The Pantry

It has been two years since I retired, and I am finally getting myself a schedule. Okay, it is true, I have been on an exercise schedule of sorts, one day at the Y and one day walking, but I have been meaning to develop a housework schedule so my poor husband doesn’t wind up doing most of it, and to find some volunteer work to do.

So for the past several weeks I have used Wednesday (which has long been my laundry day) for dusting, cleaning mirrors, and cleaning the bathrooms. Alternate Fridays continue to be used for changing and laundering the bedding, and Thursdays are now special projects day. Special projects so far have included dusting all the ceiling fans, decluttering (for the 95th time) my office space, and just this past week, cleaning and reorganizing my pantry.

The pantry is actually the half of the laundry room opposite the washer and dryer. When I bought the house, half of that wall contained a closet and next to it was a niche that I suspect was meant for an upright freezer. I find closets inconvenient as pantries because the space to the sides of the door is hard to reach. So when we remodeled the kitchen, John tore out the closet and refinished the wall and ceiling. We had a base cabinet made to match the new kitchen cabinets, and topped it with a stock formica counter from the Home Depot. Above the base cabinet, which has two cabinets with pull-out trays and four drawers, are three stainless steel restaurant style shelves. Hanging from some sections of shelving are three wire baskets. 

My husband and I have different ideas about organization. My ideal pantry (freezer, refrigerator, desk drawer) contains enough empty space to allow me to see what I’m looking for and reach for it without knocking 6 other cans or jars to the floor. My husband sees empty space as a sign that something is missing. A large chunk of the history of our married life consists of my donating old books, knickknacks and clutter, admiring the now decluttered and decorative looking shelves for about ten minutes, and then finding my husband unpacking a box of books he had somewhere onto the newly freed up space. What can I say? He lives here, too.

Besides, it’s not as if I am a naturally neat person. While I can arrange my pantry or bookcase or desk to conform somewhat with my ideal, I have a bad habit of putting things down rather than away “until I get around to it”, and then having to do another major decluttering down the road. So it would be hypocritical of me to treat my husband as if he is the one responsible for all the clutter in our lives.

At any rate, since last Thursday was taken up with some other appointments, I tackled the pantry on Friday. I expected it to take me an hour. It took two and a half. On the other hand, I made more of an impact than I expected. For one thing, I went through the old cooking equipment and other unused cookware (like a fish mold I had been given for a gift) that had lived unmolested on the top shelf for a decade and either found new locations for it or put it in a donate pile. That freed up space for things we are willing to climb on the stepladder (conveniently located next to the dryer) to get: my Cephalon Dutch oven which I mostly use for soups and spaghetti sauce, large unopened jars of things like mayonnaise and ketchup, and extra cans of whatever we bought packed 12 cans at a time at Sam’s Club. I also put an unopened bottle of fish sauce and some cans of coconut milk, remnants of John’s days of Thai cooking, up there as well.

So now the countertop, which had been completely covered with bags, boxes, and my Dutch oven, is maybe only half covered. The cans of food are organized like with like. The pasta is all in one wire basket and the tea and Jello in another. I spent a lot of Friday afternoon standing in there, gazing.

My much used Dutch oven is the paprika colored thing at the top. Next to it is a spare box of coffee K-cups. On the second shelf down, the pancake syrups are on a large plate to catch drips.

Small jars go in the basket on the left, so they don't get lost behind large jars.

The wire basket holds snacks. The covered plastic containers hold crackers (top) and  the remaining Christmas snack items a nephew sent us (bottom). To the right of them, the bottles of oil and corn syrup are now on a tray to catch drips.

I'd be happier if that whole counter was clear, but at least there is now some space to drop groceries needing unpacking, to pack goods to donate, or to use that knife sharpener.

Yesterday I woke up with DOMS. The first time I saw that term I googled it and finally figured out that Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness was the meaning I wanted, but I learned a lot about . . . other things. I expected all the climbing up and down the step ladder to empty, scrub, and restock the shelves to make my legs sore, but I didn’t expect the scrubbing to leave me with a dull pain between my shoulder blades, which is still there today.

This is how you know you are out of shape: when less than three hours of housework leaves you feeling like you have done extended sets of overhead presses.

I think next week I’m just going to quietly sort through the linens. Sitting down.

