Rainy Day Thoughts

   It was cool and wet today, and I spent a few hours mid-day baking and reading.  I made what is probably the season's last zucchini bread, and while it baked  I sat at the dining room table and read a book about a boy's summers on his grandparent's farm in New Hampshire.   They were dairy farmers, and frugal by nature and necessity.  The title of the book is the punchline of an anecdote: a box is found in an attic, and it is full of tiny pieces of string.  The box is neatly labeled 'string too short to be saved'.
  One character in the book dies in a house filled with straightened nails he never used.  I thought of my boss at the nursery, who used to pay us to pound nails straight instead of buying new ones, even though the cost of our labor was more than the cost of new nails, and the bent nails were recyclable.
  When does frugality cross the line into the ridiculous?  I periodically look around my house and yard and ask myself that question, because extreme frugality that is beyond necessity is as soul destroying as obsessive buying.  Both are ways to avoid dealing with unfilled deeper needs for meaning, for creativity,  for love.  That frugality can lead to a life with too much stuff that is no longer useful, or too little stuff of quality.
  I buy good beer because I drink a little and enjoy it a lot.  I don't eat out much because I really like simple, fresh food, and because I love to cook.   I make these decisions after discussion with my husband, because he is important, and the beer and food would not be as good without him.  But I'm not perfect, and sometimes I pass up on experiences worth the cost because I worry too much about money, or I spend money on something I later find at home, like yet another tape measure or trowel.

Today I reminded myself to appreciate the things of real value,  like a good meal with an ingredient I grew myself from seed, such as this  grilled cheese sandwich with a slice of 'mortgage lifter' tomato between two layers of extra sharp cheddar on wheat  bread.  You can have your BLT-- I'll take a grilled cheddar and heirloom tomato.  And I won't save string, but I might straighten a nail or two.