Friday Favorites ~ He Knows Things
In June of last year The Farmer’s mother came to live with us.
Becoming a caregiver to someone with dementia has been, what is the best way to describe it?
A wild ride.
About a month ago I shared this post about being reminded that my life is not, nor has it ever really been, mine. I belong to my Creator who has carved out a path for me to walk just as surely as he carved the deep fissures of the Grand Canyon.
And in his gracious kindness he also hallowed out a place to give me an outlet. My kitchen became a refuge where I could see, and be seen, by the one who needs me so much of the time.
But because God is generous beyond measure he also graciously blessed the work of my hands and allowed people to start paying me for my baked goods and my little cottage baking business was born. I still get so excited anytime anyone orders something from me be it breads, muffins, cookies or King Cakes. Who would have ever thought that this Florida girl would be able to make a King Cake from scratch? And it has been by far my best seasonal seller to boot!
The Farmer has been all things supportive of this offshoot of The Commonplace Farm so when things began to look like it might be a lucrative endeavor he had me stop just getting my baking supplies while I did my household grocery shopping. (If I am being honest it sure was fun just to collect payments and view it all as profit without having to reconcile output with input. I was very successful that way, ha!)
When I began to separate the cottage baking from the household baking it quickly became clear that I needed a way to store my supplies that would make it easy to know what went with what. We decided I needed some sort of baker’s cart and off I went on my merry way to Amazon.
Oh, the lovely little carts I found! So pretty and on wheels so I could move it in and out of the pantry with ease. And the photographer in me was visualizing all the lovely food prep pictures I could take if it had doors to tuck all the stuff behind! When I finally picked out a few I went to The Farmer and showed him the ones I liked. I felt like such a big girl too because I had whole spiels planned out as to why each one was a good fit.
Bless him, he looked at me the same way he did the first time we went to lay mulch in a small flower bed in front of our house in Florida. I suggested maybe three or four bags would be needed to cover that tiny tiny space and he looked both astounded and incredulous. We bought something like seventeen bags of mulch.
Anyways, I was getting that same vibe from him. Basically he thought I needed just a regular old metal rolling cart. I was a little huffy inside (I’m sure if he reads this he will be both astounded and incredulous to learn I was huffy) at the idea of letting go of those oh so lovely rolling carts with their smooth wooden tops and lovely decorative doors. But he was convinced I needed something else so I put my foot down about finding one with little mats that cover the metal wire shelves and I turned it over to him.
Y’all. I am so glad he loves me and knows what I need better than I do sometimes. Okay, a lot of times.
He picked it up and started putting it together and I really started to show my age because I got so stinking excited! Over a metal shelf. And dear goodness, was that man right about what I needed!
It’s perfect and one of my favorite things in the kitchen. It has been so nice to roll it out and park it so that everything I need is within a few steps of my work space. No more trotting off into the pantry to grab this thing only to come back and remember that I also needed that thing.
It even has space for my buckets of wheat berries and since a goal of mine it to start back to baking more with fresh milled flour that is just fabulous.
And truth be told whenever I wheel it down the hall (a much better spot for it than the pantry was found in the little hall just outside of the laundry room) I feel like I am doing serious gainful work. It feels good.
So cheers to a husband who knows things and loves his wife enough to intervene in her totally impractical daydreams, no matter how lovely it might have looked. Reality is far better.
The Farmer really is my favorite thing but I sure do love my baker’s cart.
