What's wrong with this picture?

Well, there's not an actual photograph for you to look at or anything. Here's the deal.

I love to cook. I truly enjoy it. And I love to buy kitchenware.

Back when I first got married, I planned on having gobs of kids. Even though the kids never seemed to materialize, I kept on buying enough kitchenware to cook for a family of 12.

Joe and I have lately been focusing serious attention on decluttering as we're working to remodel and redecorate our house. Several months ago I threw away all of our dishes (only because they hadn't been washed in at least 2-3 months, while I was temporarily living elsewhere). And instead of buying service for 12, we bought dishes and flatware for 4. It's been nice. During those times that we're too lazy to wash dishes and let them stack up, it doesn't take too long to clean things back up.

But somehow I never got around to the dreaded lower cupboards. Oh, yeah, sure, my top cupboards were pretty organized (although I did put another 8 mugs into bags to take to Goodwill this morning). But the bottom cupboards, well, the only time I ever saw the inside of one of them was when I hastily opened the door and shoved a dish inside, closing the door as quickly as possible hoping that nothing would come tumbling out onto my feet.

Today I did two of the three cupboards. In the process, I filled three brown paper grocery sacks and one white garbage bag with things that I am taking to Goodwill. I still have a stand mixer, a quesadilla maker (I'm still not sure why I felt compelled to purchase that), a hand mixer, a hand blender, a blender, a juicer, a waffle maker, a bread machine (but I'm probably going to get rid of it soon--bread tastes better when I make it the fun way), 2 food processors (yes, one is going as soon as I find all the parts for it), a cookie press, a deep fryer----WHAT THE HECK IS THIS ALL ABOUT??? I also still have plenty of mixing bowls and serving bowls. I got rid of all the plastic junk that we never use anyway. I got rid of the extra 7 serving bowls. I got rid of the cookie cutters that I never use because I find making rolled cookies incredibly tedious.

Where does this desire to amass as many things as possible come from? Why? It's not like I was using any of them, because they were all crammed into spaces and hidden behind other piles of things I didn't use so that I couldn't get to them easily.

I've been working on learning to appreciate things without feeling that I need to possess them. I've also been getting much better at not buying something "that will work in the interim." I've done that for years, too. I can't find just the right bedspread, but we've got to have one, so I'll just get any old thing until I find the right one. That has resulted in a house that's so badly cluttered that if someone unexpectedly knocks on the door, I hide in the bedroom and pretend I'm not home.

As I said, I'm improving here. Joe and I saw a comforter set the other night that was almost--but not quite--just the right thing. We agreed to wait until we find just the right thing.

Well, I'm off to take 4 bags of junk to Goodwill. May they bless someone else as much as they're blessing me by being removed from my home!