The Land of Shiny

Today, Ant and I took a “lazy” (read: non-workout) day to go out and try to stock our new home before we take over the lease.

Before we headed out, I had my favorite old-school breakfast – 1/3 cup quinoa with 1 egg and 1 egg white, mixed with a teaspoon of almond butter and soy sauce. Delicious!

After breakfast, we headed out to the first of what felt like thousands of home goods stores.

As a New York City girl, appliances are a foreign wilderness to me. Fridges come with rental apartments, laundromats are for doing laundry, and a pressure/slow/rice cooker combination would be a laughable joke, as who would have the space to put it anywhere?

Now, I am renting a house for the first time, with a front yard and a lawn and three bedrooms to fill. It’s quite overwhelming and exciting and tiring all rolled into one.

I think home supply stores should be renamed “The Lands of Shiny.” Everything is glowing and alluring in the fancy lights, with demos of blenders and coffee makers and fridges. It’s hard to focus in on what’s a “need” (a fridge that keeps food cold) versus a “want” (a fridge that’s stainless steel and has a water tap in the door – how cool is that?!)

I wish this was our fridge. It's not.

Anthony and I did what Anthony does really well – shopped around for a good deal. We went to four shops, wheeled and dealed until we got everything we wanted for $400 less than any ticketed sale price. He’s good that way. Now, I’m the proud owner of a fridge, a washing machine, a blender, food processor, electric fry-pan and the aforementioned combination cooker (Which is admittedly incredibly cool.)

All the purchases make sense as I cook every day, and I’m really excited to have a food processor and blender again. (In a moment of weakness and abject silliness, Anthony and I packed our food processor and blender to be taken on the boat to Australia. Of course, they don’t work in Australia and to get a converter that would make them work would cost drastically more than the blender and food processor combined. So, back to New York on our next trip they will go!)

However, one of the most satisfying parts of leaving New York was to let go of “stuff.” We sold everything, except for the most precious of books, art, and the aforementioned cookware. It’s really freeing to not have so much stuff around, so I really want to try to maintain having as few unnecessary things as possible.

Worthy goal, I think?

QOTD: Do you live in a house, or apartment, or other? How long did shopping take you?