Happy Friday — we’re back with more Hot Bones.
Next week, the 38th edition of the Virginia Film Festival kicks off, and things look stacked. Last year, G and I had just moved to town, and we watched Anora on opening night with another couple we’d recently met. We sat down as new friends, and we walked out of the theater afterward as old friends who’d seen many things.
This year, we’re watching Ghost Elephants together, which is a nature doc by Werner Herzog — I’ve checked and it’s completely clothed. This should make eating brunch afterward much easier.
Sunrise | 7:25 AM |
|---|---|
Sunset | 6:33 PM, ugh we’re getting close to depressing dark times |
Moon stuff | Waning crescent (about 20% illuminated) |
Air quality | Good |
UVA football | Saturday @ 6:30pm vs Washington State |
Do one long thumb scroll for more Cville-specific updates like local events, cool houses, pets who are ready to give their undying loyalty in return for kibble, and more. |
Earlier this week, I opened our dryer’s lint filter and screamed.
We’d run a couple huge loads of sheets and towels over the weekend, plus Frannie’s dog bed and all my tennis gear. Which explained the scream and then almost sick fascination with what I pulled out of the filter: A brittle monstrosity that could easily have hung over the mantelpiece in a Roosevelt hunting lodge.
I unfurled the foul gray specimen the way you’d peel salmon skin from the bottom of a fillet, pushing it to the edge of your plate and hiding it under the wilted greens.
In this case, I shoved the small mattress of dark fabric as far as it would fit in our office trash can and ran downstairs.
I felt two things as I sat on our couch later.
Gratitude: for not burning our house down for the sake of clean linens. (Around 30% of all dryer fires are caused just by lint build-up.)
Wasteful: and more than usual. I think it was the sheer amount of lint that was now taking up more than half our trashcan that made it hit home.
All of which got me thinking, what are some ways to re-use or repurpose household by-products? (besides putting lint balls under G’s pillow as the world’s most annoying reminder to check the filter.) Might be nice to at least get one additional use out of normally single-use items around the house. After all, 17 billion toilet paper tubes are thrown away each year.
What to do with your pasta jars, paper towel rolls, lint balls, and other household by-products
This is where Hot Bones gets coastal grandma crafty. This is not my normal operating mode, as anyone who’s received a wrapped present from me knows. God, so much tape.
But I needed a solution to the lint tombstone in our trashcan, so I went where no HB edition has ever gone before: Pinterest.
And wow, it did not disappoint. I spent an hour just scrolling through toilet paper roll art. Some of my favs >
But there was no way in hell I was going to commit to the time and artsy vision for these crafts, let alone consider where to put them in our house. I needed a practical use for these by-products. Sorry, crab-man.
After a lot more Pinterest and weird googling on sites like Morgan’s Lovely Home and just straight up AI slop, I’ve managed to screen at least one realistic solution for how to re-purpose each of the main offenders in your household build-up. Think of me like your very own crafty lint filter.
What to do with dryer lint
Dryer lint is just small, dry fibers and dust, which as we’ve mentioned are highly combustible. This means they’re great as intentional fire starters on camping trips, backyard cookouts, or your stately non-gas indoor fireplace.
Steps:
Collect lint
Cover the lint in Vaseline (not kidding)
Stuff the lint / Vaseline in an empty toilet paper roll
Wrap in a paper towel
DONE, go light your fire.
What to do with empty paper towel rolls
This one was probably the hardest by-product to find a practical, not just crafty, solution for. So just two quick ideas for you: Cut a slit through the empty roll and wrap the whole thing around your pants hangers to prevent creases and panic ironing right before work.
Or stick a few empty rolls in your wrapping paper box to use as holders for the scraps that aren’t small enough to toss but aren’t big enough for anything useful right now.
What to do with empty glass jars
Okay Pinterest explodes when you type in “empty glass jars ideas.” You’ll see terrariums, wedding placecards, so many DIY candles, and honestly just a lot of empty jars that are now bedazzled jars.
As your crafty-gal filter, here are the most practical re-uses I’ve seen that involve limited time commitments:
Pasta jars → spare flower vases to use as gifts, so you don’t need to come collect that nice glass vase two months later.
Jam jars → Make a raspberry vinaigrette out of the jam remnants, then store the dressing in that same glass jar. You can also do something similar with overnight oats in your nearly empty peanut butter jars.
Non-raspberry jam jars → linen closet organizers for your Q-tips, cotton swabs, and flossers. Just remove the label (usually warm soapy water works, although you may need to let it soak), run through the dishwasher, and start organizing.
pinterest is so pretty
What to do with used coffee grounds
If you have a food recycler, you can toss them in there. Same for a home composting setup or even a city-wide initiative like Black Bear here in Cville.
You can also sprinkle dried coffee grounds on your plants to deter squirrels and deer. Gardeners say 60% of the time, it works every time.
What to do with grocery-store paper bags
Golly, the number of these bags that live under our sink might be in the thousands. Archeologists will study their intricate layers many years from now.
You can also:
Cut up the sides into fun shapes and sizes to use as gift tags.
Cut up the sides into boring rectangles to put in your junk drawer. Later, you’ll use these as little notes for your spouse that say “DISHWASHER CLEAN” or “DOG ALREADY FED, DON’T LET HER TRICK YOU.”
Cut up the sides into really big squares to use as wrapping paper. Fun fact, you can use those empty paper towel rolls to organize these. Don’t forget some nice twine to spruce things up.
My white whale: What to do with soap nubbins
Reddit has a lot to say about melting soap scraps over an open flame, sticking them in the microwave, or burying them deep in a luffa. These are not appealing options to me. Pinterest wasn’t much help either.
If you have a better, easier solution, please reply to this email immediately. Or if you would like to build a soap nubbin machine that takes my thousands of scraps and pops out new bars of soap like a chicken laying eggs, I will happily be the sole financial backer of your invention.
What’s the one household by-product you wish could instantly become useful again?
Results from last week: What should G and I plan for our family guests on Saturday?
Clearly yall know us well, because literally no one suggested we canoe down the Rivanna when wine options were also on the table
33% percent picked the correct answer, which was a quiet coffee morning and then an afternoon at Pippin Hill
⏰ Happening on Friday night: Pitch night for BeCamp, Cville’s annual unconference for developers, designers, founders, and anyone curious about technology and creativity. Saturday is booked for diving into those ideas. No keynotes allowed.
🎸 Happening on Saturday:
Morning: No Kings Protest 2.0 @ The Shops at Stonefield (11am-1pm). Wear yellow.
Evening: The last Rivanna Roots Concert of the season, featuring David Wax Museum (6-9pm).
🏘 Classic farmhouse of the week: Come for the blue front porch, stay for the antique wooden floors (3 beds, 2 baths, $340k in Barboursville)
🏡 Great rental of the week: Insane exposed beams and a window wall built for birdwatchers in this yellow craftsman ($3k/month, furnished 4 beds, 3 baths on 20 acres near Pantops)
🔥 That’s what that building is used for? This week, I went on a fascinating behind-the-scenes tour of one of UVA’s main heating plants, which is hidden mere steps from the Corner. You’d never know. UVA is putting on a few more of these “unseen infrastructure" tours this October.
🐶 Pet of the week: Bandit! Puppy. Need I say more. Bluetick x coonhound mix, 10 pounds, 3 months.
💼 Job of the week: Chief Strategy Officer for the City (up to $140k, based in Cville as you might imagine).
🖥️ Remote job of the week: Communications Manager for Trout Unlimited ($70k - $85k).
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