Undecorating

The Christmas decorations are all down and boxed up, waiting to go back into the attic.  My living room looks bare without the enormous tree taking up the space in front of the back window. That came down Sunday, after I spent Saturday removing all the ornaments I could reach. John had to get up on the ladder to remove the top ones, and he had to take the tree apart. It is now boxed up and back in the closet for next year. This took some time and effort, and there was a bit of discussion in which John promised me I could hire someone to put the tree up and take it down next year. I think he meant it as more of a threat, or at least a Dire Warning, but I would be happy to hire someone who would not be in a position to criticize my choice in Christmas trees unless he wanted to get his butt fired, and a bad write-up on Angie’s list to boot. I’m just saying. 

The rest of the undecorating is pretty much my job, because I’m the one who has picked most of the trinkets, except for the ones we inherited from Eloise. It’s not hard, just time consuming and a little sad. The time consuming part is due to my having over 200 tree ornaments, some of which go in their own little boxes and some in the big plastic ornament storage boxes with dividers, and for some of them I cannot remember which is which. Then I have to figure out which crystal angel goes in which blue box, and which Hummel angel goes in which printed box, and which boxes go up in the attic and which stay down. I should make myself a list, but I would only lose the list.

The sad part is the solo cup ball. Years ago I worked with a little girl, C, who was severely physically disabled due to an infection in utero. The first Christmas I worked with her, her family gave me a Christmas present - a big ball made out of several dozen clear plastic drink cups with Christmas lights strung through each one. They’re called patio balls, and I had never seen one before, but her grandparents made them to sell, and giving them away actually cost them potential income. I thought it was the most hideous thing I had ever seen, but I brought it home carefully, and that night I hung it on the porch. John will put up lights on the porch sometimes, but he doesn’t like to, so I thought I’d at least have something lit out there. Then I went across the street to the mailbox.

When I turned around again I was startled. The light fixture that looked so - unusual - in the daylight glistened beautifully in the dark. I would never have believed it.

C’s story is a sad one. After a few years, she had a bad seizure and fell into a coma. Eventually her parents had to make the hard decision whether to continue extraordinary life-extending measures or to let her go. Fortunately, they were supported by their church in their decision.

I went to C’s funeral, feeling angry. I watched her two brothers running around playing, and I could picture C as she should have been. When the pastor got up to speak, I folded my arms and thought, “This had better be good.”

The pastor read the verse from Matthew 19, verse 14: Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." He spoke about how much C’s brief life had meant to him, and how he had learned from her. My anger slipped away. I don’t know how her parents felt, but I think if it had been me, and if I found anything at all comforting, it would not be words about how God needed another angel in Heaven, but a reassurance that my loved one’s life, brief as it may have been, had an impact on people here.

C would be something like 20 years old by now, if she had lived. My patio ball, carefully treasured, has survived and hangs on my porch every year, a beautiful light that, like C, shines briefly from an unprepossessing exterior, before it goes away.

Why?

Why do the Swarovski people put six inch long ribbon loops on their crystal Christmas angels?

And why don't I just cut the loops off and put regular hooks through the metal eye that holds the ribbon instead?

Why is it that even when I turn the hook the other way, the back sides of my Christmas tree ornaments always face out?

And why is it in over forty years of buying my own ornaments, I haven’t learned to buy the ones that don’t have plain backs?

Why is it that I can remember the place and year that I bought each of my souvenir ornaments, but can’t remember my computer passwords?

And why don’t I just make passwords like “drumAK2002”?

Why do the cats prefer stealing ornaments off the tree to playing with their own cat toys?

And why don’t I just put hooks on their cat toys and hang them on the lower two feet of the tree?

Why did I even buy the ornaments that I think are so unattractive that I relegate them to the back of the tree?

And why is the back of the tree more thickly decorated than the front?

Why am I keeping the picture frame ornament with 1988 on it that holds a picture of Neal even though I have to keep taping it together? (Oh, who am I kidding, even I know the answer to that one.)

And why does it bother me that he will never be 11 years old again when I’m actually happy that I won’t?

It's a Plot

I like watching home decorating shows, as I know I have said before, but like other reality shows, they strike me as being heavily scripted.

Let’s take Property Brothers, for instance. The premise of the show is that a young couple wanting to buy a new house will have such an extensive wish list that they cannot buy a move in ready house and will be forced to buy a fixer. 

