Right about now, many people are heavily into the post-Christmas sales. I, however, am heavily into the casserole dishes. And the coffee cups. And the recipe books.
"What should we do with all these?" I asked the husband. I was surveying three dozen tea towels and four dozen placemats. They were in piles on the kitchen table.
Strewn about the counter were other piles. Pots and pans. Cutlery. Wine glasses. Cereal bowls.
This, I must explain, has nothing to do with a January re-org. It is all about pre-reno prep.
The reno is starting soon. And let's just say the kitchen cabinets can't be replaced when they're still full of dinner plates.
Sure, I've been well aware that we will need to take our meals elsewhere over the next while. Think restaurants, pubs and corner cafes.
But it took me a little longer to get around the kitchen clutter reality. "We need boxes," I said. "We need an extra house," said the husband.
Unfortunately, however, we do not have an extra house. So we decided to improvise.
"We could put some of this stuff in the bathtub," the husband suggested. "Or on the floor in the office."
"But I can't be tripping over the toaster when I'm trying to work," I said. "Or the microwave. Or the coffee pot."
"Fair enough," said the husband. He was making a return trip from the spare bedroom, which he had piled high with napkins, tablecloths and aprons.
He eyeballed the serving platters and the patio glasses and the salad bowls and the frying pans. And right about then, a light bulb went on.
"Do you think," he said, "that we really need all this stuff?" I did some surveillance of my own.
"Very good point," I said. "I mean, when do we have 17 salads in one sitting?" "Or three and a half dozen bowls of cereal?" added the husband.
"And I rarely wear more than one apron at a time," I said. "Wait a minute: I never wear more than one apron at a time."
We switched gears, and went into purging mode.
"This casserole bowl has a chip in the lid," I said, tossing it in a goodwill pile. "And these dish towels are frayed. And I always hated these coffee cups."
"And why do we have 16 saucepans?" asked the husband. "We only have four burners."
"Excellent point!" I said. "A dozen will have to go."
We went to work again, creating one heck of a to-go pile.
The kitchen reno is ready to start, and prereno work is all done.
The cabinets, truly, will look so swell. Never mind that they'll be almost empty.
