Use Resources Wisely!

The scissors, tape, and coloring markers all go into the kitchen drawer under the phone. Unlike TV kitchen mess drawers, our divider is neat and tidy: scissors on the left, markers on the right, and tape in the front. Lots of time saved, with all the goods in one spot. So, if I can’t find my scissors, I assume they got hijacked at a Girl Scout venue: I buy another pair. Lately, I have been cleaning the teen hangout room in the back of the house, which not only promises to give the gals a much roomier place to hang out, but also appears to be the best way to cut out my monthly scissor purchases. Four pairs rescued from the debris!

Messy kids rooms are a perennial story: My own mom’s playroom clean-up story included monthly rake outs – literally pulling everything into a pile with a garden rake. Good ol’ shag carpet loved the treatment too. The girls take it to heart that their rooms are their own, and follow in my childhood footsteps: trash everywhere, clothes and candy in the layers, school books, library books, birthday cards (Happy Birthday, Love, Grandma – with a check!). Big One does a decent job keeping her space picked up, but Little Luce uses her floor as permanent storage.

Before she left for camp, I forced Luce to start cleaning. Liken her reaction to asking her to count the grains of sand on Cape Cod beach – the weeping! The gnashing of teeth! A 30-gallon trash bag of trash and 4 loads of laundry later, still no sign of the floor!

After Luce left, my week has been a respite from the daily, nay, hourly, arguments from her: I have energy to finish her clean-up. Oh, the nail clippers are here. Oh, my travel scissors, my Sharpie markers. A treasure trove in the permanent storage! Hair brushes, combs, towels, my odd socks, Mr. Lamonda’s shorts? Yes.

And the plastic shopping bags abound too, what with my habit of sticking her stuff in a bag in the kitchen for her to take up to her bedroom after dinner. Many bags full of stuff!

My gut feeling has always been: plastic shopping bags suck out my soul as they lurk in my house. They proliferate, worse than coat hangers, multiplying AND swelling! We used to keep them under the stinky kitchen sink – now we have a neat and cheery shopping bag holder that Mr. L got from a generous crafty friend at work. Our lumpy baggie-sausage can hold no more though, and apparently we are not alone in our dismay of these swarming bags. Check out this website: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1Y1-107470867.html - lots of articles about how bad, bad, bad the little shopping baggies are proving themselves to be! Boston is considering banning them, and Uganda has banned them already – no manufacturing and no importation! When I go to Whole Foods, and feel especially organic, I get the paper bags with the sturdy handles, but I still usually end up with the plastic. I maintain an eclectic collection of reusable grocery bags, but I'm convinced they don’t like riding around in the car all week, so they use their Jedi powers on me as I head out the door to get me past them: "No need to carry those bags out - no need to store these in the car."

I do what I can at Girl Scouts to reuse the shopping bags. One of my future projects will be to knit a rug out of them, but I haven't figured out where I would put it.

Here is a situpon to make out of them – if you put two shopping bags in a container and wait a few weeks, you’ll have a 100 of them, so use as many as you can for this project!

For Brownie Girl Scouts: Use 8.
For Cadette Girl Scouts: Use 16.

You twist them or roll them the long way, and include the handles in the layout. I got fancy once and put a half sheet of newspaper in each one, then rolled the plastic bag around it and taped in at the top where the handles are. (That method uses only 12 of them, though.) It was a lot of work and too bulky to put into our packs so not useful.

Lay half of them side by side, then weave the others across these. Even-out the fringes so they are all the same length all around. Now, the fringe will fold over and tuck into the end row, making a neat rolled edge. For Brownies, you can help them along with duct tape: tape the first set of weaving strips together, perpendicular to each other, and when they are done weaving, you can finish by taping the edges, or you'll be there all day tucking the edges for them - or take them home and do that for all 10 or 14 or however many girls you have and then vow to never make these situpons again!

These are an ENORMOUSLY time-consuming activity for all ages – girls spread out when they prep their goods, so it’s a great outdoor activity. Girl Scouts love crafting these, rolling, taping, counting, neatly arranging, counting the bags and hording them from that one girl who hates to prep her own stuff. They jump right into work, and whine and cry about not being able to do it, can't keep the weaving tight, can't get all the pieces to fit, wah wah! – and then they’re done! TA-DA!!

You do not need scissors for this project.