Sunday: continuing the weirdly normal theme

[walkitout]

Sun Basket arrived. That was nice. We had the deconstructed samosas; they are tasty. I should probably just learn how to make some version of this that is closer to the real thing.

JH arrived with the delightful picture of the two thorned twigs, one wrapping around the other. I paid her. R. put the print in one of the boxes from the photos from JD. I walked around the block with JH. She is an absolute delight to talk to. I have always really felt like she is My People and despite a gap in meeting in person of years, I continue to feel just the same. I mooched a frame from one of the holiday Hilda’s (back into that box from JD — proving to be very useful! and put the box into the flat file) and got JH’s photo up on the wall where the Montmartre print R. gave me has been for a long time. Montmartre print went up into my office.

While JH and I continued chatting in the driveway, M., arrived for our walk. JH headed home — hopefully we will walk again soon! — and M. and I did our walk, then had a brief indoor visit (about 20 minutes, I kept my mask on, no one else in the room with us. M. went into the kitchen briefly, where R. was masked).

We did all the sheets and got them back on the beds.

R. and T. got the lights off the tree, put the lights away and took the tree out. We swept and vacuumed. Last night, the kids and I got the decorations boxed up. We’ve been putting away holiday legos and holiday Build-a-Bear stuffies and similar as well.

We played Exploding Kittens.

We did Family Zoom.

Tomorrow, school starts. I should probably go do some test zoom with the kids to make sure everything is still working.

ETA: NERGC is virtual, so I registered for the main track, and also for the DNA extra. That’s in April, so it’ll be Roots Tech in February (already registered — that one is free, if you are on the fence about doing online genealogy conferences, it would be a plausible starting point) and then NERGC in April.

I tried to book Suites by Hershey and failed — I have booked it in the past through Choice Hotel’s Ascend Collection, but cannot find a way to do it currently, and there are no open slots through RCI (yet?). Not sure what to do about that.

I looked around at pantry storage ideas. I was looking for an updated version of the pull out / tip out wooden bin lined with metal for storing flour / grain / beans. Total failure. Lots of plastic and some mason jar systems, all completely the wrong scale and absolutely not what I want. *sigh* Oddly, as I started to describe this process to R. he immediately started describing what I was looking for before I even got to that part of the story. He lived in a place with a renovated kitchen where they had stored the old cabinets in the basement and the old cabinets had that feature. So I did not hallucinate this (a version pops up at the end of These Happy Golden Years, I think), and we are totally in agreement that we want this without even ever having discussed it. Which, honestly, is super cool and mildly eerie.

We do like using a library style ladder in a tall pantry, and are not opposed to the chandelier in the pantry that I saw. But fucking give me some bins that will store 25-50 pounds of dry goods, please!

Comments

[ethelmay]

We had metal-lined tilt-out bins in the walk-in back pantry in my parents' house (very large 1910 Craftsman). We kept a twenty-five-pound sack of flour in one (in the sack, not decanted) and a bag of dog food (possibly as much as 50 pounds? we had two moderately large dogs for some years) in the other. They were about the size of laundry bins. (Tangent: I think one of the cupboards had formerly been an icebox and had a metal-lined compartment for the ice, accessible from a door in the wall of the kitchen porch.) I don't think they would necessarily be all that hard to build, and you might be able to find some that had been ripped out of an old house (probably not all the exact sizes you want, though). Seems to me I have also seen some quite similar arrangement used to hold garbage/recycling bins in the kitchen.

[ethelmay]

I will say that ours had very insufficient protection against pests (the metal linings had no lids to them). For some reason that house did not ever suffer from ants or roaches, though we did once or twice get pantry moths, I think.

[ethelmay]

Well, now actually I don't think they were lined, just plain wood. It's possible there used to be containers that went inside that had been lost/sold.

Helpful!

[walkitout]

Searching on “tilt-out” definitely helps! And your mention of people using those now for trash also helped, as it reminded me of the lazy susan corner cabinet recycling system in my condo. Depending on the weight limit on the support, that could conceivably work for bulk storge — but thinking about the weight involved, maybe not! Oh well!

I’ve never had trouble with ants or even pantry moths while storing bulk grain on the floor of my pantry here in Acton. It’s just in the bag it arrived in. We have some bags of beans stored in plastic bins in the garage (exactly what people say Not to Do!) and have never had problems there. We _have_ had ants in this house (repeatedly — they arrive with the spring melt, we put out traps, that’s the end of that for the year). I’m actually a little mystified why we have never had pantry moths. Given what people say about them, they sound inevitable! I only store flour in sealed containers, which may make a difference; I don’t really know. The only animal pests we’ve ever had were those flying squirrels in the unfinished spaces that we had removed a couple years ago. Altho R. says there is something living up there again, but probably not a flying squirrel this time as their activity pattern is different.

Re: Helpful!

[ethelmay]

As I mentioned on FB, the one dry food lots of people routinely store in quantity these days in the kitchen (as opposed to prepper storage in the basement or something) is rice, so there are a number of Asian containers (lots plastic, of course, but some stainless steel) designed to hold ten to twenty kilos of rice. Usually called "rice dispensers." A few are designed to be integrated into cabinets. Oh, and there are also fancy dog food bins. I ran across at least one kitchen designer who said they always ask if the customer wants integrated pet food storage. Seems as if that could be a very similar requirement in terms of volume, weight, daily accessibility, etc.

I also took a detour through pictures of Sherer seed cabinets (antique commercial display storage for seeds/beans/grains/whatever), but regretfully concluded they were unlikely to work for what you want.

Re: Helpful!

[walkitout]

Thanks for reminding me about seed cabinets!

Tilt out pet food storage could work (drop the bag in, and use a chip clip to close it). However, the Sherer seed cabinet idea is tantalizing, in terms of the display front! I don’t want to buy an actual antique one, but the firm I hired for the retirement home is a design/build firm and they can build me whatever I feel like paying for. So. Ideas!