Chasing Clutter

First, I have an exciting announcement! This year I will be publishing two children’s books--The Parasaurolophus Pizza Parlor and The Christmas Mummy.  You can read about them at my new website: LynnWardBooks.com.

I addition, in a few weeks I’m going to stop posting my blog at WordPress. Instead, it will be on my website, on my Facebook page: Facebook.com/oma.spillsbeans, and Twitter: @OmaSpills. I hope you’ll stay with me!

Now back to the clutter.

Killing time before meeting friends for lunch, we were wandering through a small country-type store. I saw some dishcloths and grabbed them. The ones we were using looked like they’d been in service for decades--worse than dingy, even though I bleach them. I’ve wanted to replace them for a while, but when I think of it, the store I’m in doesn’t have any, or I simply forget to go look.

Anyway, I washed the new dishcloths and went to put them in the back of the cabinet where the dishcloths and towels currently in use are. That space was already occupied by two other new sets of cloths that I’d stashed away, who knows how long ago.

The problem here is that these cabinets are rather narrow and quite deep. I can’t see the stuff back there without pulling over a chair, sitting down and pulling it all out. Which is what I did.

 What a bonanza of forgotten items: mini-muffin trays that I thought I’d trashed and had replaced when I finally had a reason to bake mini-muffins; two plastic widgets for making poached eggs in the microwave, which we haven’t done in years; a double boiler insert for a pot, something I occasionally am supposed to use for a recipe, but make do with the microwave instead.

There was more, but I’ll spare you.

I have no idea when I decided to store those items there, but it’s certainly a case of “out of sight, out of mind,” although I don’t think that phrase is usually used for kitchen gadgets.

Another version of finding surprises, still in the kitchen—I planned on making rice pudding for Christmas, so I checked the pantry for rice and didn’t find any. I put it on the grocery list. A few days later, hunting for something else in the pantry, I found two opened bags tucked behind soup cans and gravy jars. Our pantry is a narrow set of shelves that look a lot like bookshelves, except for the cans and boxes. The shelves aren’t that deep, but smaller items can be placed two or three deep.

(Note to those who celebrated Christmas with u: you didn’t see rice pudding on the dessert table because I burned it.)

I put the new rice aside for the church pantry and started clearing out my pantry. Some things were easy to toss, items we didn’t really like. (Why were they still here?) Then I found a bunch of canned items that we were never going to use—we’ve changed the way we eat and how we entertain. But their expiration dates had passed, and the pantries don’t want them. I hate to waste food, so it was hard for me to decide what to do with them. Eventually I put the contents in the trash or down the drain and recycled the cans.

Now I find myself getting distracted from whatever I need to do somewhere, poking around looking for things we don’t use anymore and moving them along to their next destination.

It gives me such a sense of satisfaction that I often don’t get back to writing the blog or making dinner. But it feels good! And now there’s room to store the new things we’ll buy for some unknown reason, until we figure out that we don’t really want them and start all over again.

NO! I will be vigilant! I will not buy things unless I’m sure I will use them!

And I will blame any excess on my husband.