Dana K. White

A SLOB COMES CLEAN

Reality-Based Cleaning, Decluttering, & Organizing

I’ll Declutter . . . But Do I Have to Give Up ALL my Dreams?

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I worked some more in the kitchen today. As I’ve said before, finding a place for everything sounds nice, but it’s a LOT of work.

I began by looking for a place to put the Dollar Tree glasses that I washed yesterday. I ventured into an upper cabinet in a totally inconvenient place that I consistently forget exists. Good place for these rarely used items.
Upon opening this cabinet, I found a set of glass canisters with old/crunchy/useless seals, and a cookie jar. I could justify getting rid the canisters, but the cookie jar? No, I don’t make cookies very often. No, I never put them in cookie jars. Yes, that cookie jar has been in there for more than a year. But I love it. My husband bought it for me soon after our first was born, because I thought that every mother should have a cookie jar.

I also decluttered this cabinet. It’s the cabinet below my mixer and it’s where I keep the sugar and flour and such. The very outer edges get used consistently and there are things like my hand mixer that are stored in there that get used a lot. But there are also lots of things that we NEVER use.

Like that stuff. A special thing to grill fish, and some fancy baking dishes. The problem? I don’t really bake. A little, but not special-pan kind of baking.

But I got grumpy when I came across my spring-form pan. Spring-form pans are cool. They make canned cinnamon rolls look fancy. And I have dreams of doing more baking . . . someday. I started feeling sorry for myself.

Do I really have to give up all of my dreams and throw away every single thing that I don’t use? I haven’t used the spring-form pan in years because I didn’t remember that I had it, and if I had, I probably wouldn’t have been able to find it.

Each of the unearthed items represents some great idea I had once. A dream of finding a perfect recipe and having just the right thing to make it in.

I’m willing to be realistic. I’m willing to throw away the things that are just slightly different from something I have that I do use. But I don’t want to give up all my dreams.

Then I kept decluttering and found that I actually had TWO spring-form pans. So I got rid of one, and kept one.

And you know what, when my cabinet looks like this:

I think I can justify keeping one spring-form pan. Look at all that room.

And yes, I’m keeping the cookie jar.

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