First our unsuspecting couple (who apparently have never watched an episode of the show) are taken to see a luxury house that has all the items on their wish list, and it turns out that the house is well over their budget. They wanted a large living room? This one is the size of a basketball court with 14 foot ceilings. 14 foot ceilings were not on the wish list, but never mind. They wanted a large eat-in kitchen with all new appliances and granite counters. Did they actually specify it had to have a Viking 6 burner range and Sub-Zero refrigerator? No, but this house has them. They wanted four bedrooms, but never said each one had to be the size of a tennis court. So surprise, surprise, they can’t afford this house, which in Property Brothers land means they can’t afford any house with a largish living room and nice new appliances of a more modest sort.

Next our disappointed couple is told that anything they really want in that house can be put into an older home in need of fixing up. Note that the key word is “anything”, not “everything”. Once the couple selects a house, only two or maybe three rooms are remodeled. They aren’t really getting a house like the bait and switch house for a much lower price; they are getting a house with some but not all of their wish list. 

Then we go on the hunt for a potential fixer upper. In each house, Drew and Scott tell the couple what can be done to make it look like their dream home. Scott confidently assures them that he can tear down or move walls, patch cracks, and refinish flooring, all before doing a thorough home inspection to see if the walls are load bearing, the cracks aren’t due to foundation problems, and the floors haven’t been refinished previously.

Two potential houses are selected and given cute names, like the Bug Infested Bungalow and the Cat Lady Condo. Scott reveals his remodeling plans for each house, again, apparently before a thorough inspection has been done. The remodel covers maybe a third of each house, which means the rest of the worn out carpet, undersized bedrooms, mildewed bathrooms and moribund yard will be left as is. For each house, Drew tells the couple what he thinks he can buy it for, Scott tells them what he can remodel it for, and the couple never think to ask what if the owners won’t come down that much on the price or what if that wall Scott is planning to move has all the duct work in it.

The next segment shows the couple waiting eagerly in a coffee shop or restaurant while Drew negotiates for the house of their choice. Despite the fact that they didn’t like the house to begin with, the couple is invariably on pins and needles. Suspense builds as the owners make counter offers or it turns out that there is another bid. Oddly enough, at this point the couple never says, “Well, if this doesn’t work out, there is always the Polka Dot Palace to fall back on.” No, you would think this was their move-in ready dream home instead of a money pit in the making.

The real tip-off that this show is scripted, however, occurs when Scott begins his renovations and something unforeseen happens. The wall that was supposed to come down holds all the ductwork for the HVAC, or the roof is leaking, or there is a crack in the basement wall. This happens every single week, which is probably a clue as to why Drew and Scott are supporting themselves via a TV show rather than a real job. Couldn’t they get Mike Holmes to do an inspection first before making promises to the unsuspecting home owners? I say “unsuspecting”, but the show has been on for a few seasons. By now you’d think buyers would know to beware, unless, of course, all of these problems are known before the remodeling plans are presented and they are all just pretending it’s a big surprise.

Interestingly enough, Income Property and Love It or List It have the exact same dramatic moment when unforeseen complications are discovered. They all use the same inspector, the one with the guide dog.

To add to the fun, the homeowners pick this point to request extras in the remodeling. I can’t really blame them, though, because they apparently are only given five minutes or so to look over the plans and pick one, instead of being able to discuss them over a period of days like normal people working with a contractor. So, yeah, there are bound to be a few forgotten items.

Finally, there is the big reveal. As on all decorator shows, the home owners use the same words and phrases: “This is not my house” (Well then I guess you are homeless. That’s not good.) “It exceeds my expectations.” (Of course. Anyone who purchases The Bug Infested Bungalow has low expectations.) Something is always said to “pop”, and if we are lucky it’s not something in the electrical system. Something else is said to “flow”. It sounds like the intro to Cell Block Tango.

If I ever have reason to go house hunting with The Property Brothers, this is what I will do. I will point out all the ways the first, move in ready house has expensive features I don’t need, to help them understand my wish list better. I will insist on hiring my own inspector to look at the houses under consideration before we make a bid or draw up remodeling plans. I’ll have Drew ask the home owners if they have a copy of the original plans, especially the as-built plans, although I won’t be surprised if they are not available. I will insist that the remodeling plans not include furnishings, since I have my own furniture and anyway, it will be easier to furnish the house a bit at a time than to replace flooring and redo bathrooms a bit at a time. All the remodeling money will be put toward removing walls, redoing bathrooms and the kitchen, and replacing or refinishing  flooring. Painting I can do on my own time. It’s true that won’t make the big reveal as impressive, but it will save time later on.

