Where Are the Spoons? by Betsy Ashton

Just about this time last year, my wonderful husband and I decided that our kitchen needed a face lift. When we built our house, we skimped on the kitchen, not because of space constraints but because we had never planned to live in the house full time. It was supposed to be a weekend getaway, until we fell in love with life on a lake. A big lake.

Back to the kitchen. Over nine years the kitchen wore out. Counter laminate warped; cabinet laminate separated. We had a couple of choices: redo the counter tops and reface the cabinets or redo the whole darned kitchen. Trumpet flare! We went with the entire kitchen.

We hired a contractor who worked with us on the design. Actually, he couldn't do much, since the footprint was fixed. What he could do was provide better cabinets and counters. We went back and forth over the design and choices. He gave us a start date six weeks out. Four weeks later, he called to tell us the cabinets were in and could he begin the next day.

Yikes! We'd lolly-gagged around, thinking about emptying the kitchen, doing absolutely nothing. One day! Holy hell! Terry dashed around clearing table tops and setting up portable tables. I filled them as fast as he made them available. Where ever did we get so much stuff? My first inclination was to sort each drawer, each cabinet, before stacking dishes, glassware, cooking items, on said cleared tables. With one day to accomplish this herculean task, sorting went out the window. Did I really have that many glasses? Really? How many did I need?

And the spices and condiments. Where did these all come from? Some were how old? Six years? No way. I use all these spices and herbs all the time. They can't be that old. Actually, some were more than a decade old. I couldn't believe how much I had in my cupboards. Yes, I cook a lot. I use tons of herbs and spices, but it seems I use the same ones all the time. I couldn't remember the last time I used Chinese Five Spices. The use-by date was in the last century. I tossed the bottle.

And how many pie plates does one cook need? I had 11. I now have three in different sizes. This year at the holidays we used two. Maybe I have one too many. Loaf pans. Six was three too many. If I couldn't remember when I last used something, it went into the Goodwill box. Or boxes. By the time I was through sorting, I had thirteen larges boxes of stuff to donate.

Now, none of this really has anything to do with the title of this little essay. Except that it does. We constantly lost something during the construction. First it was some of the wine glasses. See the top picture. Then it was the silverware. Our joking question became, "Where are the spoons?" Same place they were for a month or so. On a bar stool in one of the guest bedrooms.

And now, a year after construction is complete, duplicates have found their way to Goodwill and we have the kitchen completely put back together, we will look around, turn in a circle and ask, "Where are the spoons?" And we still have no good answer beyond "right where we left them/"

Do you have a similar story? If so, please share it.

###

Betsy Ashton is the author of Mad Max, Unintended Consequences, and Uncharted Territory, A Mad Max Mystery, now available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Spring, the Time to Declutter by Betsy Ashton

It seems as though spring, that wonderful time of nature's renewal, has become synonymous with cleaning. Decluttering. Getting rid of stuff. Starting afresh.

My spring cleaning this year is necessitated by having a new kitchen installed. We're getting new cabinets and countertops. Sounds easy. Same footprint. Same sized kitchen (smallish). Mostly the same appliances. We hired a contractor and agreed on a schedule. That's when things began to change.

One Thursday afternoon at the beginning of the month, our contractor called. The custom cabinets were arriving earlier than expected, so they'd like to be "demolition" the next day. Okay with us? Um, sure. I rounded up my husband and began dumping stuff out of drawers and cabinets. Every tabletop
in the house, all but one bed, filled to capacity. Where did we get so much stuff? More important, why do we still have it?

We went from this to this in one day. I wasn't sure how I was going to maintain healthy meals. I mean, the microwave and toaster oven were useable, if not in the same places. The stove and fridge worked.

So, I could cook or nuke foods from the freezer, keep milk and veggies cold. My wine cooler held the half and half, and we moved the coffee maker to the basement office.  We did well until we had no sink. That meant washing dishes in a bathroom basin or in the laundry sink in the basement. Laundry sink won out. We thought we were living high off the hog when the sink was reinstalled four days after it wasn't there.

Now, we have cabinets, but we can't use them yet. Shelves still need to be installed; knobs fastened in place. Countertops are due in on Tuesday. Hope so. We are three weeks ahead of schedule, but there are still glitches down the road.

My husband and I have been roaming the house with what we call the "Alzheimer's" stare. The "do you know where the spoons are" stare. The "I know the skillets used to be next to the stove" stare. The "if this doesn't end soon, I'll kill someone" stare. Even with things moving smoothly now, I have to figure out what to dump and what to put where. The stares promise to continue until we get used to the new drawers.

And when we are finished with this, we can complete spring cleaning. From 2013!

###

Betsy Ashton is the author of Mad Max, Unintended Consequences, and Uncharted Territory, A Mad Max Mystery, which is now available in e-book at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.