Friend, do you find yourself with too much time on your hands, and a lack of spending money? Are you swimming in clutter? Have you resolved to make 2007 your Year To Finally Get It Together? Let these elements combine to create your pathway to success, and clean up your side yard or basement at the same time.

The way I figure it, part of your problem is, you�re spoiled. You let other people do all the work for you while you sit back and watch Wheel of Fortune, shopping on the Internet and waiting for the postman to deliver your order right to your front step, where you can practically reach it without getting off the sofa. Taking a page from my thrifty Yankee forefathers, I�ve devised several simple ways to save money by making all the things you need yourself. It�s simple, and it�ll change your life.

Let�s start with an easy project, say, making your own underwear. Now, at first, you might think, �Why would I make my own underwear, when I can buy a three-pack at K-Mart for $4.99?� And I�m going to step back and just point out to you that that�s exactly the kind of lazy thinking that got you in that recliner to begin with, that recliner you�re in, surrounded by old TV Guides and pizza boxes because you�re too slothful to even boil a pot of water. Am I right? Do you see what I�m getting at, here?

OK, now that you�ve admitted �there�s a problem,� we can start on the road to recovery! Although not in an alcohol-related way, because that�s not really my area of expertise. Today, we�re just going to focus on the underwear. So, OK, you want to make your own underwear. Now, you might think, �Gee, if only someone would tell me where I can get some lace-tatting supplies!� That would be nice, wouldn�t it? Yeah. That is why I am offering you all the information you�ll need, for the cost of a stamp.

That�s right. I have all the tatted-lace underwear instructions at home, in a series of files, color-coded and cross-indexed. I don�t like to use my computer too much, don�t want to wear it out, and you know without me telling you that all computer repairmen are crooks and they�ll charge you three times the estimate and take double the time they promise, just to fix a problem that a six-year-old child could diagnose while balancing a tennis racquet on his nose. Like my nephew Ellery, before he went on the drugs and disappointed his parents and the Norfolk County School Board. Anyway. As I say, I have all the instructions, and to save electricity, I am offering to hand-copy them and send them to you a page at a time. True, you won�t get the entire set at once, but think of the savings! Send me a book of stamps, and some envelopes, and I�ll get started. Send some paper, too, because hey, paper�s expensive, and what am I, a paper mill? No, I sure am not! So send all that. And your name and address, if you expect anything in return. I�m not a mind-reader.

The first thing you�ll receive is a list of the materials you�ll need to start tatting your own lace underwear. Or, a partial list. I think the list runs to a couple, three pages, but at least you can get started. My hands don�t work so good in this cold weather, so maybe allow three to six weeks per page. But I�ll get them to you, 100%, you bet. Now, when you get that first page, you�ll see that many of the components necessary for the underwear can be store-bought, but doesn�t it seem wasteful, with this new outlook of yours, to buy these things when you can instead spend half your life making them? I agree! So, to save a little money, I find it easier to say, spin my own string and forge my own needles. No reason to support some Taiwanese needle factory when with a little iron, an anvil, and 73 hours of your time, you can make one reasonably functional tatting needle.

Now, string. As far as string goes, sure you could grow some cotton, pick the cotton, de-seed the cotton, and�eventually�spin it into very fine yarn suitable for tatted underwear, but is that really the best use of your land? That acreage could be used to grow crops you can feed to your family. You could can a whole winter�s worth of food with the crops grown on that land, and bury deceased family members in the unused portion! That is valuable land. Leave it be, don�t plant that cotton you�re so in love with.

OK, string. String. Now, you�re gonna find it easier to just melt down a heap of those old soda bottles you�ve been keeping in the old shed (not the green shed, the one you use to store old shoes you found on the highway. Those shoes are perfectly good and can easily be resoled using the treads from the tire pile next to the old above-ground pool where you keep the empty thread spools). Melt the bottles over a small fire you start using driftwood or other combustible material you find at the beach, and get it all into one of those five-gallon pails you store near the root cellar entrance. Any one will do. Now, using Uncle Theo�s taffy puller�set it on �Salt Water� for maximum slowness�start to stretch out the plastic. Just pour it right in there. I�d probably use gloves for this part, there are some in the garage, but don�t use my good ones that I keep for pruning the roses. And try not to inhale any of the fumes�a wet rag tied over your face should do the trick, but make sure it�s an old rag, because I save the good ones those for stuffing holes in the roof.

Keep pulling the plastic �taffy� until it�s a giant, solid mass, and transfer it to the work table, which you�ve already covered with a layer of foil from the foil ball in the attic. I know this is taking some time, but you do want to do the job right, don�t you?

You should already have gotten out Aunt Martha�s spinning wheel and have it ready on a bed of more foil. It�s easy to use, and if you don�t know how, I have another set of instructions I can hand-copy for you and send along when I get the time between my tole-painting class and knitting hats for premature babies in the hospital. The string that results should be strong, fine, and clear. (You did want your tatted underwear to be translucent, didn�t you? If not, start over and this time, for Lord�s sake, use those old detergent bottles by the carport�the blue ones, the ones with no bleach, because fumes from the burning bleach will make you go sterile, and do you really need something else to complain about?) Now, it suddenly occurs to me that you may need to make a drop spindle�we�ll get to that when it comes around on the guitar.

Once you have the string spun, devise a design in your head�we have no use for patterns, those are for stupid people�and start tatting! In three or four short years, you should have one pair of usable, brand-new, hand-tatted underwear that is far better than any store-bought underwear you could find, and never mind those Hanes Her Way ads, those people are paid to make up lies.

Star of the day. . .My dear Yankee grandmother, whose birthday it is today.