Back to the Kitchen After a Couple of Moves Since 2017

I haven't tried a lot of new recipes for the last three years since my sister passed but I did buy some new cookbooks and hopefully will start using them.  Both are by Martha Stewart...

                                               one is "Vegetables"

and the other is "Cookies".  

I've been a bit lost without the home I once had in Boca Raton, Florida and sold in 2017.  At the end of 2018 I purchased a manufactured home in Boynton Beach but not until I wasted money on a rental for a year in Delray Beach.  Wow, I could hardly wait to move out of that rental because I didn't like living so close to a canal where alligators like to hang out.  I'll leave the alligators to my son who enjoys camping in the Everglades.

Our house... 

...had 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, a double car garage, a pool plus the kitchen, formal living room, formal dining room and a family room.   When my sister passed in 2016, I decided I didn't want to live in such a large home alone and my son was already situated and not wanting to move after 20 years. I'm thankful that he helped me move though!  I started packing boxes the middle of 2017 and finished just before I sold in December.  What a job with getting rid of furniture which I donated to charities along with small appliances, big appliances and tons of pots and pans and dishes.  I gave a lot of stuff to my niece who takes care of her grandchildren and needed the bookcases.  I never really paid attention to all that we had accumulated since 1978 when we had the house built but it was a lot.  Can you picture 9 working vacuum cleaners plus a dust buster and a shop vac?  I had a thing for vacuum cleaners but now I only have one for the two of my bedrooms that have nice commercial carpeting.

Anyway, I unpacked everything, rented a POD and moved into a rental house and then I packed up again and moved into my smaller home.  I had chiseled down more belongings by then so I got by with a few less trips back and forth from Delray Beach to Boynton Beach...and then I rested.  I had put the things I would be using every day into a couple of boxes and left the rest for later, way later because by then I was tired of boxes!  When I did get back to unpacking, I made several trips to the Goodwill Industries drop-off center about a mile away and donated more things.

What I learned from my two moves within a year was to DOWNSIZE as often as possible and stop buying so much STUFF.  I came to the conclusion that after I am gone, my son is not going to want my teapot collection or the many dishes still in my china cabinet so I am going to find new homes for those  things...eventually.  I'm in a 55+ community where I'm certain people don't need items for their china cabinet so if my younger sister is not interested, I will donate even more to charity.

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving and please feel free to ask questions or make comments in the comment section if I get it set up correctly.  Thanks for stopping by!