Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
Speaker 2: and speaker.
Speaker 3: And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
Speaker 3: and course creator. We are two working parents who love
Speaker 3: our careers and our families.
Speaker 2: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
Speaker 2: how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
Speaker 2: From figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1: Term career goals.
Speaker 2: We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2: This episode is airing in late January of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: We are going to be talking all things repurposing in
Speaker 2: this episode, so how we reuse things, ideas, et cetera
Speaker 2: in our lives. But we wanted to open with a
Speaker 2: discussion that we are blatantly borrowing from the Girls next
Speaker 2: Door podcast that they recently had an epithos episode they
Speaker 2: called empties, which was things that they had completely used
Speaker 2: up and thus had to replace. So just a brief list, Sarah,
Speaker 2: what has gone empty in your household recently? Because part
Speaker 2: of repurposing is also getting your money's worth, you know,
Speaker 2: using things up.
Speaker 1: So what have you used up recently.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So we're going to do this in categories, and
Speaker 3: our first category is going to be food items. So
Speaker 3: the empties that we buy constantly in replenished constantly include
Speaker 3: Dave's Killer Bread Cinnamon Raisin bagels. We all eat them.
Speaker 3: My husband is particularly addicted to them, eats one almost
Speaker 3: every single morning, Perfect Bars in various varieties, Amy's Cheddar burritos.
Speaker 3: It has to be the cheddar because a lot of
Speaker 3: the other ones have cilantro in them and therefore are
Speaker 3: not good in my opinion. Pink Lady apples, that's really
Speaker 3: the only apple I prefer these days. And and on
Speaker 3: a similar vein the Go Go Squeeze apple sauce pouches
Speaker 3: my kids.
Speaker 2: We buy a lot of those too, because apple sauce
Speaker 2: is about the only fruit that Alex will actually eat.
Speaker 2: Costco makes ones that have more sort of veggies in them,
Speaker 2: so sometimes we can get those for him to be
Speaker 2: eating as well.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we buy a lot of this. Have you
Speaker 1: ever had honey crisp apples. They're very similar to Pink Lady.
Speaker 3: I think they're pretty good.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, we'll have to have like an apple
Speaker 2: taste off sometimes, like all those wonderfully crisp red apples
Speaker 2: that are so good. But yeah, we have a couple
Speaker 2: items from Costco that we actually get through and have
Speaker 2: to go back to Costco to get because they wind
Speaker 2: up empty. One is their parmesan cheese, so they have
Speaker 2: these tubs of parmesan cheese. But several of my kids
Speaker 2: like to put these on pasta and they use a
Speaker 2: lot of them, so we go through several of those.
Speaker 2: We also get through the giant peanut butter containers. Now
Speaker 2: this is an interesting thing because I thought we were
Speaker 2: incredibly brand loyal to Skippy and that is what Costco had,
Speaker 2: But then Costco must have changed their contract because now
Speaker 2: they have Jiffy. So we're like, okay, I guess we'll
Speaker 2: get Jiffy and it's fine. Everyone ate it, so I
Speaker 2: don't know that's how it goes. We also get these
Speaker 2: little balls of mozzarella cheese, so there's like snack size
Speaker 2: mozzarella cheese balls. That's another thing that several of my
Speaker 2: kids will eat. And also Go Go Squeeze makes shelf stable.
Speaker 1: Yogurt as well.
Speaker 2: We go through a ton of those because they are
Speaker 2: obviously easier to pack for lunches. Or snacks or anything else,
Speaker 2: because they do not need to be refrigerated and the
Speaker 2: idea of room temperature yogurt sounds repulsive to me, but
Speaker 2: I'm not the one eating it, so there we go.
Speaker 2: How about cleaning, Sarah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we use a lot of I feel like
Speaker 3: I'm gonna get like canceled, like this is not good enough.
Speaker 3: But windex with vinegar. Okay, I'm sure it's not the
Speaker 3: world's best environmental choice, but I love the slight vinegar smell.
Speaker 3: I think it works really well. So we do use
Speaker 3: a lot of that. We do have the Missus Meyers
Speaker 3: soap and dish deetergent kind of and the refills on
Speaker 3: Subscribe and Save, and then admittedly we also use the
Speaker 3: dishwasher pods that make it really really easy from Cascade.
Speaker 3: I feel like listing this, I'm like, I'm sure we
Speaker 3: could do better from an environmental standpoint, so maybe that'll
Speaker 3: be a future thing to work out. Right now, those
Speaker 3: are definitely kind of rebought many times in our house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we use a lot of missus Meyer's hand soap,
Speaker 2: though I have one child who washes hands so frequently
Speaker 2: that I have wound up purchasing cheaper hand soap for
Speaker 2: said child, because my frugal self cannot stomach the idea
Speaker 2: of using nice hand soap for such profligate use. I'm
Speaker 2: a big fan of hand washing, by the way, but
Speaker 2: this is a little bit a lot of it. But
Speaker 2: the rest of us are using missus Meyer's hand soap.
Speaker 2: We are also using don spray dish detergent. So I
Speaker 2: would do a shout out here. Some people get behind
Speaker 2: on dishes because they feel like each time they have
Speaker 2: to wash dishes it has to be this production. If
Speaker 2: that is the case, you might want to change your tools.
