Beans and Rice

One of the folks I follow in the blogosphere has been on a year-long quest to thin-out the stuff pile. Starting in January, every day she's been getting rid of a little something that she doesn't need hanging about anymore. 365 less things in the stuff pile at the end of the year. I can dig that. I don't quite have Katy's dedication, but I admire the impulse.

The stuff gets to be a bit much. Makes me feel like the creepy bag lady in Labyrinth carrying all the crap around on her back. (Yes, I'm dating myself here, but more on that tomorrow...)

It's hard to pare it down. Especially the stuff that has some semblence of distant memory attachment.

Some years ago, I started a tea set of mix-matched refugees from garage sales and thrift shops. What can I say? I was inspired by the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. Even found a pot without a spout and a half-a-cup over the years. While I was combing the world's junk piles for the perfect saucer, I loved the set. I moved it several times. When we bought this house (8 years ago now) we mounted a shelf in the kitchen to hold them. Over the years though, while my tea habit has not disappeared, my life-style of sipping tea of out delicate cups on saucers very much has. I always go for the big study stained old mugs that are less likely to be overturned in the great lego-fortified battle between Emperor Zurg and the Autobots that I always seems to find myself in the middle of.

Truth be told they haven't held anything but spiders in years now.

And guilt. I look at them and feel bad for not using them. Or at least for not dusting the cobwebs of them. Or for not using my very limited shelf space more wisely. Today, I packed up the tea cups and saucers, except a very few of my favorites, and exchanged them for a handful of beans.

Beans and rice...

And chickpeas, quinoa, lentils, popping corn...

I figure if I'm not going to dust–and between you and me and the daddy long legs, I truly I don't have any intention of doing that–then I better put stuff on shelf that gets moved often enough to discourage the spiders from setting up time-shares there.

Here's to a little bit of spring cleaning and the hope that my newly labeled jars will help me figure out the difference between quinoa and TVP before another recipe-reading disaster stamps me as being entirely unsafe in the kitchen.