frugal hack-job of the day

I washed a load of dog towels the other day. You know, the ones we use to clean up messes the dogs (and maybe the people) make from time to time. It's the stash of towels Brian and I brought to the marriage and thankfully replaced via wedding gifts. They didn't see the light of day much, other than use as makeshift bath mats, until Rory came along. 

The Danger of Working Dog Puppies in Apartments

Rory, you may know, was a hot mess as a puppy. She was, to put it nicely, a roly-poly bundle of floppy, bouncy, fluffy, shrieking, chewing, pooping, agonizing hell. And she really did a number on my psyche these towels. There are holes in every single one. Some of them progressed beyond holes into 'half-shredded' territory. The shreds and strings would always get tangled and caught in the wash, but I, as a young mom puppy caretaker, was exhausted. (This animal, she sucked my lifeforce. All of it. Bone dry. It's a wonder that she and I both managed to survive her early youth.) And in that exhaustion, I could never manage to cut more than a few of the strings at a time. 

That was then, this is now

Thankfully, we have progressed. I learned to stop putting towels in her crate, and then we moved to a place more suited for her insanity nature. We might cycle through the towels once a month at this point, rather than once a day. 

As I was attempting to fold the load of towels, it occurred to me that perhaps it was high time that I create some order out of the jumble of strings and tangles and holes. And so I did.

I thought about documenting the process, but really, who wants to see pictures of cutting up old towels? That's what I thought. 

What took ya?

This is one of those things that was on my mental to-do list forEVER. It took maybe 10 minutes to finish. And what a relief to check this one off the list!! I now have some cleaning rags, which I use all the time now that I'm a housewife again, and a few larger pieces that are about half the size of a regular bath towel. I put all the strings and bits and scraps in our lint bag, which we take on camping trips to start camp fires. And there were a few odd-sized pieces that will do nicely for another sewing project of a personal and feminine nature. (Take a guess if you're so inclined.)

The Greater Good

It feels so good to take something that looks like trash and reuse it - in this case, every bit of these towels will be reused. This may be my triumph of 2011. Fortunately I've got about 350 days to top it.

What's your greatest frugal hack to date?