Thanks for the wedding gift...four years later.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, then you know that we are currently going through stuff, cleaning out closets, purging old unused items and generally trying to pare down. You also know that we are cash poor and are on a spending freeze.
Recently however, we found a pile of gift cards that we never spent; gift cards we received as wedding gifts. Our wedding was nearly four years ago. That means we have had unused money just lying around, that we had forgotten about, for almost four years.
Well, when you are on a spending freeze and you come across unspent gift cards, you become excited and you do what any good American would do: you want to go to the store and spend it immediately!
But then we remembered that we are trying to de-clutter; whatever we procured had to be an asset to our home, not another something that would just take up space.
We had $120 to spend at Williams Sonoma. We discussed possible items we wanted, items we "needed." We drove up to the Seattle store, we walked the floors, we discussed the items again. And then, finally, we agreed and walked over to her, sitting on the shelf in all her shiny, stainless steel glory.

Meet Betty:

She’s my new bread maker.

I have lusted after her for years now, but could never justify the expense.
I was recently diagnosed with a wheat allergy, and this machine has a gluten-free setting, with a whole slew of gluten-free recipes. This means that my lust only grew. But again, we didn't have the money, and I couldn't justify the expense.

But then we found the gift cards, and Bryan agreed that he would love homemade bread, and he would more than likely use it more than me, so we brought her home last night.

And for those of you who think "Breadmaker? Just make it yourself, this thing will just take up space!!! Let me tell you that I have tried and tried, and cannot for the life of me get gluten-free bread to rise here, this close to the water. Also, I used my mom's breadmaker on a daily basis when I took care of her, (it crapped out shortly after she passed away, ironically) so I know we can and will put it to good use.

I love her. I’m baking bread as we speak. And I’ve given her a few gentle pats and whispered sweet nothings in her ear while she has filled my house with the lovely aroma of wholesome baked goodness.

So to you who gave us Williams Sonoma gift cards, and we sent you a thank you card that said something along the lines of "thank you for the gift card, we look forward to putting it to good use..."
We bought a bread maker, a bread maker we have wanted for a little over two years. Thanks!