One Less: Ornamental Spoon

Someone I once knew did woodwork as a hobby, and as a thank you for something I did for him, he gave me a hand-carved wooden spoon.

It looked beautiful, so I put it on display.

After ten years or so, while I was decluttering ornaments and trinkets, I realised it looked kind of ridiculous and cluttery being on display like that and put it in my utensils draw, and now it's my favourite spoon for cooking.

School uniforms

The Big Boy starts school next week, and needs uniforms.   We have decided to send him to the private school that my husband teaches at, but it means they are a little more particular about uniforms than I want to be!  

He is required to have two different uniforms: day uniform and sports uniform.  (After grade three he'll also need a formal uniform.)   Different shirt, different shorts, different shoes.    At least the hat and socks are the same.  He will also be required to have a house (sporting team) shirt, and a school swimming costume.   This year he can wear his sports uniform all day on the days it is required, but from next year he will need to take it with him and change in and out of it.

Until I actually read the list, I had assumed we would need two day shirts, one sports shirt, three pairs of shorts (interchangeable between day and sports uniforms), a pair of shoes, six pairs of socks, and a hat.   According to my mum, whose seventh child starts high school this year, two sets of uniforms bought on the bigger side should last two years.  No-one wore hand-me down uniforms because she always bought just enough that they'd be worn out before we grew out of them.   However, because we need so many uniforms The Big Boy is not going to wear them out before he's grown out of them.  Hopefully they will still be in good enough condition that The Small Boy will be able to use them.

We have been given some secondhand uniforms, which was kind and generous of the family who was passing them on.   They fit him nicely now, but I anticipate we will be replacing them before the end of the year.  And the quality of the sewing doesn't give me a lot of confidence in their durability.  Mum used to make all of our uniforms, but most schools, including ours, require school logos or specific detailing which means that me sewing uniforms is pretty much out of the question.

He needs to have a pair of black 'academic' shoes, and plain white joggers.  We needed to make a decision whether we should buy expensive shoes, or cheap shoes.  We settled on cheaper black shoes - $25 as opposed to $100 - and mid-range joggers, because plain white are hard to find.   I'm willing to go by trial and error as to whether we should by cheap shoes or expensive shoes, and whether it's better to wear out or grow out of shoes first.   I'm not a big fan of hand-me-down shoes.

But at least we only need one hat!

A new and unusual feeling

I have a gift card that I was given for Christmas.

I don't actually know what I want to spend it on.

I haven't really experienced this before.  Normally I have a list of twenty things in my head I'd really like, but I don't have a list like that anymore.  I don't want any books, because I've got too many unread ones.  I don't need any clothes, or shoes, or other accessories, because I have plenty.  

There's nothing I particularly want at the moment, because I've recognised that I already have more than I want.

I've ordered some sheet music that I've been thinking about for some months now, and I'll probably hang on to the rest until I see a blouse that I like, because the person who gave me the card said they had wanted to buy me clothes but weren't quite sure of my style and they wouldn't be bothered if I wait until I find something that I genuinely like and will wear.

But it sure is a strange feeling!

A short video about why we need to use less

I saw this a few days ago and thought I'd share it with you.

One Less: stack of empty pots

Today we cleaned out the shed.

I've put off cleaning out the shed, partly because it's full of geckos and who knows what else, partly because the stuff in there represents so much time and money invested in me thinking I could be another Peter Cundall or Jackie French.  

Piles of empty pots ready to propagate in.  Bags of fertilisers and bottles of organic pesticides to treat this deficiency or eradicate that pest.  Seeds past their plant-by-date.  Shovels, trowels, rakes, gloves, hose connector doodads.

It all goes with the pile of barely read gardening tomes inside.

So much money spent, so little return.  Rotting.

I thought that I wanted to be a gardener, but it turns out I just like gardens.  All I need is an easy care yard, with the occasional spectacular flower (there are some of these sprung up at the moment that I'd forgotten about), a little vegetable patch, and a fruit tree or two.  I don't actually want to be spending hours potting around the garden: there are too many fantastic books to read, and I have too many children to play with!

One Less: Box of Papers

Once upon a time I used to be a music teacher.  I trained to teach secondary school Music and English, but ended up teaching Music from preschool through to year ten, and middle school English and SOSE (history/geography/civics).   When I left teaching seven years ago it was fairly abruptly, and at the time I didn't know if it would be for one year, two years, ten years, or forever. So I just packed everything I had into five boxes and put them into storage.  As it turned out, I had a baby before I had opportunity to take up another teaching job.

Two years ago I did the sums and worked out that if I did teach again I would have been out of it for ten years, probably twelve.   There are already new syllabuses in place for the subjects I taught, and will be yet another new one by the time I return to work.  My resources will mostly be so out of date that I won't be using them anyway.

So I sat down with my five boxes and culled.  I threw out class sets of worksheets that I never used.  I threw out bits and pieces of English resources that I had collected but never taught a full unit on.  I threw out doubles of assignment task sheets and extra copies of exams.   I managed to pare it down by half.

Today, the Small Boy wanted to play out in the garage where the boxes are stored, so I set to work culling again.  It felt rather momentous because I looked at my materials in the box mentally marked 'music' and realised that I would probably never teach Senior (year 11 and 12) Music.  I never taught it when I was working, and don't really want to teach Music if I do teach again.  The bits and pieces of materials for teaching Senior Music that I was saving in my box are worthless now and will be even more worthless if I were to return to teaching.  So I threw them out.  I also pared back all of my P-10 resources so that I have just the bare bones.  I stuffed one display folder with unit plan overviews that I can build from again if I ever need to.  My 2 1/2 boxes is now down to 1 2/3.  When I next get a chance, the box mentally marked 'English/SOSE' may not be safe!

I'm not willing to part with all my teaching materials just yet.  I will possibly teach part time one day in the future, and don't want to have to start everything from scratch.  Until I can say definitively I will not be teaching ever again, I don't think it is wise to part with it all, but I do want to pare down to just enough to get me started if I need it.

But, as an added bonus, my husband (who is a primary school teacher) looked at his six boxes of resources and starting culling, too.  He's barely looked in those boxes in five years and knows a lot of what he owns is also out of date.

Confessions of a Tupperware Junkie

I have recently been to a rash of Tupperware parties, and been reminded why I loathe them.  It hasn’t always been this way: a few years ago I hosted Tupperware parties, went to every party brimming with excitement about new products, and even considered becoming a consultant myself.  In those days, like many others, particularly women, I got excited about Tupperware and bought mountains of it because it was Tupperware. It is expensive, but it has a lifetime guarantee, and can save money in the long run. Besides, it’s Tupperware, it must be good. 

Tupperware do make a good product, and there is a lot of it that I do love. The Modular Mates keep my pantry tidy and organised.  The FridgeSmart containers really do keep my vegies lasting longer in the fridge.   A few of the utensils - the spatula, corkscrew, vegetable peeler - do a fantastic job, though no doubt other brands make something similar.  The quality of the plastic and the effectiveness of the seals on many of the plastic containers are second to none.  

But for a year or two I went to a ridiculous number of Tupperware parties. A few friends had become consultants and would put on demonstrations to drum up business, and other friends would have parties to support them.  Of course, I would dutifully go along to the parties.  But the more parties I attended, and the more products I bought that didn’t quite meet my expectations, the more I began to see through the spiel and the pretty brochures.   

This is the thing that I’ve learnt about Tupperware: they goal isn’t to make your kitchen more organised, their goal is to make money.  Tupperware know that they can make money from women who want an organised kitchen, and to save time with their innovative products.  Products come and go from seasonal catalogues, and limited edition products show up in monthly specials catalogues. Colours changed every few years, so that the Tupperware junkie just has to have the Rock ‘n’ Serve in that gorgeous new purple colour, even though they have more than they need in the previous blue, orange and black. 

Some of the innovation, to me at least, is more gimmick than innovation.  I bought a mixing bowl set from the Bake 2 Basics range as a hostess gift once when I hosted a party.  It seemed a such great idea, with its ergonomic design to make it easy to hold with one hand while mixing and pouring and it’s splatter guard to stop bits of meringue or flour coating the kitchen when using handbeaters.  Actually, I used the splatter guard once.  It’s easier to just to put the wet ingredients on top of the dry, or to stir it all through gently first, and to pay attention to what I’m beating!  The bowls are really just plastic bowls that don’t stack neatly, and don’t fit well in either my dishwasher or dish drainer. 

I’ve sold some of my unused Tupperware on Ebay, where it can fetch a reasonable price. Some of it just sits in my cupboard.  Some of it gets used regularly.  

I can’t imagine a need to buy any more Tupperware for a long time.  In fact, there is very little I can imagine needing to buy for my kitchen for a long time, short of a broken wooden spoon, and the Kitchenaid Mixer I have been drooling over.  

And next time I get invited to a Tupperware party I need to consider whether the opportunity to chat with friends over a cuppa is worth the sitting through the demonstration, and whether to bother going at all.