Of course, they are in Canada and I’m in Louisiana, so we will never meet. It’s just as well.

Oh, Good, Something New to Worry About

I wandered over to the tigerdroppings.com O-T lounge this morning, and found this thread: Do You Put Your Cups/Glasses Away Facing Up Or Down?

Tiger Droppings is a primarily sports oriented message board for LSU fans and opponents. It has several sports forums but it also has non-sports oriented forums. In addition to the O-T Lounge, there are forums for politics, money, food, entertainment, gaming, a ticket exchange and something called the Fark Board. 

So you might expect that the demographic of the message board is largely young to middle aged males, and not expect a discussion of how you store your glassware to attract many responses, but this is Louisiana, where men can cook, bake, garden, and worry about their stemware and as long as they are toting a Smith and Wesson, it’s all good.

I was surprised that most of the people who responded store their cups down, to keep the dust out. On the other hand, those who do store their cups/glasses up point out that the cabinet doors keep the dust out but the shelves can get dirty and the rims will be germy if you store them down. 

I keep my glasses and cups upright but I never really thought about why. I’m pretty sure it’s because Mom did it that way. Dust would never dare settle in her cabinets. I do have an open Welsh cupboard in the dining room and the crystal there gets dusty, but it would look funny face down and anyway, the outside would get dusty. I wash the crystal before I use it, which is once or twice a year.

Maybe I should store some of my glasses up and some down and see which works better.

On the other hand, maybe I should just go dust.

New

About 15 years ago, a friend of mine loaned me a string of pearls to wear to my nephew’s wedding. I liked the pearls so much my husband offered to buy me some for Christmas. Unfortunately, before Christmas, his old car, which had well over 100,000 miles on it, began developing a series of problems and it became apparent he needed a new car, which meant no expensive Christmas present. I preferred having husband drive a safe vehicle to wearing pearls to pick him up at the side of the rode when he broke down, so a new car it was. I named the car Pearl. 

Eventually he did buy me the pearls. 

About five or so years ago, we started looking for new patio furniture. The furniture we had is made of steel mesh with a rust resistant powder coat of paint that finally began to rust. I had bought the furniture a bit at a time from a chain furniture store: first the oval table and six dining chairs, then a glider and armchair seating group, then a chaise longue*, and finally a baker’s rack to hold pots of plants and the little decorative garden ornaments that I love to buy because anything outside no one expects you to dust.

John had the dining set sandblasted and primed one year for my birthday and he painted them, but the paint has long started to blister. So we decided to look for cast aluminum furniture and settled on a table and chairs and a seating group.

Naturally, at that point Pearl, who was getting on in years, decided to have the vapors and once again John was looking for a new car. This time I named the car “Fern”.

A year or so later we began talking about moving to Texas, so it didn’t seem advisable to buy heavy, expensive garden furniture before we got there. Then the house didn’t sell, which was just as well because our son moved from Texas to Europe, and might be there another year. The furniture hasn’t been getting any younger, of course, so we went shopping again.

I’m not sure whether the price of furniture has been going up or my memory has been going down, but the amount I thought was going to cover the dining set, love seat and armchairs, just covered the oblong table (larger than our old one) and dining chairs at the 20% off sale price. So we bought them, and are going to buy the other pieces one or two at a time as we can. There’s a sale coming up around Memorial Day and another one at the end of October.

Of course, in the meantime, my car is 12 years old. That raises a big question. How do you name a car after a chaise longue?

*It is, too, spelled that way. It means “long chair” in French, although my translator app renders it “deckchair”.

Etui

This all started with a tear in my underwear. A one inch section of seam had come unstitched, and I could have thrown the article out, but that seemed wasteful.  I could easily sew that section up with a running back stitch, overcast the seam, and it would be good as new, right?

I even knew where to find needle and thread. Thread (in the right color, no less) is kept in the sewing machine cabinet. Needles, however, are in the large plastic bucket where my husband keeps sewing supplies, on the top shelf of his side of the closet, and either I'd have to haul out the ladder to get to them, or risk bringing the heavy bucket right down on my head.

Fortunately, I keep a travel sewing kit in my travel cosmetic case, and I was able to find a needle without risking life and limb. I was also able to notice that the plastic case that the sewing kit is in, bought very cheaply, is coming apart. What I needed was a new etui. It could hold sewing items for travel and also keep me from having to grab a ladder every time I wanted to do a quick repair at home.

