The article lead started with "throw out fifty things"........
It was one of those New Year-New You pop culture articles that are so prevalent during the last few days of December or the first two or three days of the new year. Everyone is an expert on some kind of self-improvement routine or procedure. What I really wanted to do, in this order, was get plastic surgery, liposuction, and botox injections. Since none of those was likely going to happen, my head got totally wrapped around the idea of throwing out fifty things. And, I knew exactly what room I would start in. The kitchen.
The problem is, there are at least two drawers in our kitchen that could not only benefit from losing fifty items of content, but that probably have at least twice that much in each drawer that needs to be tossed. The biggest offender in the Kitchen Junque War is not actually what I would describe as an old-fashioned junk drawer. Previous kitchen junk drawers held scissors, a flashlight, a hammer, a set of screwdrivers, probably some small appliance operating manuals, maybe even that oldest of publications......a phone book. Somewhere along our lives' timeline, our kitchen developed more drawers and the phone book took a definite back seat in the annuals of time. Now the most offending drawer in my kitchen has a more eclectic inventory. It is the drawer where all of the smaller but must-have kitchen accessories go, plus a lot of other "stuff".
I've been quite transparent, in this blog, about my struggle to keep low inventories of boxes. (You never know when that one box will be the perfect box in which to mail something to someone.)
Since all adult problems can be related back to some childhood trauma, there must have been a box crisis in my home when I was a child. Another area of my life that probably needs some psycho-therapy would be related to saving twist ties. Honestly, they multiply like rabbits on steroids. It is just such a natural act to empty a plastic bag, have the twist tie in my hand and simply drop it into this drawer. Do I think that by dropping it into the kitchen garbage container something awful and life-threatening will occur?
So, about this drawer and its contents. Food scissors, melon-ball scooper, ice cream scooper, citrus peeler, spare car keys, twist ties, mini tongs, chopsticks, potato nails, sweet corn "knobs", wine bottle pour spouts, loose tea holders, an apparatus to make curly cues out of radishes/carrots and the like, a cheese slicer, wine bottle stoppers, vegetable scrub brushes........ and that is about fifty percent of what I could itemize. Let me just say that his drawer will be the starting point for the "Throw Out Fifty Things" challenge. I could meet the fifty-things criteria just with twist ties, for heaven's sake.
If you happen by our home and you hearing cursing and/or cheering, you will know what project I have begun. If you see me standing by the curb, clutching handfulls of twist ties, with a sign draped around my neck that says, "Will work for food.", you will know that I was unable to part with my twist ties and I couldn't find a small enough box in which to store them.
Ancora impartaro
