Why not use it?

 I have this bowl.  It's so pretty, with its butterflies, flowers, and dragonfly, and a cheerful yellow interior.  I like it a lot.

I obtained this bowl several years ago because of Kohls cash: I don't remember now whether it was to reach the threshold to earn Kohls cash* or if it was purchased with Kohls cash.  Since then, it's lived, decoratively, on top of a kitchen cupboard.  I have rarely, if ever, used it.  At the time, I thought the bowl would be dual purpose--used both for decoration and as a serving bowl.  But y'all.  It is very rarely that I make enough of a single type of food to justify getting this bowl down to serve it in.

You may recall that I'm following along** with a spring cleaning challenge.  The first day of the challenge, a week ago, I was supposed to clean our kitchen cupboards***, and as part of cleaning the kitchen cupboards, I took down the décor above my cabinets, cleaned the tops of the cabinets, and washed the various bowls, pots, and casserole dishes† that live up there, including this bowl.

Do you have space above your kitchen cupboards?  I really like being able to put stuff up there, first, because I feel like I don't have a whole lot of storage in my kitchen, and second, because I think it looks nice to have pretty things up there.  But by george, does it get icky up there!  It's dusty, of course, because ...well... I don't dust, and I especially don't dust up there.  But it's also sticky.  It is very sticky dust on top of my cabinets.

As I was washing the sticky dust†† off the bowl, I thought to myself, "self, you never use this bowl, because it's too inconvenient to get the step stool, climb up, grab the bowl, say, 'ew. This bowl is sticky,' and wash it before using it.  You should get rid of this bowl."

And I almost did.  I had it in the get-rid-of-these-things pile.  I was about to take pictures to post it for sale, when I decided I liked it too much to let it go.  But I was also determined to not put it back up on that cupboard.

Instead, I decided to use it.  I cleaned it and stacked it with my mixing bowls--which is a much more appropriate use for this size bowl††† than serving‡.  Last night I mixed up mini waffles‡‡ and delighted in using my bowl.

It had never occurred to me that I could use my pretty bowl for something other than looking pretty.  But I'm so glad it finally did.  This is my new favorite mixing bowl, and it makes me happy when I pull it from the cupboard to use.  That yellow interior is so sunny and bright--it's like I have a little bit of sunshine hiding away, just for me.

Do you have anything like that?  Something that seems too pretty or too nice or too valuable or too sentimental or too ~whatever~ to use?  I don't know--I feel like you'll get much more enjoyment from those things if you actually use them.  Give it a try?  Let me know how it goes.

* * * * * * * 

* This is not something I do anymore. I have spent way too much of my life wandering around Kohls looking for something to buy using Kohls cash.  If I earn Kohls cash, ok, but I will not go out of my way to earn it.

** Loosely following--following in the sense that I receive the emails and considered printing out the 31 day list.  So far, I've completed day 1.  The challenge has moved on without me to day 8: clean bathroom counters and sinks, which doesn't seem much like a "spring cleaning" task, but it does make me feel better about skipping the last 6 days of the challenge.

*** The challenge did not specify if this was supposed to be inside, outside, on top, or all of the above, so I chose to ignore the insides, concentrating on the outside and top.  One day is not enough time to do inside, outside, top.  It's not even enough time to do all of the outsides.  For me, anyway.

† Also, a serving platter (from my grandmother's china), a pretty pie plate (which I do use), and an oil lamp (which we use when the electricity goes out, for an extended period of time, when it's dark).

†† I don't know how to convey to you how sticky this stuff is.  It does not go easily.  It feels like it's permanently bonded to the surface, and it takes quite a bit of soaking, scrubbing, soaking, scrubbing to get it off.  It's not as easy as, say, I'll just wipe this off with my soapy dishcloth.  Nope.  

††† About 6 quarts, I'd say?  It holds about the same as my second-to-biggest mixing bowl.

‡ I'm not a serving bowl person anyway.  The food I make generally gets served from whatever it was cooked or assembled in, because my main objective in life is to generate as few dirty dishes as possible.

‡‡ Hence, the batter drips in the photo.  You were judging me for posting a picture of a dirty bowl, weren't you?  Well, the dirtiness--it's kind of the point.