I searched under "etui" on etsy.com and found this lovely item

Picture by RocknRobin

for $16.50 plus shipping. It opens out like the picture below.

Picture by RocknRobin

You have to add your own sewing items, but it is nice, and I almost bought it.

My guilty conscience got to me, however. I collect boxes, most of which are sitting doing nothing, and for what I really needed, I could adapt one of those.

In fact, I found the perfect one. My husband gave me a necklace for our first Christmas as a married couple, and it came in a very nice box (see below).

I keep all my jewelry in a jewelry box, however, so for almost 24 years the box has been sitting empty. It's a good size for a little sewing kit. Scissors could sit in the bottom, and one side of the top could hold a pincushion, while the other could hold a thimble and thread.

The rubber bands are for holding scissors. Not the spiffiest solution, but it will do for a try out.

For some reason, folding scissors have disappeared from all the stores in my neighborhood that used to carry them. I have to order some online, but in the meantime, I'm using my knife as a stand-in, just to see how all this works. Besides, it does have scissors.

Now for the pincushion. See how I cut the batting a little smaller than the space to allow for fabric?

Leftover fabric from my last bedding project coordinates quite well with the box.

Remember how I left space for the fabric? Not enough, apparently. I wrapped the batting with the fabric like a package, using double sided tape. I should have fit it in the box before I put the last piece of double sided tape on, but I didn't.

The other side is for thread and my new thimble. The cutout part of the thimble is to allow space for long fingernails. I don't have long fingernails, but I like that it is also adjustable.

The thread and tape measure are from the old sewing kit. Now I add needles, safety pins, and a straight pin to the pin cushion.

It closes perfectly, but I still need something to hold the thread and thimble in place.

The old dirty rubber bands have been replaced with hair bands that were on sale. The burgundy color goes well with the fabric. I also found the little scissors from the sewing kit, but they aren't very good quality.

I tried stapling a third burgundy hair band, but that didn't work. I hot glued in some burgundy ribbon, but it was hard to tie it tight enough to keep the items from falling out. Finally I hot glued the ribbon over the ends of the band to hold it in place.

I was going to cut off the rest of the ribbon, but I may leave it to tie as below. It depends on how annoying it gets to have to keep tying it. 

The box closes okay with everything in it. The knife is now back in my purse, though, since that's where I need it.

I still need to order some folding scissors online. None of the descriptions tell how big they are when they are closed. I've tried calling to find out, but it is apparently some big military secret or something.

So my project turned out about as well as most of my craft projects do, i.e, Im not going to be selling any of them on etsy any time soon (ever).

Instead of the hair bands, I thought about using plain elastic in a casing made of the sunflower fabric, but to turn the casing, I'd need my bodkin. The bodkin, of course, is in the big plastic tub on the top shelf of the closet. In other words, that project is literally over my head.

Recluttering the House

A few years ago, we put the house up for sale intending to move to Austin to be near my son. After six months, the house hadn’t even shown once, so we took it off the market intending to try again in a few months. In the meantime, son spent most of one year in Paris and then was sent to London. His company has now opened a branch in London, and my son is working there and no longer owns his condo in Austin.

One of the first things we did when we listed the house was to pack up a bunch of odds and ends we figured we could live without for a few months. Most of the boxes have been piled in one of the two guest room closets. Then we bought an artificial Christmas tree that arrived in two big boxes which are taking up space in the walk-in closet in my office. I decided that perhaps I should free up space in the guest room by unpacking those boxes. After all, we had been living without those items for at least two years, so most of them should go to the thrift store, right?

I should know better than to expect anything to be that easy. 

First of all, there were the craft items given to us as gifts from our friends in Hungary. When I first visited and they offered to take us shopping, I expressed a preference for seeing locally made crafts. Every Christmas since, I have been receiving hand painted wooden spoons, specialty jars for condiments and honey, Christmas ornaments, ornamental plates, and one year a decorative bull whip, which is sitting in an African basket on top of the blanket chest in the living room. The wooden spoons and and a three-compartment condiment set were among the items packed, and I couldn’t make myself part with them. I compromised by getting rid of some silver plated bar tools we had been given years ago by a friend of my son, and putting the spoons where those items had been. 

Then there were the nutcrackers, which in Louisiana double as crab crackers. If we ever do have our big seafood boil, we will need them, but I made room for them by getting rid of miscellaneous cheese serving implements that we never use.

