Have you seen the muffin pan?

Wedding shower gifts from 1971

 The person who gave Mom these baking pans at her wedding shower in 1971 could never have known the long term yield on the investment. Other snazzier models (non-stick, air insulated, etc.) have been introduced into the household over the years, but the cookie sheet to the right is the one that is still burning the bottoms of ginger bread boys and roasting tater tots.

I made popovers yesterday and while digging through the storage drawer under the stove to find the muffin pan, discovered that I must have been distracted when cleaning up after my last baking project.

It seems that I totally bypassed the, "Oh, just let it soak overnight in the sink," step and put it away without even rinsing it at all. I love to cook and honestly enjoy doing dishes, but pots and pans are usually the last in the line-up, and they sometimes get overlooked. Have you ever opened the door of the oven to put something into it only to discover the roasting pan from last weekend, right where you left it?

The  muffin pan

I found an electric skillet in my grandmother's kitchen that contained what may have been the remnants of fried chicken, which I estimate to have been in there for at least five years before my discovery. It was stored in the cabinet over the refrigerator, which nobody in my immediate family can reach without a ladder, so I am not quite sure how it got there. The condo kitchenette, which was designed for people who like to eat out, contained three complete sets of cookware, each with a large stock pot and three sizes of saucepans.

What is the status of your cookie sheet collection? Is there something sticky permanently stuck to your non-stick?  Are you regularly ingesting Teflon flakes with your scrambled eggs? How many sauce pans do you really use on a day other than Thanksgiving? This week's Downsize Challenge is to take inventory of your pots and pans and cull out any that you are ready to live without. If intensive cleaning and polishing is in order, as it was here, an online search for "how to clean pots and pans" will yield many great suggestions for dealing with baked on grease. A paste of vinegar and baking soda worked very well for us.

If your unwanted pots and pans are still in usable condition for cooking, consider donation sites that accept household goods (Salvation Army, Goodwill, other charities in your area, etc.) Posting them on Craigslist under "free stuff" or on Freecycle might also help them find a good new home. Some metal pans will be accepted by your recycling center, but non-stick cookware seems to be a challenge in most areas. Consider re-purposing instead. Mom has found a few applications in the greenhouse. Seedling flats sit nicely on an old rusty cookie sheet. The handles can often be removed from pans and can serve as dishes under houseplants.

Gluten free muffins

Is there a place in the house where a magnetic message board would help YOU get more organized? Before you throw away that metal cookie sheet, check out this link for a creative idea with simple instructions by Carolyn on her beautiful blog about do it yourself projects at home.



Last night, I covered an old Baker's Secret with fabric to create a reminder board for Opa. When he woke up this morning, he was greeted by this note:




Today is Saturday
  (a good day for a shower)
  Muffins for breakfast!

Vintage Vicks and Vaseline

Winter has officially ended and I am eager for our N.H. weather to match the arrival of a new season. I started my more ambitious Spring cleaning in the same corner of the house where the downsize challenge began last year; the bathroom. The medicine cabinet is a good place to start, because the decisions to be made are more straight forward than in other parts of the house. Expiration dates are easier to deal with than the more vague questions of current usage that we face elsewhere. It amazes me that although we have lived here for just over a year, we have somehow accumulated enough toe nail clippers to fully stock a pedicure salon in the mall. We have razor cartridges that don't fit any of the handles in our supply. The hydrogen peroxide and rubbing alcohol are expired. There is sediment in the calamine lotion. I've got a few of Opa's prescriptions that were discontinued, but never discarded. Our four boxes of supposedly “assorted” Bandaids mostly contain empty wrappers now, or the little round ones that are too small for most of the things that happen around here.

What's the first aid supply situation at your place? If you had an accident with a minor injury right now, could you, or someone in your house, easily locate the stuff you would need to clean and dress your wound?  How is your stretched-out ace bandage collection? 

