“Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make Do, Do Without”

Perhaps it’s because I was in awe of my paternal grandfather’s inventiveness, resourcefulness and all around handiness, but every time I see a dumpster, trash pile, yard sale or just something sticking its head out of the corner in the garage, I begin wondering what I can do with whatever is available, what treasure is hiding in other people’s (or even my own!) trash.

OK, an example from today: for the life of me, I couldn’t find my sunglasses. Not where they belong, so I’d obviously taken them off and laid them down somewhere they don’t belong. Duh. But it was a bright day today and my eyes just do NOT like too much sun. So?

I had an older pair with broken temples. Bummer. One temple broke and I (naturally) repaired it, but when the other temple broke and I didn’t have time to repair it before going out, I simply picked up another pair (cheapos, but surprisingly nice to my eyes). So… repaired the other temple, right? Wrong. I did something… different.

1. Trimmed both temples to same length–the length of the unbroken piece on the most recently broken side–and sanded the broken/trimmed bits smooth.
2. Attached a cheap eyeglass retention chord–you know, the kind that you imagine librarians use to hang a pair of reading glasses around their necks. (*heh* Don’t tell my librarian Wonder Woman about that imaginary librarian, mmmK?) It’s adjustable via a bead, so that’s handy. Used some self-curing natural rubber tape to tidy things up.

Hmmm, these things now stay on better than they did when new, and I didn’t have ’em fall off my hat once (the place I normally store sunglasses when inside somewhere or whatnot), cos they hang around my neck. The lil bead also keeps ’em firmly in place when I need them, nice and tight, just right.

Hacking discarded stuff to be better than new, at least for some uses, is just too much fun, you know?