RRPC: We Bottle Our Own

For this week's Round Robin Photo Challenge, "Bottled Up!", I rashly combined three similar topic suggestions. I wanted to see bottles, Kim of Nekked Lizard Adventures wanted to see labels on bottles, and Carly wanted to see the drinks themselves.

From Round Robin Photo Challenges

I'm afraid my own response to this Challenge is not my best work. Unusually for me, I took the photos a couple of weeks ago instead of a few hours before the Challenge date; but I didn't look at or edit them until Friday night. They're mostly pretty grainy, too yellow or orange because of the light source, and lightstruck on the ones that used flash or an adjacent lamp. But here are the best of them.

Checking out at Safeway - a nearly all-beverage purchase.
The fast hand belongs to Cliff, world's greatest grocery clerk (no, really!).

As I keep mentioning, it's been a hot, unusually dry summer in Tucson. This is the time of year when I sometimes go to Safeway and buy $30 worth of flavored water: diet soda, beer for John, sugar free Popsicles and maybe even bottled water. Any food purchase, such as the Italian sausage above, is almost incidental.

Recently, however, our summer drinking habits have changed. It used to be that I was hauling in four or five 12-can cartons of diet soda from the car, or getting John to do it. But recently we've switched to 2-liter bottles, sugar free Kool Aid if available, which it mostly isn't anymore, and Crystal Light.

Only one of these bottles has its original contents.

What's slightly unusual about our use of drink mixes is that it doesn't go into pitchers, or alternatively, into bottled water. The night I took these shots, I did purchase a gallon of refrigerated drinking water, but only because I was in a hurry to have nice cold water to add to the powder. We mix it up in bottles that originally contained an apple-pomegranate-blueberry juice blend. In the photo above, the bottle on the left has this blend still in it; the other bottles, not so much. The bottles are handy because we can just pour the mix in the bottom, add a bit of water, shake it, fill it up the rest of the way, cap it, shake it a little more, and stick it in the fridge. No stirring, no measuring, no open container to spill or attract bugs. A splash of the juice blend can be added to the Crystal Light for flavor and extra antioxidants.

Tonight's reshoot

The other advantage to these bottles is that we can have several of them in the fridge at once, in different flavors. In this weather, we get through two or three bottles a day, sometimes more. I try to have different colors in the three bottles so it doesn't all look the same; there's always a choice in what to drink.

Unfortunately, nearly all the flavors are some variation of red. I recently drank a couple of quarts before a Wednesday effort to give blood, and again before I successfully gave blood two days later. I would not be at all surprised if my blood was extra red by Friday from all that food coloring!

Now let's see what everyone else came up with for this Challenge:

Linking List

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com

Carly - Posted!
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com

ellen b. - Posted!
The Happy Wonderer
http://happywonderer.wordpress.com/

Martha - Posted!
Menagerie
http://meandering-martha.blogspot.com/

Vicki
Beach Bum
http://2babb.blogspot.com

Sandra - Posted!
A cappuccino a day
http://Acappuccinoaday.blogspot.com

betty - Posted!
a corgi in southern california
http://acorgiinsoutherncalifornia.blogspot.com/

Sherrie - Posted!
Sherrie's Stuff
http://sherrie-plummer.blogspot.com/

Suzanne R - Posted!
SuzyQ421's Photo Blog
http://suzyq421sphotoblog.blogspot.com

Linda - Posted!
Mommy's Treasures
http://mommystreasures.blogspot.com

Molly Mavis - Posted!
Visual Dialogues
http://visualdialogues.wordpress.com

Linda - Posted!
Linda's Window
http://www.lindaswindow.blogspot.com/

Jama - Posted!
Sweet Memories
http://mummyjam.blogspot.com

Gattina - Posted!
Keyhole Pictures
http://gattina-keyholepictures.blogspot.com/

Teena - Posted!
It's all about me!
http://www.purple4mee.com

Peggy - Posted!
Holmespun Fun
http://holmespunfunmemesandthemes.blogspot.com

And don't forget the Weekend Assignment writing prompt, in the entry below this one!

Karen