The downsize challenge of the week: 

I invited my family to compete with each other last spring to see who would find the bathroom product with the oldest expiration date. Some Pre-Sun 29 that had expired in 1986 placed third. My Oma's bottle of Ponds Cold Cream, circa 1982 held the record for almost a week, until one of her daughters discovered some Norwegian Vaseline that had been left behind by a visitor during the 1970's.

This week's downsize challenge is to clean out YOUR medicine cabinet. Will YOU be the new champion?

And what should you do with unused or expired medications?

They are not safe for septic tanks or public water supplies, so please DON'T FLUSH them. Your local waste management facility can tell you the specific rules for disposition in your area. When I was in Florida last spring, I was instructed to crush Oma's unused pills and mix them with cat litter or damp coffee grounds before putting them in a plastic bag and then disposing of them with our regular trash. This was an enormous task, as the blender, food processor, and most of Opa's tools that might have been useful for crushing hundreds of tablets had just been sold for a few dollars each in a yard sale. The coffee/spice mill that I borrowed from my friend upstairs worked very well for pulverizing, though in hindsight, I would highly recommend wearing a mask while handling this stuff.

In response to concerns about public health hazards related to improper storage and disposition of medications, the Drug Enforcement Agency initiated a national Take Back program last year and has scheduled a spring collection date for April 30^th, 2011. This is an easy and safe way to get rid of expired or unused medications. Follow this link to learn more about the initiative, and to enter your zip code to find a nearby collection site.

Some of the lessons I learned from this particular challenge:
It's really worth thinking twice before buying one of anything just to get another one for free, but especially when it comes to talcum powder. We have more than enough to last a lifetime.

Antibiotic ointment RARELY gets used up before it expires, so if ever needed in the future, purchasing the smallest tube they've got in the store is probably a smart move.

Storing creams for faces and creams for butts in different locations is a really good idea, especially if anyone in the household is at the point in life where reading glasses are standard issue, but are frequently missing at important moments.

Based on the number of fully loaded complementary floss dispensers I still have in stock, I am not flossing at the rate that the hygienist suggests.  

It's smart to dump out the water from a hot water bottle before putting it away and forgetting about it for a few years.

And lastly, it is not a given that all members of a household will correctly identify their own toothbrushes when asked to do so. 

Yellow Roses (the first downsize challenge)

The Downsize Challenge began for me last spring, while I was sitting on the edge of my Oma's tub, staring at a bottle of Jean Nate. It had been there as long as I could remember, right next to the dish of dusty little yellow soaps, shaped like roses, which I figured she must have won at Bridge, because they weren't the kind of thing she would have bought for herself. She had been a very practical person and didn't have much use for decorative things. I decided that the logical thing to do with the soap was to use it, but the little roses started to crumble when they made contact with the water, and they wouldn't lather. So I chucked the whole lot into the trash.

When I woke up the next morning, I desperately wanted them back. I stared down the trash chute next to the elevators and felt the permanence of the situation. They were gone. There was nothing I could do about it. I sat down for a while, in front of the recycling bins, on a pile of cardboard boxes, trying to compose myself before going back to check on Opa, who couldn't be left for too long. My thoughts eventually settled. “They're just soap. They are not Her. Love can never be thrown down a trash chute.”

If you have ever dismantled a place that has always existed in your heart, you know what it means to pour Jean Nate down the toilet.  

Locked out (a few keys to spare)

Can you currently identify each key on the keyring in your pocket or purse? Do they unlock doors that exist in your present life, or are you deliberately carrying around some extras as part of a weight bearing exercise program? I finally have the keyring under control, but the ones I have removed from it over the years are still around, and I don't have any good excuses. When my old car didn't pass inspection last year, it was ultimately sold for parts. Since it's dismantled in a salvage yard someplace, it's safe to say that theft is no longer a concern, so what am I doing with the key? And what about the three copies of former front door keys to my current home, which had new locks installed two years ago? Hey, at least those are identifiable and an informed decision can be made, but what about the ones that remain a mystery? Might need them someday, but don't know for sure. Won't know until I need them, right? What if one of them belongs to my neighbor who might ask me again to feed the cat while she's away...can't exactly go over there now with all the miscellaneous keys and start trying them out on her front door. I'd at least better wait until she isn't home.

