By Bonnie Brown
Columnist

Now that everybody has experienced winter weather, let’s get on with more moderate weather and finish talking about Nick Saban’s retirement.  

There’s much more to discuss than that now.  We are grateful that Coach Kiffin was not enticed to be a part of the fruit basket turnover of coaches.  It’s hard enough to keep up with the players as they migrate through the portal to what they hope will be greener pastures.

So, how did you spend your time waiting for the ice and snow to melt?  Were you one of the ones that chose to get out on the icy highways thinking that your brakes would work on ice and instead they were not able to keep you out of the ditch?  Perhaps you watched some movies, maybe old favorites.  Maybe multiple favorites in a day’s viewing.  

Did you scour through the pantry looking for ingredients that would produce a delicious meal?  Or maybe you were into baking.  Is regular flour a suitable substitute for bread flour if you’re using a bread machine?  I almost tried this one myself. 

Instead, I made some chicken and dumplings and paired them with a small pan of cornbread dressing and a batch of cranberry salad—my Mom’s recipe.  It was a nice meal of comfort food.  You know what I’m talking about.  It’s cold outside and you want something warm and filling, something familiar from your childhood perhaps.  

After baking the cornbread dressing, I noticed that my oven needed a little cleaning.  Since the ice and frigid temperatures outside limited my choice to an indoor activity, I cleaned my self-cleaning oven.  That sounds a little crazy even to me.  But, yes I did this.  

I have a double-oven range which means there is only one rack on the top oven (with a broiler) and two racks on the bottom oven.  Thankfully it wasn’t too messy.  But to give both ovens a good wiping and clean-up, I practically had to stand on my head.  I’m short and therefore close to the ground, but it was still a bit of a challenge.  I was so happy with the way it looked when I was done.  The glass doors were glistening!  And this made me happy. 

I looked around the house to start developing a plan for the next stage of my decluttering project.  I started in the kitchen a few weeks ago and enlisted the help of my husband Tom.  He is a natural at this activity and just a short time passed that we were ready to tackle the dreaded “junk” drawer.  

You may call it something different, but it’s the drawer somewhere in your home that attracts all the leftover screws from a project, all the single-edge razor blades and scrapers, the variety of sizes of Allen wrenches acquired from various projects.  There’s sure to be super glue in your junk drawer, along with string, rubber bands, and a few keys that you have no idea what they go to, a stray battery, a measuring tape—well you get the idea.  Our junk drawer looks almost empty now that we have decluttered it. 

Next will be my closet.  I know that you are supposed to approach decluttering as not getting rid of things you no longer want, wear, or use.  But you should approach it by deciding what to keep.  This is going to be a challenge.  I’m not a pack rat but I’m not sure I can approach this project in that manner. Stay tuned.