5 Creative Uses for: Socks

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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Since everyone’s always grousing about the washer/dryer sock mystery thing, I’m not going to belabor that point. What I will say is this: I am convinced that my feet are extra sharp, owing to the really remarkably short length of time a typical pair of socks lasts me before one gets a hole. For those afflicted with pointy heels like mine (or flimsy socks), a few ideas from AltUse.com and Yankee Magazine’s excellent book Don’t Throw It Out:

1. Protect your shoes: Slip socks over shoes to keep them from scuffing in your suitcase.

2. Make a chew toy: Knot a sock up, or tie a few together around a rubber ball. Hours of fun for Fido. Don’t you wish you were so easily entertained?

3. Warm up your arms: Like leg warmers: Cut the toe off an old pair of socks and bunch ’em up on your forearms. If you want to cover your hands, too, you can cut a thumb hole into the heel.

4. Store ornaments: Kids’ socks work well for covering delicate Christmas ornaments. This trick works well for packing up tchotchkes for a move, too.

5. Clean with precision: Dusty, hard-to-reach corners are no match for your sock-covered hand. Spritz the toe with cleaning solution and attack.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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