Moving Pains
So, we survived the move.
We barely fit into our new place. It’s a lot bigger than what would count as a tiny house in the Tiny House Movement, but for Texas (and us), it’s pretty-small. I notice that none of the neighbors have children and many do not have spouses. I’m pretty-sure that has more to do with the square footage of their homes than their individual lack of desirability, because so far, they all seem very nice. Many, I am sure, just don’t want to give up some of their furniture, which would be necessary to fit another person into their home.
And I totally get it. We got rid of so much stuff when we moved and it was painful. Then we put a bunch of stuff in storage and still, we have too much stuff. Where does all this stuff come from?
I read an article in Real Simple magazine that told me everything I needed for my kitchen utensil drawers to be perfectly content. They surveyed a bunch of professional chefs including one in NYC who said her apartment had an impossibly small kitchen. I kept the article and before we moved, I laid all my utensils out on the counter just like in the magazine, with every intent of tossing anything not shown. After all, I’m not a professional chef and if they could be happy with just those things, surely I could too.
When it got right down to it though, I realized they left out a lot! Where was the cherry pitter? The egg separator, anything having to do with grilling, extra serving spoons, a zester, that garlic smasher thingie, an ice cream scoop? People in NYC don’t eat ice cream and only use whole garlic? Good god man, aren’t we still a civilized society? Maybe those fancy chefs have fancy tricks for how to do all that stuff without fancy tools, but I needed twice as much as they suggested. In the end I got rid of 4 things, most of which were repeats of something I already had.
The magazine went on to cover other areas of the home, but I just skipped the rest. (Here is a link to the article, called Streamline Your Supplies, if you want to see how you fare.)
So how do people do it, how do they decide what goes and what stays? One friend says if she doesn’t use it in 6 months, it’s out the door. Something you only use one time a year can be borrowed. I had a giant roasting pan that I only used one time a year. It’s huge. I took her advice and gave it away, but when Christmas rolls around I might be knocking on her door to borrow a cooked turkey.
