Brassic

Right, after having a bit of writer's block for a while (I blame Little Parasite because frankly he can't argue) I've decided I just need to write anything in order to alleviate it.  The result is the post below, which I accept is not great (or even mediocre).  It's not intended to be polished, perfect prose, but an exercise in getting off my arse to write since writing has fallen to the curb lately.

After university, Husband and I spent a couple of years being pretty brassic. During this time, we did a good job at eking out the life of our belongings.  I would sew old t-shirts into tote bags, make skirts from old jeans, bulk out meals with pearl barley and then spend nights in wide-eyed panic over our finances when we ran out of ways to stretch our wages.
However, there comes a point when being so thrifty actually turns you a bit materialistic. After attaching elbow patches to your sweater for the umpteenth time, and making dog toys out of old socks stuffed with tennis balls (also a very useful sling shot), you eventually begin imagining life without holey pants (not devout undies just many, many holes). This then evolves into humbly wishing you had clothes that weren't dated from before your uni days (there's a limit to how long you can pretend your style revolves around the vintage look when trying to pass off wearing your old tat), and lamenting the fact that your DVD collection is primarily based on scratchy throw-outs from the local rental DVD shop that went bankrupt.

Yes, thriftyness can come full circle so it ends up staring at the arse of commercialism in its tight CK jeans.  Does this make me a bad person?  I don't think so.  A little shallow perhaps, but it has helped fuel my creativity.  From being broke, I have learnt to sew, knit, create passable meals from random ingredients (peanut butter and noodles is not one that fits that category) and see the potential in items rather than immediately throw them away.

I can't say that I enjoyed our time being skint, but the skills we gained from this period have continued to prove invaluable.  I think it's a shame that skills such as sewing are only taken up as a solution to an economical situation.  Making things yourself is satisfying in it's own right, and not just as a fallback plan.