I am continuing my quest to skip unnecessary activities in favor of simplicity.
On a temporary basis, I have been skipping my writing. This is not an ideal activity for skipping, because writing is an activity I enjoy. However, it is fairly time consuming, so when I am pressed for time, the writing is often pushed aside.
On a more positive note, I have begun a few posts, which I plan to continue when life has settled down.
One of the topics I am interested in now is the many unnecessary household items that people collect.
If you would like to nominate an unnecessary household item, please leave your comment below.
A Clean Surface. 
The lemon reamer! A fork works just as well. When I need a LOT of juice, I use a plain old-fashioned juicer that sits on top of a bowl.
You know, I have a wooden reamer, but it is true that a fork does pretty well. Thanks, JM.
How about a Hot Diggity Dogger? It is an electric device for cooking hot dogs and buns at the same time. They pop up just like a bread toaster. It was purchased out of a catalog on airline.
Hmm. I haven’t heard of that one before, David.
I’m constantly striving to get rid of stuff, so I’m not sure there’s anything unnecessary that I’ve got an excess of (apart from dog hair). I’m curious about other folks’ answers, though! I also wish I could go back in time and get my mom’s answer to this. I suspect her answer about her household would be very different from my answer about her household!
I’m sure you are right that your mother’s answer would be different, Deborah, and good for you for streamlining your own home.
Food processor. I know the gifted chef uses one every day, but it’s complicated to clean, bulky, and stuck way in back of the over-fridge cupboard in my tiny kitchen.
I can’t bring myself to get rid of it, because that would be admitting I’m never going to be that Food Network chef.
Being a Food Network chef is not for everyone.
My problem is keeping things that are just a little bit broken. Knives with the tip broken off (since I probably tried to pry something open with it), measuring spoons with a little melted spot on the side from getting too close to a burner, a plastic cutting sheet that I can only use facing one direction since my really good knife cut straight through it in one spot. I have plenty of knives, measuring spoons, and cutting sheets, but I have a hard time getting rid of things that “still have some use left.”
This would have been a great trait for a pioneer woman who NEEDED to turn every item of clothing into quilts and rag rugs once it was worn out, but in our culture of too much, it just turns into useless clutter. Even Goodwill won’t taken sort-of-broken stuff – no one wants a cutting board with a hole in it.
Bee, if only you were friends with one of those “trash artists” you would not have this problem!
I believe in any and all gadgets that make life easier – that said, I’d hire a live in maid faster than you can say spoiled brat if I had the extra dough lying around
Circular cookie cutters because a glass works just as well, and cookie presses because the shape melts out of the cookies while they’re baking anyway.
mysoulforsale – I’d better not give you my spritz recipe, then … they are the one and only reason I keep my cookie press! 😉 Also, be careful with the glass, that you’re letting air escape around the edges – I use a glass for cookies, but I got a biscuit cutter (the metal ones with the open top and the handle) when I blew a drinking glass to smithereens all over my biscuit dough because of forgetting a rather key law of physics about not forcing air into too small of a space!
Wow, Bee. That sounds scary!
It was! I was pretty mad about the glass, too. 😀
That’s some pretty intense dough that did that to a glass, Bee… maybe I don’t want your recipes. (JJ!!!) Biscuits are a heartier dough than cookies, so I understand how that could have happened. I find flouring the edge of the glass helps air to escape.
Maybe I did something wrong with the cookie press, because any time I’ve used it, the pattern has melted out of the cookies. No biggie because they taste the same, but mine is quite cute (with a heart and ribbon shapes all around the heart). It’s one of those clay ones. It doesn’t take up a lot of space, so I haven’t gotten rid of it… yet.
I also have holiday shaped cookie cutters that I hang on to (but never use).
I think it’s time for my Snark and Cookies blog to have some actual, you know, COOKIES! I’ll try to remember to post my two best recipes for shaped cookies this weekend. 🙂
Yes. There has been some false advertising with that title.