A FEW TO SPARE

Have you got a similar collection? This week's downsize challenge is to sort through your keys, not just the ones on the keyring, but the ones hanging on nails by the door, or hiding in drawers, or on desks and dressers. Figure out what they open. Keep them only if you need them.

What can we do with our old keys?

The internet is full of ideas for craft projects to be made with keys, but this remains a downsize challenge, so I encourage you to fight the overwhelming urge to make wind chimes or necklaces from your old luggage set.

Don't throw them in the trash! Keys are metal and can be recycled, often right along with the rest of your metal recycling. Ask the folks at your recycling center or transfer station. Mine told me to put them in with the cans.

If you have a lot of keys, especially brass or other metals of value, you might want to scrap them for cash.

If you'd like to donate them to a group raising money for Multiple Sclerosis research? See the link below:

http://www.keysforkindness.com/

Whatever you do, label the ones you keep. It'll save you a lot of time later.  

Under more than one conditioner (an abundance of amenities)

I am an amateur shower singer, and like most others I have ever heard, my repertoire is limited to the lyrics of first verses, followed by a lot of humming. I tend to get stuck on a certain song for a while, and for about a month now, I've been on continuous repeat of  the songs of South Pacific. A few weeks ago, in the midst of my third round of “I'm gonna wash that man right outta my hair...”, I discovered that my 96 year old roommate had used up the last of the shampoo.

Fortunately, like most of you, I have a collection of tiny bottles from hotels, just waiting to justify their existence. This was their big moment. Unfortunately, they aren't within reach of the shower, so I got out, leaving puddles all over the floor, and after scrounging through the miscellaneous stuff (in the recently demoted food storage containers) under the sink, I found the sleek little bottle that I brought back from a posh place in Montreal a few years ago. I assumed it was shampoo, but since the tiny words were in French, and my hair was wet and in my face, I was mistaken. It turned out to be body lotion. Strongly scented body lotion. Eau de someone's great-aunt-Minerva's perfume.

When you've been traveling and finally get to the room at your hotel, is the bathroom, and it's offerings, one of the first things you check out? Can you document your trips for the last few decades through a slew of shampoos, conditioners, and tiny bars of soap? It seems to be human nature to collect these. But why?

1. They are cute and little, and people are attracted to cute little things.
2. We hate wasting stuff, so if we've opened it, we take it home, with the intention of saving it from being wasted.
3. We paid for them! (If this is your main argument, do you feel the same way about the pillows, curtains, extra rolls of toilet paper folded into a triangle at the end...? Where do you draw the line?)
4. We are saving them to be used during a natural disaster when we can't get to the store. (My aunt in California admits this, though she agrees that this is unrealistic, as seeking shelter and drinking water, and perhaps even swimming will take priority over hair products in that situation.)

I rarely leave town these days, but have made a pact not to accumulate any more hotel amenities in the future. I just don't need them. They serve no purpose in my life. I don't wear shower caps. I've got my own sewing kit. My hair prefers the same grocery store shampoo that I've been using for years. I pack my own stuff when I travel.

The downsize challenge for this week is to find new homes for your hotel amenities

What can we do with them? Well, the obvious answer is to use them up and recycle the bottles, but if you doubt that you will really do this, think about donation opportunities in your community. Personal care items are expensive and your hotel souvenirs could be better utilized if they moved out of storage in your bathroom closet. Donate to homeless shelters, organizations that support people in leaving violent relationships, group homes for people with developmental disabilities or mental illnesses, half-way houses, senior centers. You may not be aware of these places in your community, but they exist. Your local food shelf might welcome unopened lotions, shampoos, and conditioners.