Speaker 2: So we use spray dish detergent and then a scrubbing
Speaker 2: brush with a handle, so you can literally just spray
Speaker 2: one dish with your dish spray and scrub it with
Speaker 2: your scrub brush, and it's like a ten second process
Speaker 2: for one dish, and you put it over there on
Speaker 2: the side to dry, and so they'd never build up right.
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying like after dinner we don't have
Speaker 2: six or seven dishes to do, but during the course
Speaker 2: of the day they can get done individually.
Speaker 1: So no one's ever supposed to be leaving dishes in
Speaker 1: the sink.
Speaker 3: I've never tried a dish spray, but I think I
Speaker 3: would like it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of these things you never really know
Speaker 2: how other people are structuring their lives, or like they're
Speaker 2: cleaning rites or their showering rituals or anything else like this.
Speaker 1: And I've had people talk.
Speaker 2: About how they get behind on dishes and then it
Speaker 2: takes so much time to get caught up, and I'm
Speaker 2: struggling to understand, like why, Like what's going on?
Speaker 1: I don't even understand.
Speaker 2: But it's because I think they don't think it's possible
Speaker 2: to do one dish at a time.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think with people that struggle with household stuff,
Speaker 3: it's actually pretty common. Because there was that book. Oh
Speaker 3: I forget what it's called right now, but it focused
Speaker 3: a lot on on dishes, so I know it must
Speaker 3: be a common thing for me that's like I kind
Speaker 3: of can't leave a dish there, like I can't do it.
Speaker 3: There's other stuff that piles up in my house like crazy,
Speaker 3: I can't do it with dishes. So yeah, thus far
Speaker 3: we've been okay because I'm too crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I would say we also go through a
Speaker 2: lot of draft laundry detergent, and people like what you
Speaker 2: don't have any newborns anymore, but for whatever reason, enough
Speaker 2: people had like sensitive skin, and then I started breaking
Speaker 2: some weird thing at one point, so I was like, well,
Speaker 2: I'll just wash my stuff and draft, and as we
Speaker 2: wind up going through a fair amount of.
Speaker 3: That as well, we do all free and clear.
Speaker 1: Okay, well that works, that works all right.
Speaker 2: And then one last category is Sarah Beauty. What are
Speaker 2: your empties in the beauty category?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I have two mescaras that I use for
Speaker 3: different purposes that I rebuy again and again. My everyday
Speaker 3: work life mescaret is the lang Comb definiteiles I'm like obsessed.
Speaker 3: And then my party mascaret is the Thrive mascara because
Speaker 3: it makes your eyelashes pop in a way that the
Speaker 3: lang Comm does not. But the lang Com is just
Speaker 3: like it's like perfect for work. And then I have
Speaker 3: bought many times over the Bare Minerals Complexion Rescue. It's
Speaker 3: like a tinted moisturizer with SPF and I feel like
Speaker 3: it really evens out skin tone and I feel really
Speaker 3: virtuous that I'm putting on SPF every single morning. So
Speaker 3: love it. And then my hair care is almost always
Speaker 3: mill Bond, which is the company that makes the Japanese
Speaker 3: training products that are used in my hair. So I'm
Speaker 3: pretty brand loyal there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I use Ilia Concealer.
Speaker 2: That's Ilia, I think that's how you say it, and
Speaker 2: I wind up rebuying tubes of that when I am
Speaker 2: scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Speaker 1: As it were.
Speaker 2: This Elements or Elements marine cream. I really got into
Speaker 2: that when they sent a sample in the Allure beauty box,
Speaker 2: and that turns out to be a rather expensive addiction,
Speaker 2: so I probably need to rethink that, but for now
Speaker 2: and then, I'm going to do a total shout out
Speaker 2: to the Thrive mascara as well. I would be having
Speaker 2: constant empties on that, but as an advertiser they it's
Speaker 2: been fortunate that they've sent me replenishments so I haven't
Speaker 2: had to replace them quite as frequently as I would otherwise.
Speaker 2: So thank you to them for that because I'm using
Speaker 2: it every single day. Apparently I like to have my
Speaker 2: party eyes every day. So there we go. So this
Speaker 2: episode is about repurposing things that we reuse, sometimes in
Speaker 2: new ways in order to minimize effort or time or
Speaker 2: cost or clutter or environmental impact. So the first category though,
Speaker 2: we want to quick talk about, is reusing.
Speaker 1: Your own intellectual property.
Speaker 2: So it turns out I've had people tell me this
Speaker 2: in the past, and it took a while to get
Speaker 2: my head around it. It's like, you know, you create
Speaker 2: all this content, you can come up with ways that
Speaker 2: you can give it a new life. I mean not
Speaker 2: you never want to do the exact same thing for
Speaker 2: multiple places, because you know you've gotta be respectful to
Speaker 2: your readers, your listeners, et cetera. But there's often a
Speaker 2: German of an idea that you've used somewhere that you
Speaker 2: can then pivot in some way to make it work
Speaker 2: in a different format. So Sarah, you have done this
Speaker 2: for sure in your creative work. I think you've figured
Speaker 2: out ways to reuse some of your ideas.
