Let me start by explaining that I am a kinda minimalist when it comes to possessions. Why kinda, you might wonder. Well, I don't want too much stuff however, I do make an exception when it comes to tools and books. Tools to me are artisanal tools from fountain pens to knitting needles to a gnocchi board and all other creative tools in-between. And I honestly don't think one can have too many books. Any kind of books, notebooks included. But I digress. My brand of minimalism is that I don't have 2 or 3 of the same /similar things. I basically (try to) only buy an item I need or I will use and I get the best quality I can. This is my philosophy on all things I buy, be that clothes or household things even when it comes to tools. I rather wait a little while and get the perfect (for me) item, than get one that is cheap or not quite what I want. My husband has a different philosophy. He is of the school of thought that you get what you can when you can because he says you can always replace it with better. I also consider him a bit of a hoarder.. so we kinda clash on our buying philosophy. He feels I keep waiting too long or don't indulge enough. I think he buys too quickly and unnecessarily.But also I should say, one of the reasons I am careful in my acquisitions is that in my experience if you get a crappy tool, most of the time one doesn't replace it. You make do with it and I find I end up annoyed that I have to deal with the crappy thing every time I use it, but still make do with it. So it's better not to be stuck with one that doesn't fit. What does all this have to do with lemon juicers, you probably wonder. Well, let me tell you why I am telling you all this. So this is what happened: I dropped my lemon juicer a few months ago and it broke, It was one of those traditional glass ones. I love those, so I was a bit gutted when it broke because it was nice and I used it quite often.Now this doesn't seem like a big deal, right? It's easy enough to replace. I thought so, too. Alas, I couldn't find any of them at the shops around here. They only had ugly plastic ones, which I refused to buy. I found myself using a fork as a squeezer for weeks (more like months actually). So Mr O told me to get an ugly plastic one.I refused. This went on for several more weeks. In my defence, the ugly ones weren't just not-pretty, but they looked unpractical and like they could break easily. I try to avoid plastics, so I think I was justified here.Then the citrus season came along. I usually make preserved lemons, mandarins and kumquats. This time, I kept postponing making my yearly batch. So we ran out of preserved lemons and I lamented the fact that I couldn't make more. Mr O was not very sympathetic to my dilemma. He told me, "just get the bloody juicer from the supermarket."I still refused.Then on one of my photo walks through Tahtekale I saw a shop that had kitchen supplies. And there was a juicer that cost approx. 50cents and seemed ok. Not exactly pretty, but sturdy. So I bought it. Kid you, not a few days later they had the glass ones in the supermarket. Here I was with my not quite perfect PLASTIC lemon juicer. I was not impressed. But now I had one, soooo... (I am stuck with it) I bet you are wondering why is she yapping on about juicers, who cares? And I admit you are right. What's the big deal? But see I have just renewed my intentions, I want to have less stuff not more and I wanna have a more sustainable household. I feel like we have somehow accumulated way too much stuff in our flat. A flat that's a bridge solution until with find a place we wanna settle, which means we going to have to move it all. This all meant that the ugly plastic juicer went against my intentions but so does buying a second glass one. The perfectionist overachiever in me just couldn't kinda let go of this. I was thinking about that this morning. And while I still think Mr O is too much of a consumer (and a bit of a hoarder) I also have to admit he doesn't get caught up in these kinds of dilemmas. He will just go more with the flow, just take what happens and run with it. I am pretty sure he doesn't waste much thought on what kind of a juicer one should possess nor does he much care about trivial things. What I am saying in a roundabout way is: I tend to get stuck on the goals and limits I set myself. And while grit is great, there is a fine line between being stubborn and having perseverance. I tend to get caught up in the small details because I want each detail to be perfect but we all know this is unachievable so I waste a massive amount of energy on inevitable things.While goals and intentions are really important, I think it is more important to keep moving rather than get stuck on details and to focus on the end goal & the journey. In the end, it's all about finding a good balance.As always I guess. Also, life is full of little reminders like lemon juicers... I was thinking about all of this, while I was juicing some pomegranates this morning. And I had two epiphanies: First: the not quite ugly plastic thing is actually pretty awesome and it doesn't only work for lemons but also as... Continue Reading →