Two weeks ago, I dropped my kitchen scale, one of my most valued tools in the kitchen, and it seems to be broken.
At the time, I was in a terribly good mood, which is the only reason at the time it didn’t seem like such a big deal. “I’ll look at it,” Scott told me. It was still reading, just not weighing, unless EEEE is a new measurement I’m not aware of.
But yesterday, while looking up bread recipes that called for weighing ingredients, I remembered that my beloved scale was out of commission. Some items in my kitchen have sentimental value, like the baking pans I inherited from my grandmother who loved to bake, or the KitchenAid Stand Mixer my aunt generously gave me right before I got married (the sentiment in the fact that it was from her, not that it was a wedding gift).
But this scale? I love it mostly for its functionality, but it’s been a trusty kitchen friend for more awhile now. I purchased the digital scale shortly after I moved up north. I previously owned a spring scale, and it had stayed at the ex’s house when I moved out. I loved that scale and used it for everything from measuring out meat portions for freezing to setting aside a serving of baked potato chips to pack in my lunch. Even though the digital scale was an upgrade, it would occasionally remind me of the one I’d left behind. But now I’m out TWO scales, and not having it functioning leaves a huge void in my cooking toolbox. I am hoping Scott can fix it and that I won’t have to replace it, since it’s so integral to the baking we do in our house.
I haven’t been so quick to replace all of the things I lost in the divorce. There are the things that I owned that I’ve done fine without: the paella pan I used ONCE, a fondue pot that never got used (though it pains me because it was an absolute steal for $5 at a box store going out of business closeout!), several non-essential knives. I turned it into an experiment: what could I live without? How many unitaskers could I eliminate from my kitchen? My life? The experiment has mostly been a success, but I still have plenty of things I don’t really need, even without a lot of the useless gadgets I owned in my previous life.
I left behind most of my culinary tools when I got divorced. I found myself on my own for the first time in my life, having gone straight into my marriage from my living with my parents. I immediately stocked up on a few essential cooking items: a good all-purpose knife, pepper mill, a nonstick skillet, and other various kitchen tools I knew I’d NEED. It took six years for me to replace a nonstick 12-inch skillet that I once used everyday, and that only happened because I recently received a 12-inch nonstick everyday pan as a gift. I’m trying very hard to examine the other things in my life that are unnecessary, things that are keeping me from the life I want to live. Unnecessary and unhealthy things, relationships, addictions, excuses — I want to get rid of all these things.
It annoyed me to have to repurchase items that I knew were just sitting gathering dust at my former home but deemed “essential” by my ex. But in the end, sometimes you just can’t put a price on getting the hell out and moving on. The stuff you leave behind, well, it’s just stuff, and if you’re lucky, you find something better.
I HEAR YA!
I broke up with my fiance when I was 20-years old.. We were still a year away from our wedding, but we were building a house together.
I literally walked away from all the money I had put down to start building the house ($5,000+), and all the money we had pooled together and started buying wedding things with. Looking back, that might have been foolish on my part, but you know what? No amount of money could have made me stay and ‘fight it out’ with him.
I moved on, he proceeded to stalk me (great, heh), and my life is great now–a few years later, mind you. At least I got the wedding dress and managed to sell it! Woot!