Stayin' Alive

OK, so I’m unmotivated to update the NNY blog. Does that mean NNY is dead?

No way!! We are going strong! To date, we have bought 2 “new” things (unused) things in 3 months. They were a cub scout neckerchief and webelos book (go figure that it would be cub scouting that would ruin our streak since I already have a bad attitude about the price of cubs. I hope the CEO of BSA is enjoying his cush lifestyle courtesy of fact that my eBay purchases of those two items both fell through & we ran out of time before our first pack meeting)

Speaking of eBay, I think it’s eBay’s fault that NNY doesn’t feel as revolutionary as I thought it would. Don’t get me wrong: we aren’t buying “new” things or dumb things (depending on your definition of dumb), but we ARE buying things like used snow pants on eBay, so the whole online shopping/packages on the doorstep thing is not dead.

I could MAKE it revolutionary by saying “no online purchases”…maybe we will do the last six months like that. It makes me feel a little nervous just to consider it.

The times I feel NNY most acutely are when I see Scott walking out the door with the stapler (“please guard that with your life!” or when Juju gets an invitation to a birthday party (“This certificate is good for one afternoon of ice skating with Juju”).

A few weeks ago my saintly dad fixed our hair drier—it died one day as I was trying to blow dry the seat of my pants (after sitting in a chair that Cal had visited with a water bottle) (and I really didn’t want a used hair drier). 

Having my dad spend 30 minutes fixing that old thing makes no economic sense, however, he IS part of why I feel so funny about sending things to the landfill. He doesn’t like to shop if he can help it, but one time when I was a teenager he came home from a trip to our area’s newish Walmart and said, with a look on his face that I’ll never forget, “They had a $20 vacuum. How could you even make a vacuum for $20?” The implication of disposable appliances made me feel as sick as he looked. Hopefully, as he fixed that hair drier, he still felt as strongly about conservation as he did then :-)