As happens on the odd Saturday morning (all right, frequently on a Saturday morning; regularly on a Saturday morning) I woke in a tiny, weeny bit of a mood. Nothing too bad, I just wanted to rip Mr FD’s head off and shove it where the sun don’t shine. No particular reason, no different to any other day; for most days I could happily render him undone. It is called marriage.
I thought it wise to restrain my natural inclinations of death and destruction and took my feelings of aggression out on our pantry. We have a walk in pantry and most of the time it looks like a tornado has passed this way. My mission is to work magic and prepare the house for sale; my devious plan is to appear as though the perfect life waits who so over buys our house. In other words, I am trying to channel Martha Stewart, without the domestic inclinations and pull at their emotional heart strings. I told you I was evil.
The pantry is a task that I have avoided for some time which became evident to me as soon as I started going through the spice rack. Racks. I still don’t know why I had four, yes FOUR bottle of chilli flakes (hot), but as most of them had a use by date of 2009 it wasn’t a subject that I lingered on long. In the end three garbage bags of spices and out of date food stuffs went into the bin. Yes, it occurred to me also that I could have possibly cleared the national debt of Greece and saved the Eurozone with the money wasted on excess, but perhaps it is best to thank the Big Whatever that no one has died from food poisoning in the Flamingo Dancer family in the recent past.
At least I found nothing dated with an expiry date prior to 2003. We moved into our house late 2002 which is no doubt the last time anything was culled, and we would have restocked when we thought we had a need after that. Notice I said, thought we had a need? Most of the spices were unopened. Obviously about that time I must have been imagining I was a gourmet cook and needed every variety of spice. I think it was the period when Martha Stewart got parole and I became addicted to watching her show, thinking I actually wanted to cook. Happily, I fought the good fight and reformed my Martha ways, though it was a close thing. I knew I was too close to the dark side when I started contemplating edge designs for shelf liners.
It is easy to make decisions about throwing things when you know that you not only have to pack it to move, but you may be the one carrying it out to the moving van and from the moving van to its new cupboard! So, maybe I have found the penultimate in minimalism and decluttering. Just move. A little excessive though, but it does seem to have its merits.
This will be our sixth move and I must say that I have become hard hearted over recent years. I must have been a marshmallow in the past as I have come across more than a few boxes (and not just boxes of books) that we should have thrown out before the last move and didn’t. In the end it always comes down to physical exhaustion and deadlines, both causing things to be packed and included in the camel caravan, instead of binned. Knowing we will be downsizing too is a great motivation. I don’t want to be a slave to my house, garden or belongings anymore!
Tonight, I will fall into bed tired, but experiencing those superb feelings of superiority that one always feels after completing some domestic duties. I shall bask in my own glory, and hope that tomorrow I can still walk from all the bending and stretching in the pantry. If not, I may just have to rend Mr FD as a morning stretching exercise.