I am pleased to share that there is something else you can do on a more global scale! When you book your next reservation, ask if the hotel is a hospitality partner with the Clean the World Foundation. This Orlando, Florida based charity, founded in 2009 reduces waste from discarded hotel soap, shampoo, conditioner, and lotion products, collects and sanitizes them, then redistributes to homeless shelters and impoverished countries, supporting the prevention of hygiene-related illnesses around the world. If you want to learn more about how your half-used bar of hotel soap could be “washed” on its way to a child in Haiti, check out their website. It's easy to search for participating hotels in a specific location too, so you'll be able to leave that soap behind, without any reservations.

http://www.cleantheworld.org/

Topless Bottoms (The food storage container dilemma)

It's been a week of minimalist cooking at our place. Lots of soup and casseroles, the stuff you make too much of on Sunday on purpose, convincing yourself that having leftovers ready for the week will make life easier, but by the second day of tuna noodle, you're thoroughly uninspired, with 6 more servings to go, and a burning desire for a piece of pizza.

My food storage container situation is a bit like an end-of-season bikini sale; bottoms are not quite big enough to hold everything, and tops are either one size too big or small for the job. Nothing matches. This can be a source of kitchen rage for me. “Why did I have to pour the marinara into the ONE CONTAINER WITH NO LID????? How can thirteen rectangles be so similar but different and not one of them is the RIGHT SIZE???? Oh great, now I have to put tin foil over it, or plastic wrap that will never actually seal...or find another container and wash this one after I have JUST FINISHED doing the dishes...Where in the hell do the lids GO????? ” And the drawer in which they are stored is often hard to open and close because there is always something sticking up that should be nesting, while something else is toppling over.

If you can relate with this scene in any way, this week's downsize challenge is to tackle the unstackables and streamline your food storage containers. Whether you're using plastic, glass, or some other system, take a look at what you've got, see if the bottoms have tops, and figure out what you are really using and what might be best recycled or re-purposed.

Still using plastic but rethinking the whole idea of storing your food in containers that can leach estrogen mimicking chemicals? If you haven't already switched to a non-plastic storage system, there are lots of options, but this is a Downsizing Challenge, so I will have to look the other way while mentioning that a good friend in Vermont recommends this set:

http://www.pyrexware.com/index.asp?pageId=14&CatID=380&SubCatID=398&upc=71160050921

If you want to learn more about what the science community has to say about BPA's and the safety of food storage, here are a few links:

Plastic (not) fantastic: Food containers leach a potentially harmful chemical - Scientific American article
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=plastic-not-fantastic-with-bisphenol-a

Pots, pans, and plastics: A shopper's guide to food safety -Web MD article
http://www.webmd.com/health-ehome-9/plastics-food-safety

Want to learn more about resin identification numbers (those numbers in the triangles on the bottoms of your plastics) and what they mean? Check out this article from The Ecologist:

Storing food safely in plastic containers
http://www.theecologist.org/green_green_living/home/519251/storing_food_safely_in_plastic_containers.html

If you happen to be missing a top or a bottom, and you can't think of a purpose for one without the other, check the resin identification number and see if it can be recycled. (This will depend on where you live and what plastics are accepted.)

If you happen to have containers and lids to match, but you are thinking of retiring them from food storage, recognize their amazing potential for other uses.

Great for kids craft supplies, crayons, paints, pencils, glue
game pieces
small toys
sewing room notions, thread, buttons, needles
coins
first aide kit in the car
bathroom stuff – cotton balls, sanitary supplies, q-tips, bandaids, cosmetics
nails, screws, bolts, batteries
office supplies

They are lightweight, airtight, and translucent, (unless you have microwaved tomato sauce way too many times) and they're good for so much more than leftovers.

