Soups and Shoes

Ten on Tuesday on Wednesday : My Ten Favorite Soups:

• NY Senate Bean Soup
• Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup with Townhouse Crackers
• My own recipe rustic Tomato Soup
• She Crab Bisque that I had when I vacationed once on Kiawah Island, SC many, many years ago.
• Clam Chowder from one of those dockside chowder places in Boston ( again, from a vacation many years ago)
• Baked French Onion Soup (when it’s loaded with onions that have been caramelized forever and topped with a ridiculous amount of provolone cheese on a crusty garlicy toasty baguette. And the cheese has to run down the side of the soup ramekin.
• Roast Beef Soup ( I forget if that was Vicki’s recipe or Carole’s recipe!) Love, Love, Love…beef, potatoes, carrots. Simple and delicious.
• Cheeseburger Soup
• White Chicken Chili
• That soup with Italian sausage, kale and white beans…I make it at home. I don’t know what it’s called..and it has a dose of cream in the chicken broth to make it sort of milky/brothy.

Now, the rest of the story.

I stated a closet clean out. My house has  the best closets in the world and the worst closets in the world. They are the best because it’s practically unheard of to have a 1920 house with room-sized closets for each bedroom. That is no joke, people. 


My sewing room is in one of them (and it includes it’s very own built-in cedar closet).
You could fit a full sized mattress in  the guest room closet (in fact, we've done that for sleep-over guests!) 
The third closet is with the master bedroom….just as roomy.

But the problem with these closets is that they have a sloping ceiling on one end and there is a window in each of them. Which makes it very difficult to manage the space efficiently. 

My husband would tell you that the space would be much more efficient if I got rid of half of my clothes. He also can’t understand why I have so many shoes ( and I don’t have that many shoes!) He also felt compelled to show me how I am statistically waaaaaay over the average as far as how much closet space a woman uses vs. a man’s usage. He actually dropped some random statistic on me like he knew what he was talking about! (I’m actually going to google it to see if he’s right.) JR  is the master of space planning, but after 3 ½ years in this house, we’ve come up with little more than a huge shelving unit along one wall and shoe shelves along the other window wall. We really do have to think about how to plan this closet space.

The clothes rods are arranged on the sloping ceiling end, and they are one behind the other….which is a huge pain. I feel like I’m parting the temple veil when I have to get something from the back of the closet…I need a rope tied to my ankle when I go in, just in case I never come out again.

So last night, I sorted, and folded and neatened 
things up a bit…which helps. 

I packed up two huge bags to donate (And this morning, I couldn't find a thing to wear).

Tomorrow, my husband starts a job for someone and he’s actually planning and building a master closet. I’m sure it’s going to be the most efficient, organized closet in WNY. I’m jealous.

But you know what they say about the cobbler’s family?

Oh, yeah. My cobbler would say I have enough shoes already.