Speaker 3: I have, and I don't think I even meant to
Speaker 3: do it, Like it's not like I set out to
Speaker 3: be like let me repurpose. But funny story, so I'm
Speaker 3: working out a book, as we talked about during those
Speaker 3: Yearly Goals episodes, and initially like three years ago, more
Speaker 3: than three years ago, like twenty twenty two, I hired
Speaker 3: someone to help me turn my podcast episodes into the
Speaker 3: draft of a book, because somehow I thought like, oh,
Speaker 3: maybe i'll like ghost write a book or I don't know,
Speaker 3: like based on my content, based on the way I
Speaker 3: teach planning on Bestlaid Plans, and she did a great job.
Speaker 3: But then when I read them, I'm like, oh god, no,
Speaker 3: I can't like put out a book that I didn't
Speaker 3: write like I need to put I write, I blog,
Speaker 3: I can write like I want my book to be
Speaker 3: in my voice. However, this stuff is awesome, hmm, what
Speaker 3: should I do with it? Let me try starting a course.
Speaker 3: So I edited them and tweaked them, but they that
Speaker 3: read was repurposed into the material that made up Best
Speaker 3: Laid Plans Academy. And then after teaching Bestlaid Plans Academy
Speaker 3: four or five times now, I was like, I'm going
Speaker 3: to turn this into a book. So it's been like
Speaker 3: flipped around, repurpose. I feel like it's only improved, Like
Speaker 3: these are like iterations, but I've learned so much in
Speaker 3: each iteration, so it's not like I'm just redoing. But
Speaker 3: at the same time, it's like amazing that something it
Speaker 3: was really a set of ideas that has just been
Speaker 3: like refined over time and in some ways reused. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's my repurposing story.
Speaker 1: No, I mean doing that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, let's take a quick ad break and then
Speaker 2: I'll talk about my repurposing when we come back. Yeah, so,
Speaker 2: I mean this was actually one of the upsides of
Speaker 2: college application season that Jasper and I just went through.
Speaker 2: I really love that there is the common app now,
Speaker 2: so that at least your basic essay can be reused
Speaker 2: for every place. But then it turns out that you
Speaker 2: can also sort of have general ways that you're thinking about,
Speaker 2: like your activities or moments you've had in your life,
Speaker 2: and then you can tweak them according to the different
Speaker 2: questions that different places ask. So it's specific to the university,
Speaker 2: but like some of it could be gotten at it
Speaker 2: in the same way, and so it's a useful mindset
Speaker 2: for people to have some of my old before Breakfast
Speaker 2: episodes I am now tweaking to turn into Vanderhack's right,
Speaker 2: that's a great way that I've been repurposing. If anyone
Speaker 2: ever read Juliette's School of Possibilities, that novel, it actually
Speaker 2: began its life as a National Novel Writing Month challenge.
Speaker 2: Novel that was in many ways very different, Like it
Speaker 2: had a totally different plot, but I kept the location
Speaker 2: and I kept several of the main characters.
Speaker 1: So that was a repurposing there.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's really struck me as I was
Speaker 2: doing the Bach project last year, So in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: I listened to all the works of Bach.
Speaker 1: He was repurposing a lot like you.
Speaker 2: He'd write a cantata for Sunday and then he'd need
Speaker 2: an alto.
Speaker 1: Solo for something else, and it might get reused again.
Speaker 2: And then when he did sort of his major works
Speaker 2: like the Christmas Oratorio or the Box B Minor Mass,
Speaker 2: he had a lot of work to pull from that
Speaker 2: he could then reuse a chorus from something developed a
Speaker 2: little bit differently, or do this as a baritone instead
Speaker 2: of a soprano solo.
Speaker 1: And so it was really cool to hear that.
Speaker 3: If Bach can repurpose, then there is no shame in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, although he wasn't being recorded right like
Speaker 2: I mean, it's the harder now with stuff like that,
Speaker 2: just because it's it's all searchable, it's existing longer term,
Speaker 2: Like when his people performing a cantata on Sunday morning
Speaker 2: did it. It was all gone then once they did it,
Speaker 2: versus just the written record of it, like that was
Speaker 2: all that was it, and that wasn't even going to
Speaker 2: be distributed broadly because there was very limited sort of
Speaker 2: printing going on.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's.
Speaker 2: And be that as it may. We repurpose all sorts
Speaker 2: of other things beyond ips. So hand me downs, for instance,
Speaker 2: is the ultimate clothing repurposing. Sarah, what does your hand
Speaker 2: me down system look like?
Speaker 1: These days?
Speaker 3: We don't have the best system. I think we've been
Speaker 3: able to get away with a subpar system because of
Speaker 3: the spacing and ages of my kids. So really, the
Speaker 3: only passing on that's realistic is for either Annabel or
Speaker 3: Cameron to pass on to Genevieve at this point, because
Speaker 3: Annibal and Cameron are essentially the same size, they also
Speaker 3: have wildly different styles, like they're not passing things back
Speaker 3: and forth, but either of them could potentially pass some
Speaker 3: stuff to Genevieve. And so I just put it in
Speaker 3: a bin and we periodically look inside the bin. And
Speaker 3: because there's a big enough gap, like there's almost six
Speaker 3: years between Genevieve and Annabel and like four between, I
Speaker 3: can like get away with not having great system, because
Speaker 3: it's not going to it's as long as I look
Speaker 3: at that bin, like every year or two, I'm going
Speaker 3: to catch stuff, is my point, because it's like a
Speaker 3: pretty long window before it's actually ready for her. And
Speaker 3: then the worst case is if I missed the boat,
Speaker 3: then I.
