Sunday 8 February 2009

Hoarder? Or just frugal? The survival instinct kicks in...

There's been a terrible smell in the house for the past few days. I think I've tracked it down to the fridge, but despite throwing everything out that looked like it had a life of its own (there were quite a few contenders), the smell still lingers.

I even wiped it out with our really stinky cheap washing up liquid. Didn't make any difference, except that the fridge now smells of yuk AND a lavender/toilet cleaner-sort of smell. Bicarb solution might be the next step. But in the meantime I'm just hoping the smell will somehow go away...[yeah, head in sand as usual]

Well the snow finally stopped on Saturday and once a bit of ice had melted we were able to get the car out safely. Like others that I know, the survival instinct immediately set in and I drove out to get SUPPLIES.

It's only been a few days since we've been able to get out the house, but the shopping centre was like pre-christmas madness! People were buying up anything and everything! I'm not sure if this is something specifically British, but we seem to be so scared of going without. We are a nation of hoarders:we hoard and hoard, and then barricade ourselves in, just on the offchance of starvation, or drought, or flood, or Tesco closing for a day, or any sort of shortage.

Maybe it's a leftover effect of World War II, where shortages were commonplace and our grandparents learnt to live with rationing for many years? I've had the 'make do and mend' mentality driven into me from a young age and in times of stress - or shortage - it kicks into overdrive. How can I throw anything out when it may, at some time in the future, be so very useful??!

Of course this hoarding is useful when it comes to home educating. We have every resource we could possibly need - except that we have so many things it's quite difficult to find what we need when we need it. Or maybe home educating is just an excuse to hoard even more stuff? No! I'm frugal! I recycle! I'm good for the environment! (at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it).

1 comment:

Carolyn said...

Don't talk to me about hoarding!!!!!!
It would be great if you could have a seperate room to put all the hoarding treasures in wouldn't it....wall to wall shelving with boxes all neatly labelled. Sigh.
But sadly only a dream. Even if I had a room it would never look like that!!!!