Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Dishes and Contentment

Yesterday I found myself wondering how much time I would save if I had a full-size oven and a dishwasher.

It started like this: I made a double batch of crackers (and I'd already doubled the recipe once, so it was really a fourfold batch of crackers, if that's the right word). It started with four cups of flour, and by the time it was mixed and rolled out thin, I had a lot of cracker dough, probably enough to cover half of my kitchen table (if I had wanted to do so). Now, I have two cookie sheets: one is 9" x 9", and the other is about 6" x 8". I only put one sheet in the oven at a time, so that the other one could cool and I could load it up again. Each batch bakes ten minutes or so, but I have to turn it around halfway through because my oven doesn't heat evenly, and some batches took longer than others. I think each cookie sheet went in the oven four times, so that's eight batches, and while I was eating lunch I was getting up every five minutes (if not more often). I felt like a jack-in-the-box. Finally I had to declare a moratorium on cracker-baking until my lunch was safely settled in my stomach.

In the evening it was time to wash the dishes. Lots of dishes. How can one person make so many dishes in three days? I only cooked two of those days, and all I made were crackers and dinner. Well, except for the celery I chopped, and then there were the plates I ate from, and even so I still don't know where they all came from! But they were dirty, and so I had to wash them, and so I did. :-)

Anyway, I almost started calculating the time I'd save. Then I remembered that it is my duty and my delight to be contented with what I have.
I am content with what I have
Little be it, or much
And Lord, contentment still I crave
Because Thou savest such.

(bonus points to anyone who knows the source of that quote)
So I will not add up the time I would-have-could-have saved. I will focus on being content with what I have, because that is the best thing to do.

Besides, if I weren't in such a crazy little apartment, I wouldn't have anything to write about, would I?

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