New knife blocks and a game of pick up sticks

We outgrew our knife block some time ago and have been making our set up work as best we could.  On more than one night, we have been jolted awake by a knife or my kitchen scissors dropping onto the counter.  Once we figured out that no one was breaking into the house, we settled back into sleep.  And, I kept thinking that we had to replace that knife block.

I found a collection that I really loved in Viva Terra.  These bamboo boxes hold hundreds of small bamboo sticks.  The knife blades rest between the bamboo sticks and the blades are protected.  This option was a thousand times more stylish than our old set up and much more secure.   I loved the color options and settled on the large knife block in the bright red to hold our bread knives and other large knives.  The small block is in a dark gun metal grey and is perfect for our steak and paring knives.

These arrived in the middle of the week and I was not in the right frame of mind to unpack them on the first evening.  I let the box sit in our dining room and we walked around it time and again.  I decided to tackle the unpacking one morning.

I, of course, decided that I would keep my promise to unpack the box on the designated morning, even though I was running a little later than usual for work.  I thought, how long can this take?  I told myself to be very careful when unpacking the box which included each block in a separate box (clearly marked to show which way was up), cushioned by packing material and carefully wrapped in tissue paper.

This is how the sticks look when they are nestled appropriately in the blocks.  Nice and orderly.

This is how the sticks look when the new owner temporarily loses her mind and turns one of the blocks upside down while taking off the final layer of tissue paper on the last block she was unwrapping.  Then, the new owner gets to recruit her husband to help pick up hundreds of sticks before work at approximately 7 a.m. when she should already be driving to work.  Hmmm...this project should just take a minute.

 

Later that day, I was in a meeting and someone cited a great literary work that expresses that one might endure a disaster to avoid a larger Disaster later.  I was reminded that my mom always tells me that an unexpected delay may be the Universe's way of keeping us safe (protecting us from a Disaster ahead).  I tend to be ok with missed exits and needing to drive ahead to circle back, turning around when I have the nagging feeling that I left something on at the house or forgot to pack something for a trip, or to stop to pick up sticks before work.  I was extra thoughtful when I drove by a fellow commuter on a motorcycle that was having a one-on-one chat with our county sheriff that morning.  Perhaps, my mishap kept me from a speeding ticket?

I do really like my knife blocks.