On the Way Out

Just a partial list of things for the next trip to the SPCA thrift store.  There is another season of "Hoarding: Buried Alive" available on Netflix, so I'm feeling the inspiration.

First up is a lusterware set I've been trying to unload for what feels like forever.  I do like it, but I can't really display it properly on its tray the way I'd like.  (I didn't unwrap all the pieces for the photo - there are 5 demitasse cups, 6 saucers, and a creamer.) I've offered it on eBay a couple of times for a pretty low price, but the teapot spout is chipped, and the sugarbowl is missing, so no bites.

Oh, and I've packed the set into a boot box I've been keeping because it might be handy for something.  Well, it can be handy to help me get rid of something else.

I bought a set of splatter screens on a recent binge at Bed Bath and Beyond.  I actually do need some, because my stove is right next to a wall, and I don't want grease to build up there.  The set came with three sizes, and I can fit two of them on pans I already have, but don't need this one. 

Not sure at all how this entered my life - possibly from one of my mother's neighbors moving out.  I've probably had it at least fifteen years, and do not believe I've ever used it, despite fantasies of some kind of fruit pie to be made.  Really, I only make pumpkin pies, and I use regular pie plates of mine/my mother's/my grandmother's.

This little vase in the shape of a baby scale made its way into my home when a friend of mine started collecting scales (real ones, mostly).  As if I didn't already have enough vases, this one is not shaped to display any flowers I might want to have out.

Ginger jar from my brother's house.  I have another one (missing the lid) that I use to keep pens in.  But I don't need two of them, and since the one I use is lidless, I don't perceive this as a set that I'm breaking up.  That's a big problem for me with sets - I may really want only one or two items out of a group and feel it's an all or nothing thing.

These are both mini colanders - the larger one is about five inches across.  I bought the smaller one first, about five years ago, and thought it cute to fill it with cherry tomatoes and take close-up photos.  Now that that amusement is played out, I don't do anything with it.  I am keeping the "larger" one as I actually use it (for rinsing broccoli sprouts, and just this morning for rinsing blueberries.) 

Another compare and contrast - I blew probably $10 or $15 on the "beach glass" (tumbled broken glass, of the sort you could pick up yourself in a parking lot) because I thought it would be a nice base when I grow narcissus paperwhites.  I did use it for that a couple of times.  But I haven't grown paperwhites lately now that I have other gardening outlets, it is a pain to clean the little glass bits out of the plant roots  when the season is over, and that little jar on the right contains some perfectly nice small pebbles I could use if I change my mind and do want to grow paperwhites again.  For a few years, that little jar was in my mother's room with some lucky bamboo growing in it, which I know she liked a lot, so there's an actual memory there.