One surprise was my spring form baking pan, which I thought was in its old spot in the mud room. The baking pan is the sort of thing I don’t use often, but when I need it, there is no substitute. So it is back in the mudroom, with no obvious candidates yet to take its place in the donate box.

Then there was the small box with my elephants. Back when I went to Zimbabwe, I bought a soapstone elephant. I found a few more elephants at home to keep it company, and before I knew it, I had an elephant collection. Friends and family who know I collect elephants buy me elephants when they can’t think of anything else. A few of them were allowed to remain on my bedroom bookshelf, but several are in the small box. The box is now in a new location, though, inside antique washstand that serves as my bedside table.

Adding to the menagerie are the six painted parrots that my husband bought at Iguazu Falls. “I guess you want to keep them,” I said. “Yeah, we can use them at Christmas, “ he said. “We can hang them on the tree.” They’re about 5-6” long, but they are now in a drawer in the dining room with the Santa wall plaque waiting to see how that works out.

Then there is the mandoline that his sister gave us one year for Christmas. We never figured out how to use it and it sat collecting dust, which it hard to remove from something with sharp blades. It’s a pricey little item, though, and I hate to just give it away. We decided to use it sometime in the next few months, and if we don’t, to donate it. I know how that goes. Three years from now it will still be on the back of the pantry shelf.

I did put some old patterns and unopened packages of cording in the donate box, along with an unused spiral notebook, some ski goggles I bought to use as sunglasses in Antarctica (since they went over my glasses), a cup holder from Adrienne, Texas, the midpoint of Route 66, and a small coaster with a child’s prayer on it that I suspect was MIL’s. The box is looking quite empty.

The majority of the items are framed family pictures. I’m not sure where we used to keep them all. Perhaps new items have taken their place. I can’t really get rid of them, but at least I can get everything down to one box.

Didn’t I have a plan to declutter this space once?

Panorama

I have finally unpacked the Mikasa Fruit Panorama dinnerware and have it sitting in the cabinet over the baking center. We’ve even been using it for dinner several days a week, although if hubby sets the table, he uses our old Walmart china. 

The dinnerware

With a wine goblet we already owned

With a Village Pottery Della Robbia egg plate from Hungary 

I don’t remember why I kept the Panorama dinnerware in the attic for so long. I think it had something to do with being afraid to break it, although it is probably sturdier than the Walmart plates. In unpacking the plates, which were in their original boxes, I discovered I had been wrong about one thing. MIL had used some of the original set; just not the second set. She kept the original box, because she kept everything.

Unpacking and using the china of course reminds me of Eloise, my late mother-in-law. I have a lot of reminders of Eloise around the house. For one thing, there are the afghans. When Eloise’s sister died, she left behind her a lot of unused yarn in 1970’s earth tones and day-glo colors. Eloise, being the thrifty soul she was, crocheted the yarn into hideous but practical afghans. We have three of them, in addition to a quite beautiful afghan that I am not allowed to use because the cats might destroy it. I finally dealt with one by hiding it in a duvet cover, but the others, despite all my attempts to hide them, keep popping up around the house, at least in winter. The cats, I might add, are completely remiss in their duty to destroy the ugly afghans.

Rolled up afghan

It took me years to realize that Eloise was not just expressing her practical side in using up the last of her sister’s yarn. She was mourning her sister, and making sure that she would be remembered. If I had succeeded in banning the afghans from the house, I would have succeeded in banning a good bit of my husband’s family history as well. So I have made my peace with the afghans*, and try to use them as a reminder that I am not always right.

Her china and her silver represented something to Eloise, too. She and her mother and sister grew up poor after her father died, although helped out by her Uncle Charlie, who lived next door. Things improved for her during the second world war, when she moved to Washington and held a job in the then equivalent of data processing. She even got to see Eleanor Roosevelt up close once on an elevator, and often spoke of how Mrs. Roosevelt was not as unattractive as people say.

But it was as a married woman she achieved financial security, and she was extremely proud of the fact that her silver set had a butter spreader for every place setting, and her china had eight pieces per setting. That may have been why the gift of dishes was a sore point, although her relationship with her daughter was always rocky anyway.

I can relate to her being proud of all her pretty things. I’m that way myself, which is why I worried for so long that her pretty things were choking out my pretty things. It was John’s Aunt Mary who showed me another way of viewing things. When we visited her and Uncle Jack, she gave me a tour of her house that included many items which were gifted or inherited. She seemed to get a lot of pleasure from them.

