I moved last week so this blog has been quiet since first I was too busy moving and packing to bake, then I was busy moving and (still) unpacking to bake. And now that I have some breathing room to bake, I still don't have internet connection at my new place so I can't post or upload pictures from my computer. I'm currently borrowing an internet-connected computer somewhere else just to post this. But no matter - I've started baking in my new kitchen and will update my blog accordingly once I finally get connected.
In the meantime, some random thoughts. It took me literally all summer to pack up my old house. I've had the detritus of my life in boxes in my garage for weeks, even months. It actually wasn't so bad to pack things although I did keep finding stuff I didn't remember I had and in some cases, didn't even remember buying. That's a bad sign that I have too much stuff. It got worse when I moved and began unpacking. Yikes. No one person should have all this. I moved to a bigger home and yet it seemed like as I unpacked box after box that I would fill this home just as much as my old home. That's not my goal or my intention. The easy answer is to get rid of some of this stuff, right? Most people would be smart enough to get rid of things before they had to move it and I did do some of that. But I got to a point in my packing where I couldn't declutter, decide what to donate and pack all at the same time so I copped out and just packed it all, hauled it all and am now unpacking it all.
My problem with having and keeping all this stuff is I think I will use it "someday". That's probably a classic hoarder mentality. You don't want to get rid of it because you might need it "someday". But for so much of our stuff, someday never really comes. Or if it does come, you still only need it very rarely and the amount of time you use it is excessively disproportionate to the amount of time you spent storing it and lugging it from place to place. In the spirit of this blog, my classic example is all my baking stuff. Not just the 200+ cookbooks that I've already owned up to and have been trying to keep a reign on. I'm talking about all my baking pans and baking implements/gadgets. I knew I had a tad too many when I was labeling box after box "baking pans" and the boxes kept stacking up. It really hit me when I started unpacking those boxes and had to put them in some semblance of order in my new kitchen. At first it was overwhelming. I had moved from a small kitchen to one that was literally double its size with more cabinets than I've ever had in my life. Yet at first it looked like I wasn't going to have enough room? That's when I knew I had hit the ridiculous point.
In a way, it was amusing to go through them all - at one point I must've gone through a specialty pan phase because I realized I had multiple "bundt" pans in special shapes and sizes. They looked like they would make pretty cakes in the shape of wreaths, santas, and snowflakes but I'd only used them a few times, enough to realize what a pain in the butt they are to clean. All those nooks and crannies you could only get at with a small toothbrush. File those under the "life is short" category - I've got better things to do than to use those pans when I could make the same-tasting cakes in easy-to-clean pans, frost them and everyone's happy. Those went into the Goodwill pile. I also have every size baking pan imaginable. Of the common 8" square and round cake pans, I have multiples of those too. Because you never know when they'll wear out, right? Except I take really good care of my pans and buy the good quality stuff so they haven't worn out yet. I also have multiple pie pans of the same size. That wouldn't be so bad....except I rarely make pies. How did I end up with 3 pie pans? I don't know. I think two of them must've been a gift. I think. I even have a pretty shortbread pan that, when properly used, would bake "tiles" of pretty-patterned shortbread. Really pretty. Except when I do make shortbread, I never use that pan. That went into the Goodwill pile too.
And let's not even start on my ramekin collection. "Someday" I'm going to have a bunch of people over and serve them creme brulee, apple cobbler (in apple-shaped ramekins), molten chocolate cake, puddings, trifles, and every other individual-sized dessert you can think of. Because I've got the ramekins for all of them.
I did end up taking a carload of stuff to Goodwill a couple of days ago. It wasn't all kitchen stuff but it was a decent attempt to get rid of my someday mentality. Since someday never comes or comes but rarely, I'm not going to live my present holding onto stuff for the future. Life goes by too fast for that.
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