Speaker 2: Can send it to my niece. So yeah, that someone
Speaker 2: can get it, someone can use it. So we actually
Speaker 2: we probably have more of a hand me down system
Speaker 2: than we even really use at this point. But we
Speaker 2: have bins for pretty much all kids sizes now in
Speaker 2: a closet in our house, and so they're labeled like
Speaker 2: size five T slash five or the size seven, size
Speaker 2: eight ten, And the goal is to be able to
Speaker 2: pull some of this stuff out of there for the
Speaker 2: little boys in particular as they are getting to those
Speaker 2: individual sizes. And so it's been really fun to see
Speaker 2: some of the clothes that Jasper or Sam wore on Henry. Now,
Speaker 2: obviously all of it doesn't make it as one might imagine,
Speaker 2: there are many items of clothing that you cannot have
Speaker 2: four little boys wear and expect them to survive just
Speaker 2: the sheer passage of time. It also turns out that,
Speaker 2: for instance, little boy sweatpants do not last because the
Speaker 2: elastic in the waistband falls apart after about I don't know,
Speaker 2: three four years. So in fact, we haven't even been
Speaker 2: able to use most of Alex's pants for Henry, which
Speaker 2: was kind of sad, but that is what it is.
Speaker 1: They also cost like nine dollars to buys.
Speaker 2: I'm not really you know, hoping for heirloom quality little
Speaker 2: boys sweatpants, but things like coats and boots, snow pants, sweatshirts,
Speaker 2: dressy sweaters, those can all be passed down.
Speaker 1: And so it's really fun to be able to see that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the sentimental piece of that must be
Speaker 3: really really cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And there was like one remarkably resilient orange T shirt.
Speaker 2: It was like a sort of mesh orange T shirt
Speaker 2: that had shirks on it, and that like literally everyone
Speaker 2: has worn because it just it's indestructible. I don't know,
Speaker 2: like most T shirts won't last for seventeen years, but
Speaker 2: that did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So repurpose your clothes, repurpose your kid's clothes, and
Speaker 3: maybe be more systematic about it than me. It sounds
Speaker 3: like Laura's label. The size of system actually sounds extremely smart,
Speaker 3: so especially if you have more kids than I have,
Speaker 3: go for.
Speaker 1: It, exactly.
Speaker 2: But even if you are passing it back and forth
Speaker 2: to another family who live near you, you know, if
Speaker 2: you're like, Okay, here's the ban of size six clothes,
Speaker 2: take what you want.
Speaker 1: Get rid of the rest or whatever. It's nice to
Speaker 1: have as sort of organized that way.
Speaker 3: No, you're right, that's probably way more appealing even in
Speaker 3: a buy nothing group or in your neighborhood giveaway group,
Speaker 3: to be like, who wants all of these clothes in
Speaker 3: this size? Like that's actually usable?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: What about food, Sarah, let's get to leftovers repurposing food.
Speaker 3: Oh, we're better at repurposing those, I got to say.
Speaker 3: We our leftover game is pretty narn strong. Most weeks
Speaker 3: we eat it one way or the other. So sometimes
Speaker 3: we have planned leftovers for a dinner. I know you
Speaker 3: guys don't do that a lot, but we'll be like
Speaker 3: Wednesday and Thursday we reading spaghetti and meatballs and salad
Speaker 3: and just make a lot of pasta and it works out. Otherwise,
Speaker 3: I love taking leftovers for lunch. And I think I
Speaker 3: talked about how I'm working on better work, better planned
Speaker 3: out work lunches, So I'm trying to kind of like Earmark, Like, Okay,
Speaker 3: if I'm cooking on Sunday, I'm packaging some up right away,
Speaker 3: and like that's my lunch for Monday. And so when
Speaker 3: you're putting it away, putting it directly into containers that
Speaker 3: can be put in your lunch bag, I think is key.
Speaker 3: Or with my kids, they love heated leftovers in a
Speaker 3: thermos that you heat that morning. It's like they love that. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I think making extra as long as you plan
Speaker 3: to eat it can just be incredibly efficient and a
Speaker 3: great way to use things I'd say we're not as
Speaker 3: good about, like I don't know, just like accumulation of
Speaker 3: random ingredients or things that go into the freezer. Like
Speaker 3: I feel like I could systematically be better at like
Speaker 3: repurposing the nuts that we have lying around things like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, so we do sometimes make a second
Speaker 2: dinner out of stuff, but it's more like we will
Speaker 2: reuse the main protein of something as an ingredient in
Speaker 2: a second meal. So if we grilled a bunch of
Speaker 2: steaks on the weekend, it's just as easy to grill
Speaker 2: a few extras and then that can become steak fahetas
Speaker 2: eats some night during the week, so we have definitely
Speaker 2: done that. So our house managers sometimes cooks on like Wednesdays,
Speaker 2: and if we haven't made it through all of that stuff,
Speaker 2: like sometimes if we have a night Thursday or Friday
Speaker 2: where people are in and out, the adults will mostly
Speaker 2: just eat that. It tends to be more the adults
Speaker 2: who are eating a lot of the leftovers in my house,
Speaker 2: unless there's leftover pasta or leftover mac and cheese, and
Speaker 2: the kids will often have that as snacks. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I eat leftovers for lunch most days, so if there's
Speaker 2: anything leftover from the night before, I will have that
Speaker 2: as my lunch. I will say that if you are
Speaker 2: working from home, the leftover game for lunch can actually
Speaker 2: be a little bit different, or you don't have to
Speaker 2: heat it.