I realized then that rather than seeing my MIL’s things as stuff competing for a place with my stuff (current or wished for), I could see it as part of the panorama of family history. Items that I had tucked away on drawers were given pride of place, at least on a rotating basis. 

I’m a rich woman, really. I have butter spreaders.

*Some poor child writing a current events paper for school is going to Google that phrase and be completely confused.

So I Have All This Stuff

Two months ago, I wandered into an antique/gift shop next to the place where I get my hair done. As I looked around, I saw some green dishes and serving pieces that looked very similar to a small cabbage-shaped soup tureen I had bought in Tennessee this past summer. I don’t need the green dishes, but I asked the owner how much they were. She said she had really only bought them to accessorize the cabinet they were sitting in, which was for sale, but she would sell me the whole set for $28.00.

The cabbage soup tureen

I decided I really should talk to my husband first, not because of the amount of money involved, but because he’d have to live with them, too.  My husband didn’t have any major objections, but he did ask the obvious question, “Where would you put them?”

So while I pondered this problem, weeks went by. John started to organize some financial records and noticed he didn’t have all the statements for our savings account. “I keep them up here,” I said, pointing to the cabinet over the baking center. This led to a round of moving the statements to his files, shredding old duplicate checkbooks, and otherwise clearing out the closet. Suddenly we had room for the green dishes. 

What I didn’t have was $28, what with Christmas and all, at least not until the end of December. No rush - the store owner hadn’t intended to sell the dishes anyway, and if she did sell them to someone else, I knew it wasn’t to be. 

In the meantime, as John brought down Christmas ornaments from the attic, he decided to take stock of what else was up there. Some of what else was up there was cardboard boxes with glassware that had belonged to his mother. “Why are you holding on to that stuff?” I asked. “Because the appraiser told me it was antique,” he replied. 

“Well, maybe we should bring it down from the attic”, I said. (Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!) “Oh, you know what else is up there? Those dishes your mom gave me.”

I was referring to a set of 8 place settings of Mikasa Fruit Panorama that my sister-in-law had given her mother about twenty years ago. My MIL took offense at the gift (something of a hobby of hers) because she already had dishes, and never opened the boxes. So when MIL moved from her house to a retirement home, she gave me the dishes. I had intended to use them, but they wound up in the attic with her other possessions, and whenever I thought about getting them down, it seemed like too much trouble.

The cleared out space over the baking center would be perfect for the Mikasa, however. As for the antique glassware, it could go in the big armoire that is cluttering up the living room and serving no useful purpose. Well, it held a few of the Christmas decorations, but they are now in plastic tubs in the attic with their buddies.

As for the green dishes, in the big Christmas decoration reorganization, I freed up shelf space in the mudroom. I had a hair appointment this morning, so the plan was go back to the shop and buy the green dishes, if they were still there.

But yesterday John decided to bring the boxes down from the attic. “How many do you want me to bring down?” he asked.

“How many are there?” I asked, picturing maybe three boxes of crystal. “Ten or twelve,” he replied.

Oh, dear. When I said to bring the boxes down from the attic, I thought we were talking about maybe 16-24 glasses, not every bit of kitchenware MIL had ever owned. Now I remembered why the boxes were up in the attic to begin with.

We settled on bringing down six boxes to start with, not counting my Mikasa dishes, and to go from there. I quickly discovered that the boxes labelled “Antique Glassware” should have been labeled “collectibles that are currently popular but may not be 13 years from now”, and ones that were unlabeled should have been labelled “miscellaneous kitchen debris collected by an 80 year old woman who never threw anything out”, and “miscellaneous knick-knacks with which you can clutter up every surface in your house.” That’s why the boxes were in the attic.

Once the first few boxes came down, however, it was clear they all needed to come down. The boxes are disintegrating, the items in there are speckled with black coffee ground like matter that my husband assures me are roach droppings, not mouse droppings (I have roaches in my attic, what a comfort), and my husband actually let me add a few items to the box we were filling for Goodwill.

Some of the items, it turns out, are big platters, serving bowls, and a punch bowl. They will not fit in the armoire. My husband wouldn’t give them to Goodwill. My shelf  space in the mudroom may be gone. John did suggest we could get more plastic tubs and put anything that doesn’t fit in the armoire back in the attic, but I wonder how happy he will be to do that if I bring more dishes into the house.

