Erik’s outdoor office and his special glass.

This is just a little thing which we’ve started doing recently, but I really like it. Erik and I now have assigned water glasses and coffee mugs to use throughout the day. By reusing these glasses and mugs, we’ve really cut down on the amount of washing we do, and also save water, which is becoming increasingly critical in our never-ending drought.

We have very little cabinet space, so over the years I’d honed our glasses and cups to identical sets which stack neatly. This is great in terms of saving space, but the downside was that we never could tell one glass or mug from another, and so tended to just grab a fresh one whenever we needed a drink.  (As if we are going to catch cooties from each other!)

As a result, by the end of the day we’d have a ridiculous number of cups and glasses littering the house, considering there’s only the two of us. To remedy this, recently we each chose a unique glass and mug at the thrift store, and now use only these throughout the day. Basically, we’ve brought classic office practice into our home office.

This is one of those ideas which seems like a no-brainer, but which can easily not happen at all. I’m glad we’re doing it now.

I’m working on the same thing with plates. I have a wooden bowl which I use for most everything, but Erik is distrustful of wooden bowls–apparently he thinks they hold bacteria, since I don’t wash them with soap. I think he also finds them disturbingly hobbit-ish. So, for now, there are still multiple plates to wash. Maybe one day I’ll seduce him into Hobbiton and whittle his cutlery down to a wooden bowl, a big spoon, and a pewter mug. But in the meanwhile, we’re doing less dishes overall, and that is, and the high priestess of domesticity likes to say, A Good Thing.