Speaker 1: Up in the microwave.
Speaker 2: And this was a key learning for me, like life
Speaker 2: hack here, which is that many things taste better when
Speaker 2: you saute them right because you're putting oil in the
Speaker 2: pan and so it's a little bit you know, it's
Speaker 2: warmed all the way through, and it's got that extra
Speaker 2: a little bit of the fat that it's cooking in,
Speaker 2: so that can make leftovers a lot better.
Speaker 1: That it's not just whatever you had heat it up
Speaker 1: in the microwave.
Speaker 2: It's that you throw it in a pan and saute it,
Speaker 2: and then you can add extra things to it, right,
Speaker 2: like you know, maybe throw in some frozen corn if
Speaker 2: you had that, or extra ved geez, or put some
Speaker 2: rice on it. Adding a new ingredient is another way
Speaker 2: to make repurpose food taste even different the next day
Speaker 2: or so.
Speaker 1: So I like to add chipotle mayo to a lot
Speaker 1: of leftovers because.
Speaker 2: That then makes it spicy, and I dip whatever I
Speaker 2: had the day before into the mayo and it's like
Speaker 2: an entirely different meal.
Speaker 3: I also think put an egg on it could be
Speaker 3: a great home lunch hack where if everybody ate all
Speaker 3: the protein, which sometimes happens in our house, like I
Speaker 3: didn't buy enough chicken, but nap out a pile of
Speaker 3: rice and vegetables. I can use them by cracking an
Speaker 3: egg or two on there, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: I've added back in the protein and also shout out
Speaker 3: to the toaster oven. Like frozen slices of pizza. Put
Speaker 3: in the toaster oven for three seventy five for about
Speaker 3: twenty minutes come out like you got them at the
Speaker 3: pizza shop. I love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the bust.
Speaker 2: Well, it's sort of a fun thing with hosting a party.
Speaker 2: I do like to buy a little extra. Obviously, you
Speaker 2: don't want to run out of food for your guests.
Speaker 2: But then I'm often having that for lunch for days afterwards,
Speaker 2: and it's like a very special lunch that you're having
Speaker 2: cocktail shrimp and party nuts and like the fancy veggies
Speaker 2: with dip and all that.
Speaker 1: So it's like, you know.
Speaker 2: A little bit better than you you would have probably
Speaker 2: been eating otherwise. I mean, I'm not saying that it's
Speaker 2: not wonderful to have a microwave burrito, but sometimes the
Speaker 2: party leftovers are a little bit more exciting.
Speaker 3: Oh that's awesome. We don't take our quick break again
Speaker 3: and then get to some household items that we are
Speaker 3: repurposing these days. Well, we are back.
Speaker 2: This episode is about all things repurposing. We've started off
Speaker 2: with a discussion of our empties, things we have had
Speaker 2: to replace because we have completely used them up. Talk
Speaker 2: about reusing your own ip, you know, having repurposing of clothes,
Speaker 2: repurposing of food. The next category, of course is household
Speaker 2: so what are some of the household items that you
Speaker 2: wind up repurposing, Sarah.
Speaker 3: Yours are so much better than mine. I think you
Speaker 3: come up that many. I mean, we definitely the idea
Speaker 3: that you're going to like get rid of your legos
Speaker 3: once you've built the thing that's in the picture. Obviously
Speaker 3: we don't do that. We keep those, We mix them
Speaker 3: all together. The kids make various stuff. I also will
Speaker 3: say that when you have to buy a million poster
Speaker 3: boards for school, don't forget the back of the poster board,
Speaker 3: especially if you're the kind that are white on both sides.
Speaker 3: There is no reason that can't be the next poster.
Speaker 3: And the rate at which our school seems to ask
Speaker 3: for poster boards, this is very important. And then well,
Speaker 3: the last one you do as well. But gift bags
Speaker 3: big time, I mean birthday party. You carefully fold all
Speaker 3: those up and then we put them in the closet
Speaker 3: and we have a whole collection of gift bags.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, definitely do not throw out your gift bags. It's
Speaker 2: a little harder to repurpose like actual wrapping paper. I
Speaker 2: know some people do this. So if somebody was very careful,
Speaker 2: for instance, opening a birthday present or opening a Christmas present,
Speaker 2: then you might be able to fold it up and
Speaker 2: especially reuse it for smaller things. I tend not to
Speaker 2: have quite as good a system for that, but gift
Speaker 2: bags absolutely. I've noticed most people do not actually write
Speaker 2: the child's name on the gift bag itself, so that
Speaker 2: means like it's fair game for anything. So we have
Speaker 2: at least two dozen gift bags in the closet, so
Speaker 2: anytime that a kid is invited to a birthday party,
Speaker 2: we can reuse one of those gift bags with some
Speaker 2: tissue paper in it, or for our own kids. Sometimes
Speaker 2: if it's an oddly shaped item, I will I will
Speaker 2: use a gift bag as well, So big shout out
Speaker 2: to that idea. We've actually reused some gift tags for
Speaker 2: I think I mentioned this in one of our holiday episodes.
