Fires and Moving

My parents are cleaning out their basement. My mom's theory is that if she wouldn't run downstairs in a fire to rescue it, she's throwing it out. My theory for packing for China is a little different. If I would rescue it in a fire, I'm not taking it to China. That includes a lot of my favorite books and my Turkish coffee grinder.

My theory on books is, if the book is good enough, you should have a "home copy" and a "traveling copy," because I'm a little obsessive like that. For example, my "home copy" of Mists of Avalon is the hard cover reissue that came out a few years ago. My "traveling copy" is my first copy, which is a paperback, but pretty flimsy, since it's a book of over 1,000 pages. I have four copies of The Peacock Spring by Rumer Godden, most of which I found at thrift stores. With The Peacock Spring I waited so long to find my own copy, and then whenever I saw it, I had to buy it. Don't worry, I've probably only put down $4 on this title. The thing is it's not popular and it's out-of-print, so if something happens to my copy, then I have a back-up, and if something happens to that copy, I have another back-up, and so-on and so-on. I need to really be picky about the books I carry to China, just because books are kind of a pain to move, esp. over an ocean.

I won't have an oven. That means I won't need a lot of the cooking stuff I have, all of my gadgets, a pastry mixer, a mixer-mixer. It's going to be like being in college again, except one step higher because I'll have a microwave AND and stove. I probably won't need measuring cups, because I can't think of a time when I used measuring cups to cook on the stove; I use a liquid measurer for that. It will be fine--just like in the summer, when it's too hot to bake.

-MsLin