The Saga of the Nesting Bowls

During our nuptials we were extremely blessed with all sorts of household gifts. One of those gifts was nesting bowls! I got three different sets and they were all different! Two sets were red, but one came with lids and the third set was glass. I found space to store them all in my tiny apartment kitchen and many were the Saturdays when I used one or more sets to mix up some culinary adventures. Thank goodness for a hero who comes in and does the towering stacks of nesting bowls when you have worn yourself out!

One of our amusements when we were first married was to browse discount stores. One weekend I hit the jackpot…a set of nesting bowls! This one was different–there were beautiful sunflower prints all over the outside. I mentioned them to my husband and because he liked to spoil me and (even against my anemic protests) they made it back to the apartment.

Now I had four sets of nesting bowls…which I dutifully packed up when we moved to our new house. I found places for all of them in my new bigger kitchen and looked forward to using them again after my baby was born.

I organized and moved stuff around my kitchen several times in the new house. Every time I moved stuff around those nesting bowls seemed to lose some of their allure. Culinary adventures had changed and were much more exciting when you only used one nesting bowl especially with a toddler underfoot. And then I started reading the book, “7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess” and was challenged about my “stuff.”

So I decided to box up at least one set of nesting bowls and put it in the garage to see if I missed them. I completely forgot about them until few months later! I decided that I should donate them at that point.

A month later, I got convicted when I read an email about a friend that didn’t have any household dishes. I immediately thought of my glass nesting bowls! However, in spite of the fact that I had used them once in the past five plus years it was irrationally hard to let go of them. I fought with myself in my mind thinking everyone has nesting bowls and surely mine weren’t needed. Others were donating and I didn’t want to duplicate. And what if I wanted to start taking pictures of things I was mixing up for my blog? Glass nesting bowls would be perfect for that! And so I struggled until I finally gave in.

What a freeing feeling! I was still richer beyond belief and I had less stuff to take care of! I actually felt happier about helping someone then I did about storing those excessive amounts of nesting bowls!

So what about you? Do you own stuff or does your stuff own you?