Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Out of sight, out of mind …

works very well for me with yarn.

My yarn collection is mostly stored in one large cedar-lined closet in the second-floor office of our garage. The overflow is in a wicker trunk in the guest bedroom. Beside and atop the trunk are various boxes and bags of yarn – the more recent purchases.

When I decide I want to knit something, I'll go to the yarn closet first and find that nothing – nothing – is suitable. We're talking about a five-foot by 10-foot closet with stuffed-to-the-gills storage cubes stacked floor to ceiling on each wall. To find everything in there, I would have to empty each individual cube. It's easier to order something new.

I'm sometimes seduced by yarn – not so much the fiber itself, but a nice wool in a good color at a great price will instantly melt my credit card. Thus I stay away from places like Elann and eBay and Webs and Knitpicks – and if you love nice yarn at great prices, I suggest you back away from those links. Heh.

Does 'out of sight, out of mind' work with food? Sometimes it does for me. All of our food is stored in either a closed pantry, the refrigerator or the freezer. The exception is baking stuff – flour and sugar are on the top two shelves of a kitchen cupboard. When I want to eat, I have to open doors, assemble ingredients, pull out utensils, and chop, mix, stir, cook or otherwise prepare something.

Prior to last year's annual July 4th reunion, I bought some packaged snack foods – chips and Chex Mix – and tucked them in a non-working, built-in microwave. [When this house was built, it was equipped with all the latest gadgets, which are now 25 years old. To replace that microwave means replacing the entire oven/convection oven/microwave unit. Since everything else works, we replaced the broken built-in with a countertop model. Instant storage!]

Well, today's trash day, and those snacks are heading down to the end of the driveway. It's pretty incredible to me that I've had packaged, processed crap in my house for half a year and didn't even remember it was here.

'Out of sight, out of mind' isn't working so well for me when it comes to Mr. Shrinking Knitter. He's in Las Vegas, a combination Christmas/retirement present trip, and won't be back until Thursday night. I thought I would enjoy a few days to myself, to eat popcorn for dinner or stay in my pajamas all day.

All I can say is, his retirement seems to be working very well for us.

4 comments:

M@rla said...

"Out of sight, out of mind" ALWAYS works for me with food. If I don't see it, I'm not interested in it. And I'm way too lazy to drive all the way to the store to get something I think I have a craving for. I don't know how people do it, who have families continuing to eat all the snacks and junk food... I couldn't have that stuff in the house.

Joan said...

I think it's wonderful that you miss Mr. Shrinking knitter. Husband and I have had a taste of what retired life will be like since he's between jobs at the moment. If the lack of a regular income wasn't eventually going to be such a problem, I'd be quite happy to maintain the status quo!

ws said...

and paragraph five would be why some of us either opt not to eat or live on bananas, pretzels and wheat bread. good for time management, not so good for running.

(commenting is so not worth it when word verification outsmarts my fingers)

Grumpy Chair said...

Enjoy your pajama day.