Recalling starting over and dreaming of a better kitchen...

Most of us have started over at least once in our lives. Whether moving off to college, surviving something out of your control, rebuilding yourself after a breakup. Whatever the case may be, we have all been there. I have more times than I care to remember and one time the memory of it all still haunts me to this day.

A few years back I lost everything I owned and everything that Liam had collected in his one and a half years on this planet. We were moving back to Colorado after living in the past 10 months in Florida, that's another story I may one day share with you. I was pulling a trailer behind my Jeep and 500 miles into our 2500 mile journey my car started acting up. One of my best friends at the time was with me, as well as a 17 month old Liam. We were in the middle of Florida on a holiday weekend and the Jeep started smoking and sounding rough. I pulled into a Jeep dealership, they took a look at it, and explained that the weight of the trailer was too much for my transmission to handle and that if I continued to pull it the transmission would drop. I was in a state of panic, I had to get back to Colorado in three days to start a job. I had no money and nobody around that I could trust to help me with this car.

I asked the gentleman at the dealership if there was a Goodwill or Salvation Army I could donate everything too and he said that the owner "buys stuff". My reaction was "WTF do you mean, he buys stuff?" Turns out he did it as a part time thing, buying and selling. So, I emptied the entire trailer right on the grounds of the parking lot of this dealership. There was so much stuff, things I had from when I was a little girl, souvenirs from my travels, art, photos, clothes, furniture, and all of Liam's stuff too. It was so much to handle. I kept what could fit into the Jeep and left everything else behind. The owner gave me $850 for everything, not much for a lifetimes worth of shit. I kept telling myself "its just stuff and most of it can be replaced". It was a decision that I made in a few minutes, feeling pressured by time, stress, and the heat and humidity of Florida in the middle summer.

Would I do it all over again, I don't know; I would probably take more time to look everything over and decide what was really important and what wasn't. There are some things I will never see again that hurt, like my grandmother's sunglasses, a wood carving from Jamaica, some of my original paintings, and my cooking and baking equipment.

The 3 year anniversary of this event is approaching and most of my stuff has been replaced, it was a humbling experience. I learned what was important and what isn't. You learn to live off what you have and how to make do. Setting up our home (small apartment)  has been a fun and rewarding experience. Most everything started as thrift store finds, hand me downs, or stuff off the side of the road. I'm excited to share with you some projects I have planned in the near future.

Today I'm really wanting some new kitchen stuff, this is actually dream equipment. I might one day have it all. I have been using the same crappy stuff for 3 years and I'm just dreaming. Plus I wanted to create a mood board, it was actually a lot easier than I thought. Writing this blog has been fun, I'm actually learning a lot and hope that you enjoy reading it. I'm not trying to recreate the wheel, just have fun and hope to inspire someone else as well.

So, here it is....

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What's your starting over story?