So awesome that let's forget I got another kitchen appliance, OK.

After the last few years of me reporting on strangely domestic and 50s housewife-ish birthday gifts bestowed upon me by my beloved (upon request, of course, so we can't go calling him mean names, now), I felt it was necessary to come back and report on this year's birthday gift.

Though I'm not sure it fits as squarely into the domestic 50s housewife or delusional homesteader categories as neatly as did my hillbilly potting bench or chest freezer. Those are just true gems right there.

No, this year's gift is another that I've pined for over the past few years and finally (apparently) convinced Bubba was a necessity in our home.

See, to give you a little back story so that you don't get all, "How frivolous! What a ridiculous thing to have taking up space on your counter and in your life you indulgent loser!" (because that's totally what you'd say. Judgers.), I used to drink a lot of sparkling water. Fizzy water some call it. Club soda others call it, though I'm sure that's a different beast altogether. And, well, I decided I had to give it up because I couldn't abide the waste of all those blue bottles cluttering up my recycle bin.

Even when it comes to recycling, I can't do TOO much recycling because that's still a lot of resources being used and then recycled. I'm very psycho about these things, I know.

Anyway, after many years of keeping my fridge stocked with liters of sparkling water, I gave it up. I made sun tea and put that in the fridge and when there wasn't any sun for sun tea (hello, winter!) I drank my water with lemon. I just have a thing with plain old tap water because around here it tastes a bit south of cheese.

I'm just saying.

So, it's been about a year or so since I kicked the bottled sparkling water habit. I've enjoyed not having to lug flats of giant unwieldy bottles out of Trader Joe's and into my garage and then into my house and then into the recycle bin and then out to the curb with my little psycho yelling in my ear all the while, "WASTER! BAD WASTER!"

I told you - I'm psycho. Or, perhaps, *WE* are psycho and that is just psycho in and of itself. Yikes.

At the same time though, my inner psycho kept also remembering this soda maker thing making its rounds on the internet. A contraption that sits on your counter, does not use any electricity or batteries and, when introduced to a bottle (which comes included) of tap water will BUZZZZZZ make it into fizzy water.

Just made that with my grody tap water and BLAM it tastes great.

TAH DOW!

Like the Home Jew version of water to wine, I suppose. Especially when I found out that DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN GET DIET TONIC FLAVOR FOR THIS THING AND MAKE YOUR OWN DIET TONIC AT HOME?

Yes. Yes you can.

Just contemplate the implications of this discovery for a moment...Come home from work, go to make a cocktail only to find that BOH! We're out of tonic. Or DAMNITALL! the tonic has gone way flat. Rather than hopping on the bike for a ride over to BevMo, just jam a bottle in the thing, BUZZZZZZ it and then add the diet tonic flavor. Then mix up a drink and pour Bubba a bourbon and ahhhhh it's cocktail time.

That's fricken beautiful.

So, for whomever that was that suggested I might start making my own tonic because I'm *that way*, you're right. And *that way* is *in favor of convenience and reducing waste*.

I've ordered this flavoring (which has no HFCS or weird chemicals)(and if there are weird chemicals in there, I'll thank you to keep it to yourself because I can only do *so much* righting of my personal wrongs at once) and a diet cola flavoring for Bubba and once it arrives we will not only be awash in just as much sparkling water as we can stand (and I'm AWASH IN IT NOW, BABY!), but also we'll be free from the bottles of diet tonic and the cans of diet Coke and oh my god let the cleansing begin.

I might have to send the recycle bin on a vacation because it's going be a lot less in demand without Coke cans and tonic bottles all filling it up.Well, except for the bourbon, gin and wine bottles...one thing at a time.

Plus, wouldn't you just know that buying flavors to add to this homemade sparkly water is about the most cost effective thing ever when compared to buying the bottles and cans. Oh, it is. One bottle of diet tonic flavor works out to 12 bottles of diet Tonic for five big dollars.

And barely any waste!

Have I said no waste? Because there's barely any.

So, yeah, I'm stoked on this gift and I don't care how Housewife/Domestic/Psycho/Cheap/Fizzy Water Obsessed/Indulgent/Lovable that makes me because ...brrrrrrrrrpp!... I love my fizzy water.