I didn’t even look in the shop when I went for my haircut today. Maybe the green dishes are all gone to a good home anyway, one where their new owners don’t have quite so much stuff.

Christmas Decorating

When I am daydreaming about Christmas treats, one of my favorite daydreams is that someday I will be able to hire a floral designer to decorate my whole house for Christmas. Since my hunch is that would cost my entire budget for my someday Australia trip, it is likely to remain just that, a daydream. In the meantime, I try to accomplish what I can can, leaving my house with that loving hands, done at home look, blended slightly with that chewed on by the cat look. Neither look makes it into the Christmas editions of my favorite magazines.

The cake recipe is from Southern Living. Usually my cakes don't look this pretty,
but the directions and pictures were easy to follow.

The dining room, Christmas 2004. 

One year I spent a small fortune on a matching wreath, swags, and wall hanging baskets for the front porch. The calico wreaths someone had given me for Christmas 25 years or so before had given up the ghost, several live plants had died in the wall hanging baskets, and I decided I could spend some money on decor that would last me another 25 years. The swags hung from the original front porch light fixtures. Then the light fixtures broke, and I couldn’t find replacements with quite the same configuration. That actually worked out well, because I put a swag on the back door and the other on the light fixture at the side door, and voila, the whole house looked cohesive. (“Cohesive” is a decorator term meaning the opposite of that mix of stuff you inherited from grandma, stole from mom, and found while dumpster diving.)

This year, hubby made a live wreath from the trimmings from our enormous Christmas tree, and complained about the wreath hanger making marks on the frame of the storm door. So now the live wreath is on the back door, the faux wreath is on the side door, and one swag is back in front.

The poor little Christmas cactus is hanging in there.

John's live wreath, with a purchased bow

The side door

If the outdoors looks cohesive, the indoors is a different story. The indoors looks like a moderate sized explosion took place in Hobby Lobby. The way things look in my head and they way they look in three dimensional space is laughably different.

There is, for instance, the tree. Thirty seven years ago, one of my little clients gave me a beautiful velvet ornament she and her mother had made for me. It was a turquoise color, that over the years faded to a seafoam green and now to a beige with a tinge of green, but the lace foil and synthetic pearls are still as good as ever and I can’t bring myself to get rid of it. It did, however, spark the idea to have a tree with all unique ornaments. Most of the ornament sets I have are themes: the old Sears Christmas Around the World ornaments, The Wizard of Oz ornaments, A Christmas Carol ornaments, nursery rhymes ornaments, but the ones that are duplicates are left over from another tree in another house. In someone else’s hands, that might have looked charming; in mine, it mostly looks mismatched. Since a lot of the ornaments are gifts, they are staying. I can actually remember each person who gave them to me, and part of the fun of decorating the tree is remembering each person and hoping they are doing well.

The bottom is empty because of the cats.

The Nutcracker tree in the back room

Then there are the collections, most of which are also gifts of mugs, candle holders, and ornaments too heavy to hang on the tree. There’s an angel collection, a snowman collection, and a Santa collection. This year, I added an impulse purchase to the Santa collection: a two and a half foot tall Native American inspired Father Christmas that the owner of the Native American shop in Cherokee, North Carolina let me buy for 20% off after I drooled over it for half an hour. When I put it on the bookcase with the rest of the Santas, they looked like the mismatched impulse purchases they are. Finally, I moved them across the room to the built in bookcase and distributed them among the shelves so they are still grouped together, but a little less dissonant. I think. The angels are on top of the first bookcase and the snowmen are on the desk.

I think he needs a sled.

Finally, there’s the mantle. The mantel sports faux greenery, cast iron stocking hangers, candlesticks, and this year, the Santa picture that I can never find the right spot for. There used to be a perfect spot for the Santa picture, on the wall that is now the home for the armoire. There is another suitable spot for Santa on the back wall, but that’s where we put the tree. So Santa is now hanging on the mantle, only a few inches too high, and hubby is tired of messing with it. I can’t blame him.

The stockings in the middle are handmade. The one on the left, my mom crocheted, and the one on the right, my MIL made for Neal.

So maybe someday I will hit the lottery, hire that floral designer, and have a house that will make you all green with envy. In the meantime, well, it’s Christmas. Isn’t that the time for loving hands, done at home?

Another "it seemed like a good idea at the time" purchase,
a souvenir of Branson, on the baking center in the kitchen