June 10, 2020

Now that spring has arrived—and just in time for it to turn to summer, I might add—things have settled down a bit here at the Ashbury household. Our two puppies turned 6 months old in May, and on Monday had a trip to the vet, together, where Bear was neutered, and Missy was spayed. Both are doing well, although Missy was a bit draggy the next day.

For the last couple of months, we’ve noticed our freezer looking very old. It is in fact old, for a freezer. We’ve had it more than 10 years. It’s rusting along the bottom some, and although it still works, we thought we should look into getting a new one. The one we currently have is a 5.5 cubic foot model, and yes, we would like one just a bit bigger now as we are a household of three, and often feed more mouths than that.

As well, we’ve been concerned about the food supply chains lately, and while they will probably recover, we’ve already heard that some farmers aren’t planting this year because of the virus. We’d thought from the beginning of this pandemic that the wise thing to do would be to build up a bit of a supply of canned and frozen goods week by week. When the kids were small, we always had at least a month’s worth of supplies on hand, just in case. As the kids grew and left, and our numbers dwindled it didn’t seem as urgent a matter, and that I think was a mistake on our part.

So on the weekend, David and our daughter went out to look at what freezers were available, and I’m really glad they did. Because right now, while our old one is still working, there are no freezers immediately available. So we’ve ordered one, and it should arrive in 10 to 12 weeks. We’re crossing our fingers ours will last that long, and the supply of food available to be purchased will still be good in 12 weeks.

Certainty is no where to be found these days. Apparently, it’s on back order as well.

Anticipating the arrival of our new freezer, which is a 12 cubic foot model, requires a rearranging of our kitchen. That’s the room our current freezer is in, and it’s truly the only place in this small house we can use. The basement, accessed by a narrow and steep set of steps is out of the question. Yes, that’s where our current washer and dryer are. Don’t ask me what we’re going to do when we have to by those again. I don’t want to think about it right now.

But I digress.

We have a sideboard in our kitchen as well, and it’s located along the long wall opposite of the sink, the wall that has the windows. When the new freezer arrives, that’s where it has to go. And the sideboard? Let’s just say that the freezer isn’t the only old dilapidated item in the kitchen that needs replacing. Yes, the sideboard does too. It’s a sideboard now but it was advertised as a beverage cart—made of wood with a stainless steel top—that never found its way to being a beverage cart. I call it the breakfast bar, because it holds the toaster, the hot cereals, and the bread. It used to hold the boxes of cereal too, but those were moved to the single-wide cupboard we bought and set between the sideboard and the fridge. The sideboard has three drawers, one of which has a cutlery tray with our cutlery, and another which holds utensils we use most regularly. It also has two cupboards with three shelves each, and a center area that I only realized very recently was designed to hold wine bottles. I did wonder, who divides a shelving space with a giant “X” of wood, but I guess I never wondered that out loud.

As you’ve likely surmised, no one in this house drinks wine.

We bought this cart/sideboard at Walmart more than fifteen years ago, for just over one hundred dollars. In the interim, the wheels all kind of wore out—not that it was moved around a lot, because it wasn’t. It just wasn’t built to last so long time. All three drawers have had to be fixed and at one point, and the wheels had to be removed. What was left of the cabinet was set on a two-by-four base that David hobbled together the day the first wheel collapsed.

We’ve figured that since we’re getting a new freezer, we’d get a new sideboard too. I’m looking, but I can tell they’re really quite popular these days. There are so many to choose from, and several that I liked that were sold out.

And they are all, to my mind way too expensive.

We have to do something because we honestly don’t think the current sideboard will survive the move across the room. Without the sideboard, the kitchen has no drawers. Not a one. Over the next little while, we’re going to be going through the cupboard area of the sideboard and tossing out or “re-locating” items that have been stored within it—items that can be placed elsewhere or, quite frankly, tossed out.

It will likely be at least a month before we decide on our selection—unless, of course, I stumble upon a deal too good to pass up. I’m frugal, which is a step up from the “parsimonious” which is the kindest word used to describe my beloved’s state of economic mind.

So I will keep my eyes pealed for the perfect bargain in sideboard and hope it won’t be too…um…austere looking?

Stop snickering out there. It could happen.

Love,
Morgan
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury