Domestic schtuff

[thebratqueen]

You know, one of these days I really will sit down and create a book or website or both for people who are single, yet amazingly would still like to live frugally and keep at least a semi-clean house. It's not that I get frustrated to the point of needing to take a hostage or anything, but when you're a gal on your own it can at least create a sense of bemused annoyance out there that pretty much all the advice you can find about cleanliness and frugality tend to start out with things like "101 ways to corral your husband into doing the dishes!" or "Save money by breastfeeding!" 'cause, well, no husband would be my first point (my second is that if I ever do get married I hope my spouse is at least a little more savvy than the doofus of masculinity that tends to get represented in these books and sites), and if I don't actually have children then breastfeeding's really not going to do a darn thing except hurt my boobs and confuse the hell out of my cats.

Plus there's just tons of advice on things that will never ever work for a singleton. Buy in bulk? You try that when you're living in a teeny apartment. Hourly reminders of what you're supposed to clean? Not gonna work if you're in the office most of the day. Tips to reorganize your pantry? Uh, see above re: tiny apartment.

Which isn't to say that I don't know how to translate this stuff into usable information - in point of fact I have and even organized it all into a book outline that I've got... uh... on one of my computers *cough*. But in the meanwhile it just makes me wonder why nobody else has thought to specifically address this info for the working singletons. Are the only people who need to save money and clean the stay at home mothers who have a husband, a dog, and three children (all homeschooled, if the articles that accompany this stuff are any indication)? As a single gal is my apartment supposed to be messy and my credit card balance for shit? 'cause if that's the case boy can I save myself a lot of time by abandoning the apartment to chaos and as for the credit cards - er - well I'm already ahead of you on that one. Ahem.

(Which, fwiw, is actually what keeps me from trying the book. I figure I'm hardly in a position to present myself as a success of frugality when I haven't hit success yet. I know the stuff to do, I just can't yet use myself as an example of it working.)

Anyway, that's my domestic mini-grumble of the day.

Speaking of stuff that I could use advise on, I posted this over on fan_domestics but might as well ask here to get all helpful opinions =)

1) There's a drawer in my kitchen approx 1 foot tall by 1.5 wide by 2 feet deep. A friend of mine more versed in old kitchens than I am said that it was originally intended to be used as a sort of pantry drawer, where you would store potatoes and onions and the like.

I do not have a need for that much root vegetable storage, so what I actually use it for is storing various kitchen implements that just won't fit elsewhere - cheese grater, attachments for my mixer, measuring cups, long-handled serving spoons, etc, They fit fine but as you can imagine they tend to create quite a jumble of material. Anybody have any ideas/suggestions for ways I could organize the stuff in there so that I could at least section it out a bit?

2) I'm about to plant my kitchen garden again, which consists of stuff I grow in pots on my back porch, since that's all I've got to work with. Herbs I'm good with, but I'd like to try more vegetables if I could. Last year I did patio tomatoes with much success. Anybody else know of any other kind of veggie or even fruit that can be grown in a container?

Thanks!