Speaker 2: But we buy these really nice gift tags and then
Speaker 2: every year there's gonna be a gift to Alex for
Speaker 2: Mommy and daddy. They'll be several So now I have
Speaker 2: gift tags'd say that, so I can reuse them.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we have a bin of old old Halloween costumes.
Speaker 2: So I know a lot of kids like to play
Speaker 2: dress up, especially you know, kids just sort of in
Speaker 2: the four to seven year old range. That's a big
Speaker 2: thing for creative play at that age. And the more
Speaker 2: stuff you have, the better. And if you've been buying
Speaker 2: Halloween costumes for lo these many years, you probably have
Speaker 2: all sorts of size four to eight superhero related stuff
Speaker 2: that they can then be spider Man and dance around
Speaker 2: the house as spider Man, Batman, iron Man.
Speaker 1: Who else?
Speaker 3: In our house we had every Disney princess, every Disney princess.
Speaker 2: Well I only have one girl, so we have a
Speaker 2: limited number of the Disney princes. We have some we
Speaker 2: actually have. We have oh, Elsa. Everyone has Elsa, but
Speaker 2: that's at Elsa. We have bell M.
Speaker 1: Trying to think who else?
Speaker 3: We had an aerial Okay, yeah, actually we had.
Speaker 1: We had an Anna too. That was the year with you.
Speaker 1: She really did both, I think.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you can use all sorts of Holloween costumes
Speaker 2: for your dress up bin for later, or if you
Speaker 2: know you have your own random things that you aren't
Speaker 2: entirely sure you want to toss. If you had to
Speaker 2: have a top hat for some random work bonding event,
Speaker 2: like it just goes in there and you make the
Speaker 2: most of it. I would say, if you have a
Speaker 2: set of formal dishware that you don't actually use that often,
Speaker 2: like if it's only for parties or something like that,
Speaker 2: try to give it some sort of everyday life in
Speaker 2: other ways. So maybe it's that you just put it
Speaker 2: as decorse somewhere, but it could also you could use
Speaker 2: a pitcher for flowers that you could reuse that. I
Speaker 2: use some of the plates to go under plants, and
Speaker 2: so then it's kind of more decorative than just whatever
Speaker 2: random plastic plate I happened to throw under a plant.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, it's a nice china looking thing that
Speaker 2: I'm using for that to maybe if it was my
Speaker 2: own heirloom china that I was except not wanting to
Speaker 2: have anything ever get on it, I wouldn't do that.
Speaker 2: But in my case, this this set kind of came
Speaker 2: with the house, so I'm trying to repurpose it.
Speaker 3: You might as well use it, either sell it or
Speaker 3: use it. I don't know there's any reason to do
Speaker 3: just hoard it.
Speaker 1: It's so funny. I mean, I think it's a beautiful pattern.
Speaker 2: It's one of those lovely white and blue and I'm
Speaker 2: sure it was nice, you know when it was or something, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: but what's so funny is that it's really old and
Speaker 2: so like the coffee cups, like for after dinner coffee
Speaker 2: are these tiny little things like I can't imagine when
Speaker 2: I like serving my guests like a four ounces of
Speaker 2: coffee and be like that's all you get.
Speaker 3: The humans like used to drink less or something they
Speaker 3: must have all right, I guess the Americans drink a
Speaker 3: lot because it's after the coffee.
Speaker 2: It must have been that you only were having a
Speaker 2: little like you don't want to be up all night
Speaker 2: then versus now as well. But it's almost humorous, like
Speaker 2: I could not see like serving this to somebody with
Speaker 2: a straight face.
Speaker 1: It's almost like thimble list.
Speaker 3: That's funny.
Speaker 2: Last category Sarah templates and lists. So we know that
Speaker 2: some of our listeners have made an art form of this.
Speaker 3: I mean I do a ton of template reusing at work.
Speaker 3: I've talked about that before. Those expanded phrases. You just
Speaker 3: type a few things and then you have a whole
Speaker 3: thing to fill out. Love it, love it, love it.
Speaker 3: I have a few phrases on my using apples keyboard
Speaker 3: shortcuts that do that as well. But I will say
Speaker 3: when I'm making a list, like a packing list or something.
Speaker 3: I Actually, I think both of us. I like to
Speaker 3: start fresh because it's almost like the act of making
Speaker 3: a list is the act of like thinking through it. However,
Speaker 3: I'm going to give a shout out to a Before
Speaker 3: Breakfast episode that I listened to with Amanda, who I'm
Speaker 3: friends with, and you did a great job interviewing her,
Speaker 3: and one of her ideas was to have a packing
Speaker 3: list notebook in which she would create each list fresh,
Speaker 3: so she's not like reusing the whole list, but she
Speaker 3: can flip back and look at prior lists for ideas
Speaker 3: and inspiration, and perhaps if she forgot something, she would
Speaker 3: like underline it so she'd see it. I kind of
Speaker 3: think that's like the sweet spot there because you're generating
Speaker 3: it fresh, but then you have like this reference to
Speaker 3: check yourself. And perhaps if I had done something like that,
Speaker 3: I would have brought bathing suits to Montana, and instead
Speaker 3: I had to go to Target. It was annoying. The
Speaker 3: line was super long.
