Ahoy Matey

Water World...

One summer I got a little fancy and went on my friends' boat a couple of times (they call it a boat... I call it a half-a-yacht). It's a lovely floating mass and easily fit me along with Jessica, Christian, their son Jonathan and their dog Buddy... like I said - it's a half-a-yacht.

On this particular afternoon, we were on the half-a-yacht cleaning up after a fabulous lunch that Christian had carefully prepared and so, to pitch in, I decided to do the dishes. That's when I found out the sticky thing about any kind of floating living space - there is a fixed amount of water. The boat was anchored in the water rather than being docked into a site so there was no clean water source beyond what was in the tank. This fact however, didn't occur to me until Christian said in passing, as I was hunkered over the sink, my hands filled with the sudsy good stuff, "Be mindful of the water, because once we're out, we're out."

I looked at him, my head cocked to one side and said something along the lines of, "Huh. Right." Then I looked back down at the running faucet and abruptly shut it off. I felt confused suddenly - like I was given the task of figuring out some riddle that if answered correctly would result in clean dishes. And that's when I realized how much of an idiot I was being. You don't need to run the water while you're scrubbing the dishes. Genius! I scrubbed the wet dishes while the water was turned off, then rinsed and VOILA clean dishes! I was able to pitch in without costing the boat the remainder of its water supply.

When we began this challenge I remembered that experience. My main goal was always to shorten my showers but who says I can't save a little in my kitchen as well? I'm not always successful at remembering to shut it off, but I'm definitely making some improvements!

And I guess that's the best way to start!