Organized By Linda Stowe
My sister used to joke that if someone gave me a basket, I’d put it into another basket. That was her little jab at my propensity to put things into containers. She had a point. Everywhere you look in my home you will see a basket, a box, or a basin holding things. The other day I got a grocery order that included one banana. I could not bear to just set that one banana on the counter. It seemed so… well, basic and unfinished. Naked even. I got a bowl down from the cabinet and put the banana into it. Much better.
My sister was an organized person who was flexible enough to allow others to be themselves. For instance, she never used an organizer tray in her cutlery drawer. Pull out the drawer and all her knives, forks, spoons, and serving pieces were jumbled about willy-nilly. We grew up in a home with an organized cutlery drawer, but my sister’s husband Bob did not, so she kept her drawer that way in deference to him. Of course, Bob cooked and baked a lot, so maybe it was considered his drawer rather than hers.
Bob was a free spirit. That was part of his charm. Me, I’m a bit buttoned-up. I thought about this yesterday as I was installing bins in my freezer to keep the meats and vegetables separate.
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Polly here.
I thought this was perfectly wonderful. What a great quality of Linda’s sister. “Flexible enough to let others be themselves.” We could all take a lesson from that.
I am a huge organizer. A keeper of bins and bags and plastic boxes with lids. While spoons and forks and knives may wish to inter-marry, I am not ready to let them do so in my drawer. As Linda so aptly put it: “I’m a bit buttoned-up.” Here, too.
A place for everything, and everything in its place.
