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Sep. 20th, 2009 08:06 amI spent a lot of time yesterday cleaning and organizing my kitchen. Sadly, no one but I would know this by looking because the place is still highly disordered from my move. Yes, I moved last December. No, I do not move well. (I would also like to note in my defense I moved after living over 15 years in one place. That's some serious inertia there.)
I am taking advantage of the trauma by going through my belongings as I unpack/sort/find a place for them and am putting aside the things I really don't need, so as to give them away. That's the upside of leaving your worldly possessions in a box for 6 months, it really brings into focus what you do and do not need in your life. Still, it's amazing how hard it is to give away that small plastic thermos, even if I almost never need one and when I do I have the lovely all-steel one my dad used to take to work when I was a child. Years ago I read an essay on the Lord of the Rings in which the point was made about how easy it is to go from possessing things to being possessed by them; experiences like this really drive that home.
So far today's big project has been prepping a 5# bag of carrots for drying. Earlier this summer I spent some of my mad money on a small food dehydrator, and with my life settling down post-Gencon I've been playing around with it. Mostly I've been drying tomatoes from my garden, though I have dried a bag of grapes (netting myself a cup of golden raisins) and a handful of bananas that all ripened before I was ready to do anything with. Last week the grocery store next door had large bags of carrots as a loss leader for their anniversary sale, so I grabbed some. It took me about an hour to clean, cut, blanch and tray up all the carrots, but after they dry I won't have to worry about not having any carrots around if I want to make a stew or something. And they'll already be sliced!
Next big project will be rearranging my sunroom and getting it ready to hold plants again. I moved all my plants out of it before I started traveling, thus giving my plant sitters an easier time finding everything that needed to be watered. Now I want to move them all back, and also start some vegetable seedlings. I've gotten fond of the taste of home-grown vegetables, so I am wondering how much I can grow over the winter indoors. I have lots of left-over seeds from this spring, so I have little to lose by experimenting.
I am taking advantage of the trauma by going through my belongings as I unpack/sort/find a place for them and am putting aside the things I really don't need, so as to give them away. That's the upside of leaving your worldly possessions in a box for 6 months, it really brings into focus what you do and do not need in your life. Still, it's amazing how hard it is to give away that small plastic thermos, even if I almost never need one and when I do I have the lovely all-steel one my dad used to take to work when I was a child. Years ago I read an essay on the Lord of the Rings in which the point was made about how easy it is to go from possessing things to being possessed by them; experiences like this really drive that home.
So far today's big project has been prepping a 5# bag of carrots for drying. Earlier this summer I spent some of my mad money on a small food dehydrator, and with my life settling down post-Gencon I've been playing around with it. Mostly I've been drying tomatoes from my garden, though I have dried a bag of grapes (netting myself a cup of golden raisins) and a handful of bananas that all ripened before I was ready to do anything with. Last week the grocery store next door had large bags of carrots as a loss leader for their anniversary sale, so I grabbed some. It took me about an hour to clean, cut, blanch and tray up all the carrots, but after they dry I won't have to worry about not having any carrots around if I want to make a stew or something. And they'll already be sliced!
Next big project will be rearranging my sunroom and getting it ready to hold plants again. I moved all my plants out of it before I started traveling, thus giving my plant sitters an easier time finding everything that needed to be watered. Now I want to move them all back, and also start some vegetable seedlings. I've gotten fond of the taste of home-grown vegetables, so I am wondering how much I can grow over the winter indoors. I have lots of left-over seeds from this spring, so I have little to lose by experimenting.
