whose glass is this?

You hear it everywhere. 

"Go green!" 

"Be eco-friendly!" 

"Consume less!"

When I talk about consuming less, I'm not just talking about groceries or garbage. While it may seem all noble and environmental-ly , I do it for totally selfish reasons.

Less dishes.

 In our house, we stopped using regular glasses for drinking. It seemed like we were having to buy new sets every other week for all the accidental slams on the counters or floors. Now we use good old fashioned pint canning jars. It's been years since I was able to can anything in a pint jar, so now the hundred's we have waiting around for our nest to empty are being put to good use. They're cheap and I never have to worry about the glasses matching each other. (Because these are the things that keep me up at night.) Problem is, since all the glasses look alike, no one knows which one is theirs so the dishwasher ends up being filled with nothing but pint jars! 

You may have seen the drink bands for sale that are being used to identify glassware. I first saw these on Pinterest, but am now seeing them everywhere. It's a great idea for sure. Each person gets their own personal color, wraps it around their glass, and for the rest of the day, gets the privilege of not drinking someone else's backwash. 

Personally, I think the person who invented these bands deserves an award of some kind. We should name a constellation after them or declare May 3rd a holiday in their honor. (Not that May 3rd holds any significance, it's just open and I need a day off between St. Patrick's and Independence Day.) Seriously. If someone invents something that saves me time at the kitchen sink, they deserve their own holiday.

Here's my issue...there are only 6 in a package and that package costs more than $9. 

Call me cheap (not really, it messes with my self-esteem), but that's too much money for a family that has to buy 2 packages for this plan to work. Great idea, but I squeak.

My solution? How about purchasing a multi-colored rubberband ball at the local dollar store for...

wait for it...

a buck. 

That would be 4 quarters, 10 dimes, 20 nickels, or 100 pennies.

 We assign a color to each child and that's the band that goes on their glass. At the end of the day, the bands come off and the jar goes into the dishwasher. One jar per person. (For the adults, we use 2 bands.) And of course, because I'm so excited about all the extra time I'll have somewhere other than the kitchen sink, I write it down and put it for all to see.

Lest they forget...

Now, what am I going to do with all that extra time?☺