With really just a week to go before Thanksgiving (and just under a week before I settle myself down with the world’s largest, coldest, driest martini and a straw) – I thought it time to solve the ‘problem with the sideboard’.
It’s funny, actually, because when we ordered the six foot long Amish-made black-stained oak, cherry topped server a few years back, I thought (foolishly) that my dining room serving and storing issues were history.
*sigh*
First off; I wasn’t thinking the day the delivery guys wrestled the beast into our dining room – a maneuver involving lots of twists and turns and standing things on end (and, I am fairly certain, some choice words and plans for an early retirement from at least one of the guys) – and so never took advantage of our stash o’ extension cords so we would have easy access to the outlet so quickly turned elusive and inaccessible after I loaded the glassware, serveware, assorted crockery and other ephemera onto it’s shelves.
Secondly, I foolishly thought that we would have ample room to add another dinnerware pattern – bringing our grand total up to eight or so (in my defense, they all mix and match rather nicely, so I look at it as being well and truly prepared for an emergency dinner party for seventy plus).
Flash forward a couple of years.
I have long since given up on the idea of adding another dinnerware set, since the sideboard is chock full of the above overflow glassware assorted serving pieces and baking dishes (and no, I have no idea why or how we ended up with FIVE 13 x 9 inch covered glass baking pans – though I seem to recall there was a really good reason at the time); and I have gotten heartily sick of plugging the warming tray into an outlet around the corner.
Something had to be done.
Unfortunately, I determined that that ‘something’ was emptying the beast out, dusting and sorting and evaluating everything – AND – while the deed was done and the sideboard was empty, I could swing the sucker out and add a couple of power strips to poke discreetly out of one little seen corner; ready and waiting for that dinner party or holiday village that might require them.
Well, you know how these things go. The sideboard wasn’t the ONLY place I keep this stuff; so sorting here meant re-evaluating the contents of the kitchen cabinets and my grandparents’ hutch in the sitting room down the hall.
So, a day or so and a fair amount of dust and sneezing and cat trauma later (Cody doesn’t handle change well – but a catnip mouse seemed to ease his fears) – the deed is done and I think we’re good to go to start the holidays feeling smugly secure that our crockery, at the very least, is up to the challenge.