And then tonight. I was going to refashion two old tees into one cool new tee, but I miscut and I was faced with two large rectangles of knit fabric that needed to go into the trash can. Except instead of throwing them away, I start cutting them into 7" squares. I stacked two squares and serged the edges together to make a dishrag. I got 5 double-layered dishrags from the old tee.
As I was admiring my thriftiness, I realized that there was no more fighting it. It's official. I have become my grandmother.
Over the years we've made fun of my grandmother for all of the above acts of thriftiness, so I have to laugh at myself when I find myself repeating them. I suppose it's in the blood, the need to stretch the usefulness of all that you have at your disposal - whether it's a wad of food or a bit of fabric. She raised two babies during WWII rationing, and did so for several years in a house with no electricity and no indoor plumbing. This woman knows about thriftiness, about repurposing, and making do. So while I laugh at myself for washing out baggies and hoarding little morsels of food, I also find a certain bit of pride in seeing my grandmother's traits in me.
