living small

I hate running out of things in the house. It upsets me when I realize that I'm down to the last three cotton buds in the vanity box, or the toothpaste tube is three-squeezes-and-gone, and we don't have any stock. And I hate it when I get up in the morning and find out that I have to run to the sari-sari store to buy Nescafe 3-in-1 coffee in sachet before I'm even properly awake.

So I stock. In my tiny kitchen there's a shelf with a dozen transparent plastic containers, for the things I think we'd need for cooking: raisins in little boxes and sinigang mix and pork cubes and chicken cubes and gelatin mix and tea bags and brown sugar and not-so-brown sugar. In the bathroom there's a rack for extra tissue rolls, two kinds of hair conditioner, three kinds of bath soap, baby bath and body wash, and other assorted bottles and tubes dedicated to feminine glory. The laundry area would tell the same story, and so would the desk-cum-vanity-cum-catch-all in the bedroom.

So one day I took a look and decided that it's getting kinda cluttered, and I went to http://www.bhg.com/ (a favorite site of mine) to see if I can get some pretty shelving ideas for tiny houses. And one of the slides there said to keep it simple, and avoid overstocking.

Overstocking! Now there's a new word! I grew up in a house where all things-- from sacks of rice and candles to canned sardines and laundry detergent-- were stocked. In my grandmother's house you'd think a Signal No. 4 typhoon would hit every weekend. I thought a decent house was one where you know you have the things you'd need-- all the time. I was understandably flabbergasted. It had simply never occurred to me that I don't have to turn my kitchen into a sari-sari store extension.

But no, I don't have my grandmother's house, and what I have is tiny... 'space-challenged,' according to the home-decor sites. And no, I don't have to be depressed every time I see an empty container in the kitchen shelf, just begging to be filled. So instead of getting new shelves, I got myself a new mindframe and started to let myself run out of things a little. I watch the lotions and the noodles and see which one will run out first, fill up a list on the refrigerator door, then I buy a few groceries on my way home from work. It cannot beat the joy of two full grocery carts on the supermarket checkout lane, but a neat shelf, with just a couple of shampoos waiting in line and some space for flowers-- it's a restful sight.

So I also got a new word: replenish.

Besides, there are two sari-sari stores about fifteen steps away from my front gate. I guess it wouldn't kill me if the neighbors see me, fresh from the bedroom, darting out for a 3-in-1 coffee sachet on a Saturday morning.