I have a system, and finally got around to putting it back into play - I have a wrist watch I wear when I work in the yard. The face is scared from bumping into things and I've sweated through many leather wrist bands. I also have both a nice silver and a nice gold wrist watch, for general wear and work, and since the yard one had a run down battery, I had forgotten and worn a good one into the garden a few times.

Last week I found a card of watch batteries for about a buck a piece. Amazon sent the slim card in a box that would hold a couple of pounds of anything else I might have ordered. What a waste of paper and postage. But today they redeemed themselves by packing the same sized box full of a few things I later ordered in my declutter and replacement operations here. Amazon sells Nylabone dog chew toys for 1/3 to 1/2 the price the chain pet stores charge, but that price is only for "add on" items combined with other purchases over a certain $ amount. This week I had enough purchases and ordered two chew toys. Everything was tightly packed into the box left on my porch by the mail carrier. So it averages out, I suppose. And now I have two boxes to flatten and either use for eBay or recycle. Keeping good shipping boxes is one of my weaknesses. :-/

And apropos of nothing in particular, today is the first day in ten years of my not having a child at the university. Both are now graduates, (the oldest with a shiny new master's in library science!) and we shall see what comes next!