Remember college? Especially if you were putting yourself through, and had to eat off $3 in change for a whole week? Remember not having more than five pairs of pants and just a few tops to go with them? For a girl, I wasn’t terribly interested in clothes back then. Thanks to a couple of roommates – one with a massive load of credit card debt from shopping and the other who frequently got financial gifts from The Bank of Dad – I knew how far behind the styles I was. I had to be creative with my money and adopted a comfortable, boyish look – jeans or cargo pants, t-shirt, ponytail. Clothes were just not important – I was in college to study, right?

Since then, for a long time, I have enjoyed getting new clothes. I’m not a big shopper by any means, but I do like having some nice things that are in style. My closet is full, and so is a whole dresser devoted just to me (my husband also has a whole dresser and a whole closet, but there is less hanging in his closet than mine). I can deliberate for half an hour over what to wear. I spend hours sorting and washing and line-drying laundry every week, and we don’t even have kids!

About a month ago I was in our attic sorting through some boxes for a yard sale when I came across my favorite bag from college. It is a WW2 map bag, sized like a small messenger, with loads of pockets in the front for pencils. It had been the perfect size for a couple of textbooks and a notebook, and had been easy to sling over my shoulder as I hopped on my bike to ride to school in the morning. At some point in recent years my dog with the nervous disposition had chewed the strap, and I had stopped using it.

I’m back to using it now. I washed it and took it to my overloaded closet and pulled out a beaded belt I’ve worn maybe three times. It was easy to tie it to the strap rings, and I’m super thrilled to have what feels like an old friend back. I haven’t bothered changing purses to match my outfit since, and have gotten more compliments on my bag than I usually do with my favorite Liz Claiborne.

I’ve realized I can be creative with that strap. I have lots of scarves I could tie on it instead of the belt – I can make the bag “go” with my outfit anytime I so choose by changing its accessory.

If I can do that much by being creative with a bag, what can I do with all the other stuff hanging in that closet? New ideas and ways of thinking are starting to sprout. Maybe my creativity hasn’t entirely left me after all.

This year, I have only bought 5 new items for my closet, and I did that this Spring before I decided not to buy any more. I’ve come to realize that what I wear does not matter. It can be last year’s jeans and the sweatshirt from 10 years ago with my alma mater emblazoned on it. What’s wrong with continuing to wear that teddy-soft t-shirt with a few holes in it while I am home? And even if someone did come to the door, they’d know they came without calling me first. Most people dress for comfort while at home.

Many people don’t bother themselves too terribly much about how stylish your clothes are. Jeans and cargo pants have been my uniform for decades, I just forgot that while trying to impress clients with my Ann’s Taylor and Klein. I’m regressing back to my college days of dress, just a little less sloppy and a little more fitted. The people that do care? If what I wear, being three years out of date, bothers them so much that they no longer want to be seen with me, then are they really people I want to know? Why should I continue to spend money to impress people?

For myself, it isn’t that I want new clothes so much as I don’t want to be perceived as being poor. We look at each other and assess their value based upon what car they drive, what neighborhood they live in, the square footage of the home, and how many Maholo Blahniks are in the closet. We look at the jewelry our friends wear, the style of their haircut and color job, their nails. They’re all measures of status, and whether you are worthy of people’s attention falls on your appearance, not your education or all the things you have accomplished in your life.

It’s a consumer culture, and my closet is going to keep what it has in it for a looooong time.  Maybe I can sell my other bags on e-bay.

It’s funny how we suddenly remember cool things about our childhoods and there seems to be no logical reason as to why it would come up - but I’m glad this one did so I can share it.

When my brother was little, we had tons and tons of crayons, some of them just little bits left over from my heavy use of them years before. My brother loved to color, and so we had a whole tin full of bitty crayons that were hard to hold and impossible to sharpen.

Didn’t faze my mom after she clipped an article from the Boca News about putting all those crayon bits into a muffin tin, then melting them over low heat in the oven for a while. The bits melted together, making easy to handle crayon “cookies” - perfect for my brother’s chubby little hands. The colors would be all mixed up (not blended) so you could have one crayon cookie and have red, green, blue and yellow colors to work with. No more griping because one kid had the blue crayon. I think in the next batch we put warm colors together so red, yellow and orange would be on one cookie, but the first batch was plenty fun to play with still.

I’m not sure if she had to grease the muffin tin first. They all had nice neat edges so they apparently came out just fine. If they do stick, I think the same trick that works for getting the melted wax from one of those scented wax burners would do the trick - put the tray in the freezer for a few hours. Pops right out!

P.S. - freezing wax works well for anything it’s stuck to. Place an ice cube over a spot of wax on your tablecloth from that last fancy dinner and the whole drip will come up with very little coaxing.  No mess, no stain. Ta-da!

I just bought a bike. A good bike, a bike that can take me long distances. But not a good bike for grocery shopping or hanging around town. I need a rack on the back, and I need it to be old enough that theft is unlikely and if it did, I didn’t spend more than $30 on it anyway. I’ll probably cover it in greenie stickers to make a great theft deterrent anyway.

The buzz on bikes to reduce gas mileage for local runs makes total sense. Not only can you leave the car parked in the drive, but you can cancel your gym membership too. Bicycling is great cardiovascular activity, health insurance plans should offer a discount to people who ride 20 minutes or more a few times a week (in that case, my health insurance should be nearly free because I spend about 11 hours a week in the saddle and about 3-4 more hours walking, and I don’t pollute my body with bad food, but that’s another post).

Now, for anyone else who’s thinking about finding a bike for this purpose, what are you looking for?

Some of it will depend on your local terrain. If the lay of the land is very flat, then you can get away with a fixed-gear bike (meaning, no shifting, just one big cog and one little cog). In my area, I need at least a few gears because we have a few hills.

The next thing is, you’ll likely want fenders in case it’s wet out - nobody wants roadwater splashing up their back or all over the goods sitting in the rear basket. And brakes - front and back - because you never know when you’ll need to stop quickly.

From there comes the fun! There are a multitude of baskets and panniers available. In my case, for grocery shopping or running local errands like dropping packages off at the post office, I’d need a good secure basket in the back - something like this: http://www.tahoemountainsports.com/store/folding-bike-basket.shtml.

But you can still be cute too - they do make wicker baskets for the front still, such as this one: http://www.tahoemountainsports.com/store/kruzer-baskets.shtml. And really if you have a rack on the back anyway, you can likely locate a wicker basket that will fit on it for the back as well - maybe just by taking your new used bike around the neighborhood garage sales.

You can also MAKE your own panniers, see this site for great ideas on using old cat litter boxes (um, clean first?) or surplus army bags. I think with a little creativity, you might find other things around the house that would make great bags for your bike - old purses, lunch boxes or bags, school backpacks, etc.

Bells are not outdated either - they warn people at fairs and streets of your presence. You can even put up a fun flag to increase visibility and make a statement. Ribbons, stickers, paint… there’s nothing wrong with getting a little artsy with your new mode of transportation!