Reaping the Rewards Cards

Today is errand day for me. Thanks to a wonderful respite provider, I am on my own, experiencing the thrill that only parents of young children and people who live with elderly dependents full-time can truly appreciate.... the incredibly liberating feeling of meandering through the produce section of the grocery store ALONE. I've been looking forward to this day all week, and in the spirit of effective time management, I have a list:

Bank (get papers for rolling coins – in case Opa still needs a time consuming meaningful activity after we have finished testing all the pens)

Grocery store (walk slowly up and down each isle, look at all the exotic things in the international food sections...Ahh....silently celebrate the lack of cart slamming into the back of my legs)

Post Office (return dress that looked much better on the model in the catalog)

Library (return and borrow)

Hardware store (get dog food)

Nancy's Alterations (pants that I got for seven dollars at my favorite consignment store need hemming that will look much better if Nancy does it than if I try to do it myself)

Pharmacy (Pharmacist will remark with amazement that it is unheard of for a 96 year old to take only one medication)

Office supply store (get ink cartridges for fountain pen, and more batteries for Opa's pencil sharpener)

And if there is still time....

Internet cafe (drink tea while working on this week's edition of the Downsize challenge)

Local Independent Bookstore (browse)

With the exception of my trip to Nancy's, (where I won't have to pay until tomorrow), I anticipate a lot of action today for the plastic cards in my wallet. Not just the ones that are used for actual transactions of funds, but the others that promise rewards, savings, points, free cups of coffee, and other mysterious benefits of membership.

If we were all trapped together waiting for a delayed plane , just think of the endless card games that could be played with the array of colors and suits in our wallets. In my hand right now, I've already got Gin Rummy! (Four public library cards from towns I have lived in during the past 5 years, and three consecutive insurance identification cards for previously owned cars.)

Platinum and Gold credit cards could serve as our royalty, unless of course, they've been maxed out, or are expired.

We'd have to establish rules and agree on face values in order to play games like 'war' with Borders, Barnes&Noble, and Booksamillion. Do you think a Starbucks coffee card should have more face value than a Dunkin' Donuts card, or would it all depend on how much is left on the balance?

For the kids in the room, “Oh look! A match! The Shaw's Rewards Card is the exact same bright orange color as the Home Team Savings card from Aubuchon Hardware.” (A frequent mistake I make when getting the dog food.)

How about a memory game with our dental appointment reminder cards: “In what year did you get your teeth cleaned on July 6th?” (Oh, sorry, the front desk person didn't write the year on the card, it could be this coming summer, but you'd better call to check before you go...)

And for those of us who have exhausted the benefits of COBRA, this modification of a childhood classic:

“Have you got a health insurance card with a deductible under ten thousand dollars?”

“Go Fish!”

Downsize challenge: Reaping the Rewards

This week's downsize micro-challenge should only take you a few minutes. Sit down with your wallet, dump out the contents, and decide what should and shouldn't be in there. You're sure to have enough legitimate stuff to carry without keeping things that are expired, useless, or more securely stored someplace else. And if you are carrying cards for someone else too, (AARP supplemental insurance, and three different Florida ATM cards that belong to your grandfather, for example) Consider keeping these separate from your own stuff, to at least make for more focused scrounging around the wallet when you need to find them quickly.

And once you know what is in there, it would be a really good idea to make a list to keep at home, at least of the credit cards and bank cards that you carry, so that if you mindlessly leave your wallet in a coffee shop by accident, or you happen to be in Madrid and get mugged, you'll know what you are missing and you'll be in a better position to take action.

Though I am only a skein or two away from 5 dollars off my next purchase, the punch card for the Yarn Shop in Vermont can probably get recycled now, since it's a four hour drive from my current home, and I've completely given up knitting. Store discount cards for places I don't frequent will go in the shredder this afternoon. I notice that the signature on my original social security card dates back to fourth grade, when I was first learning cursive writing. My signature was so much more legible then. I really shouldn't be carrying that around in my wallet at all. It should be in a fireproof safe someplace.

I'll take care of that when I get home from the bookstore. I appreciate that they keep their membership cards in an old fashioned recipe box on the counter. I don't have to carry it with me at all to reap the benefits, whatever they are...