Speaker 2: Well totally because you know, like I'm skiing, Like the
Speaker 2: first thing you think is not swimsuit, Like obviously if
Speaker 2: you're going to a beach resort, you're thinking swimsuit, although
Speaker 2: even then, like reminding yourself to bring flip flops, you know,
Speaker 2: you don't necessarily think of that first thing.
Speaker 1: And then going to like city vacations.
Speaker 2: I don't know, if you're going to Paris or something,
Speaker 2: you might want to pack an umbrella if the forecast
Speaker 2: remotely seems like it might rain over the course of week. Now,
Speaker 2: obviously you don't need to drive yourself crazy with this.
Speaker 2: If you're going to somewhere that has civilization, you can
Speaker 2: buy an umbrella, right They use umbrellas most way everywhere
Speaker 2: the world that you would be traveling, and so you can,
Speaker 2: in fact purchase one, just as Sarah did in fact
Speaker 2: purchase swimsuits at the Target in bos Montana. But given
Speaker 2: that a swimsuit takes zero space in a suitcase, that's,
Speaker 2: you know, the kind of thing that it's just as
Speaker 2: easy to throw in. So reusing a packing list, even
Speaker 2: if you are creating a new list, having the old
Speaker 2: ones is helpful. I also I save all my holiday
Speaker 2: gift lists in one notebook, and this is helpful Partly,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't want to give the same relative
Speaker 2: a pair of shearling gloves two years in a row,
Speaker 2: even though it seems like they might like them, which
Speaker 2: is why I gave them to a last year. I
Speaker 2: don't know, maybe they lost them, like maybe it actually
Speaker 2: would be a good gift, but just to try and
Speaker 2: make sure that I don't have that same thought of like, oh, yes,
Speaker 2: that is a brilliant gift for this person too many
Speaker 2: years in a row.
Speaker 3: I love that because there's also a sentimental piece of
Speaker 3: that too, Like I love the idea of flipping back
Speaker 3: ten years and being like, oh, we got Jasper this
Speaker 3: little kid thing and now he's like in college, Like
Speaker 3: that's cool. Gift notebook, Yeah, I mean my list does.
Speaker 2: I only started doing this a few years ago, so
Speaker 2: it doesn't go quite that far back. But it is
Speaker 2: like an actively managed list each time that you know,
Speaker 2: I'm creating and I have to cross many things out
Speaker 2: and then I have to add things because everyone has
Speaker 2: the same number of wrapped things under the tree.
Speaker 1: But it is helpful to at least be able to
Speaker 1: reference that.
Speaker 3: I've also seen people do something similar with like their
Speaker 3: holiday planning or like holiday meals and stuff, where they'll
Speaker 3: kind of keep everything in a binder and then just
Speaker 3: like reuse the same recipes and like add notes here
Speaker 3: after year, Okay, need more cranberry sauce and again. That
Speaker 3: way they're not reinventing the wheel. If they're holding the
Speaker 3: same kind of celebration, they can just refer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I probably should do that with Thanksgiving because I
Speaker 2: mean every year I'm like, well, where was my where
Speaker 2: was my gravy recipe? I mean it's somewhere, It's in
Speaker 2: the pile and I can find it, but it's you know,
Speaker 2: maybe it should be cralled a little bit.
Speaker 3: Digital could be good too, Like Apple notes would be
Speaker 3: so easy to make just like Thanksgiving folder and then
Speaker 3: just throw everything there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, definitely. So you know, lots of different
Speaker 2: ways we can repurpose things. So we would love to
Speaker 2: hear your lists as well. Like if you have this
Speaker 2: an amazing template that you use and repurpose all the time,
Speaker 2: I would love to hear about it.
Speaker 1: You can let us know.
Speaker 2: So this week's question, though, is related from maybe it's
Speaker 2: sent in by whoever is annoyed for me that they're
Speaker 2: getting that box of size six items. It says, what
Speaker 2: do you do if people give you hand me down
Speaker 2: such as clothes or toys or household items that you
Speaker 2: really don't want.
Speaker 3: I mean, first of all, I hope I think it
Speaker 3: is when you are passing things down, you need to ask.
Speaker 3: It's not a I have these things for you, I'll
Speaker 3: drop them off on Thursday. It's like would you like
Speaker 3: this box of size six kids clothes? And then you
Speaker 3: get to say yes or no. And I'm the kind
Speaker 3: of person who if I don't need them, like and
Speaker 3: often I don't just say no, thank you. And honestly,
Speaker 3: I don't feel like anybody has tried to give me
Speaker 3: hand me downs for a while, just because I already
Speaker 3: have kids that would be handy. I guess they could
Speaker 3: give to hand me down to like my tweens, but
Speaker 3: that just doesn't happen as often. So haven't been in
Speaker 3: this position for a while. Then again, once in a while,
Speaker 3: I might be asked to perhaps take a batch of
Speaker 3: stuff where I know some of the things might be useful,
Speaker 3: like my sister in law offers some ski clothes and
Speaker 3: we're like yes because ski stuff is super expensive, and
Speaker 3: like they live in Florida too, so it's not like
Speaker 3: that stuff is heavily used. And then the key question
Speaker 3: to ask is is it okay? Or if I don't
Speaker 3: need everything, Do you want it back or should I
Speaker 3: donate it? And that way you are kind of set free.
