The Pasta Maker

The Pasta Maker gets it own post :)

(and as an aside, let me just say that me posting every day is NOT normal - if you're finding my blog for the first time I should tell you I usually post a few times a month - I'm just feeling posty right now ;-)

So here's the pasta maker. My grandmother gave it to me probably ten years ago (maybe more). I don't know if she ever used it but she got it from a friend of hers. It's been sitting in the basement for 10 years and I never used it. Not once.

I kept it because I could make pasta with it. "Could" being the operative word. I never did make pasta with it of course. And then I found out you can use them for polymer clay and that complicated things more.

Finally the other week dh came up from the basment holding it and asked me if it could go. I had by this point accepted we'd never make pasta but the polymer clay thing was still holding me up. Ok, I swear, I'm not making this up but what ran through my head was

What if in a few years the kids get really into polymer clay and what if they have their own business and want to make complicated beads to sell and what if they need a pasta maker to do a professional job of rolling out the clay and they don't have one because I gave it away. And then won't I be just such a crappy mother for letting my kids down???

And as all that went through my head I realized a few things. First of all, I'm nuts :) Ok, not really nuts, but maybe closer to a hoarder than I think because I can find a reason to justify every stinking thing in this house if I try hard enough. And that's what hoarders do. I guess the difference between me and a hoarder is that I can see how silly this is and push down that anxiety and get past it.

Second, I started thinking how, if the above scenario actually did come to pass, I could just get a new one. Freecycle, eBay, heck, even a brand new one from a store.

I'm not saying I want to live a disposable life, but I am saying that I need to be reasonable about what is actually likely to be used and what is not. The chances of us wanting a pasta maker (after 10 years of one sitting unused in the basement) are practically nill.

So we got rid of it. I didn't even try to sell it (despite the $35 price sticker from a store that went out of business 20 years ago!). I knew me trying to sell it would just be further procrastination. So I put it on freecyle and it went out a few days later.

Ironically, to a woman using it for polymer clay, LOL!

The best part? When I opened it up to see if it was all there, we found dead bugs inside. Why? Because the last person to use it (remember, at least 10 years ago) didn't properly clean it. The dead bugs had been living on the dried pasta that was still smushed on it. Blech. Otherwise, it was in remarkably good condition -shiny and beautiful.

I think those bugs drove the point home more than anything else. There's no point in holding on to things I will not use. Things that someone else can use now are being stored in my house, getting damaged by time or humidity or bugs all because I might use them. Someday. Maybe.

If I get rid of 500 things I never miss and one thing that I have to replace 5 years down the line I am still ahead of the game.

So that's revelation #2 for the week. It's been a good week :-)