Basement Treasure

We've been spending a lot of time outside and the kids have been spending a lot of time running indoors (with muddy shoes) to get a drink from the kitchen sink (and leaving the door open when they come back out). I thought that to minimize this problem, we should have some kind of cooler of ice water outside. I was looking at one of these at the store this afternoon. The price tag was $14.99 and I thought that seemed like too much besides the "avoid plastic food and beverage containers" warnings that have been circulating lately. Besides, we have one of these already. It just seems so big to have outside for our daily drinking water - parties are one thing - but I decided we should use it anyway. I could leave it outside and just fill it from a pitcher with the ice water we would drink. I could empty it at the end of the day to avoid having water that tastes like plastic the next day. When I got home I went down to the basement to find it and I came across this beautiful thing:



I took it apart and cleaned it out. I filled it with tap water to see if it worked and - lo and behold - it did! It holds 8 cups of water. As you can see, with the top open, there is this plastic doo-hickey that the water is pumped through...



...but you can see that the part that holds the water is glass and the "straw" that is submerged in the water is stainless steel.



So, I have a cheery beverage dispenser to carry our water in and I don't even have to worry about it being plastic, though I have to be careful that it doesn't get dropped because it is glass.

(Hey Mom - Was this yours or Grandma's?)