Speaker 3: You can take one thing from the pile and donate
Speaker 3: the rest, or you can give it back if that's
Speaker 3: what they say they would prefer. So that's kind of
Speaker 3: my approach.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think some people. I mean, there are definitely
Speaker 2: times when hand medowns are very helpful. And again, yeah,
Speaker 2: things like snow pants and like it saves you a
Speaker 2: ton of money that you don't have to purchase it,
Speaker 2: especially if you're only going to use it twice a year.
Speaker 2: Like I mean, it's great get those hand me down
Speaker 2: and then give those things a new life. I think
Speaker 2: sometimes people have some guilt about like having stuff that
Speaker 2: they haven't used or that maybe they spent more on
Speaker 2: than they wanted to or and they feel like if
Speaker 2: I give it to somebody else, that assuages my guilt
Speaker 2: of it, and so it's like very important to them
Speaker 2: that they get it to you, whether you're all that
Speaker 2: excited about it or not. So I mean, if you've
Speaker 2: got somebody like this, I think you can wave it
Speaker 2: off and be like, you know, like oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: that's so generous of you. But we just had my
Speaker 2: daughter's birthday and she got so much new clothes we
Speaker 2: can't even fit it all in the closet right now,
Speaker 2: you know, or something like that, just to imply like
Speaker 2: recognizing the generosity but also waving it off as much
Speaker 2: as possible if you really think it's important to the person,
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe you could pull out one thing from it,
Speaker 2: donate the rest, and then like point to that thing
Speaker 2: all the time, right so if I'm trying to think
Speaker 2: what it would be. But like, maybe they passed along
Speaker 2: some ridiculous vase that they were never going to use
Speaker 2: their house, and you find it's not terrible.
Speaker 1: You can put it somewhere in your house.
Speaker 2: Like every time you see that person, be like, oh,
Speaker 2: I have the most gorgeous lilies in that vase you
Speaker 2: gave me.
Speaker 1: I love it, thank.
Speaker 2: You so much, and just like keep hyping that one
Speaker 2: thing over and over again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but then they've pegged you as like this person
Speaker 3: likes my hammi.
Speaker 2: Down But I don't know, yeah, maybe not. Hopefully there's
Speaker 2: not too much more stuff coming with that. But then yeah,
Speaker 2: I think you know, you can quietly donate a lot
Speaker 2: of stuff. But I like Sarah's language too, would you
Speaker 2: like it back? Or should I donate it and you
Speaker 2: know maybe or like, would you mind if I passed
Speaker 2: along anything I couldn't use and then you know, feel
Speaker 2: free to do what you want with it.
Speaker 1: All right. Love of the Week Sarah Well.
Speaker 3: I talked about the weather last week, and I have
Speaker 3: to say I'm enjoying wearing I have like the old
Speaker 3: school classic LLBean like they feel. I don't know if
Speaker 3: they're actual Swede, but they feel swedy on the outside
Speaker 3: and they have like sheeps getting the inside, and it's
Speaker 3: very rare when I get to use them legitimately. They're
Speaker 3: so comfortable. So shout out to just a really comfy
Speaker 3: pair of classic slippers that last year after year I've
Speaker 3: been not repurposing, but we're using them for probably more
Speaker 3: than a decade now. They're awesome.
Speaker 1: Awesome.
Speaker 2: Well, in terms of repurposing, I love seeing a coat
Speaker 2: on Henry that has been used for all my other kids,
Speaker 2: or at least all my other boys, getting to see
Speaker 2: it used a fourth time.
Speaker 1: For years.
Speaker 2: We were using a snowsuit that I think my brother's
Speaker 2: kids had used, so it was even better, like had
Speaker 2: been used for twenty plus years. That's really great when
Speaker 2: something can be repurposed that often, but it's fun to
Speaker 2: haul out these little kid coats as the kids get
Speaker 2: big enough to use them. And this comes in handy too,
Speaker 2: because it turns out that children lose coats. And so
Speaker 2: when a certain child had left a coat at school
Speaker 2: and it could not be found, could not be located
Speaker 2: in the lost and found, who knows where it went.
Speaker 2: Maybe it didn't get left school, Maybe I'll love somewhere else.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: There was another coat of that size available from past
Speaker 2: children using coats, so nobody had to be coatless until
Speaker 2: we could figure out another solution.
Speaker 3: Awesome.
Speaker 2: Well, this has been best of both worlds. We have
Speaker 2: been talking repurposing. We will be back next week with
Speaker 2: more on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
Speaker 3: shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
Speaker 3: and you.
Speaker 2: Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
Speaker 2: has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join
Speaker 2: us next time for more on making work and life
Speaker 2: work together.