Adorable butter dish to a good home

This week I did some much needed cleaning in the kitchen. When I was done wiping the counter next to the fridge I thought, "I'll just wipe this toaster, too." Once the toaster was clean (ish) I thought, "Hm, it looks kind of funny sticking out over here by the stove. Maybe I'll move it over to this side of the counter.

Bam! Everything looked different. And I noticed my butter dish again.

Oh, butter dish! How I have loved that butter dish.  For a long time that butter dish reminded me that I was a good mom. It reminded me that I can have nice things. It reminded me that sometimes we get what we want.

A while back, (maybe a year ago?) I started wanting a butter dish. "Gee," I thought, "I wish I didn't always have to pull my butter out of the fridge and have it be all hard and ruin my bread when I try to spread it." That is how the wanting began.

"I will find one at a garage sale, or something." I thought. It was not garage sale season and I am not a particularly savvy garage sale shopper. I knew our budget had categories like FOOD and RENT and STUDENT FEES, nary a sight of the Convenient-Soft-Butter category. I was resigned to "make do or do without" as the old pioneer saying goes.

Then, I accidentally walked past some butter dishes at Meijer. Oh, heavens to Betsy! I fell in loooove. Beautiful, graceful, elegant, refined butter dishes! The sign of a civilized home! I would walk past them any chance I got. Until one day I was finishing my grocery shopping and realized, just as I pushed my cart down the kitchen aisle for another "drive-by" *ahem,* I had been thrifty. I had done such a good job with my grocery store deal scouting and Sunday night meal planning that I was going to have a little bit left over. Enough for a butter dish.

Hallelujah! I picked my favorite one: a simple, clear glass dish with a cover. I came home so happy.

My fantasies of soft butter were soon played out. It was so nice to spread! It looked so posh in it's own little dish! Sometimes, I can come in under budget. Sometimes, I can have beautiful glass things that I love in plain sight and my children don't mess with them. Sometimes, I can have what I want. But sometimes, what we want changes.

After Levi was diagnosed with a dairy allergy (and egg, peanut, and walnut allergies), we switched to soy butter. Soy butter is a good substitute. It has a good flavor, texture, does well in baking and most days I don't even notice that we've switched. Except that it comes in a tub. Oh, sure, you can find it in sticks, but it will cost you. The makers of soy butter are going to the trouble of making you a delicious, fatty, spreadable product that looks and tastes and acts like butter -- out of a bean. They don't want to go to the trouble of cutting it into little bars for you. Or maybe it's the stores? They know you want it in bars, so that you can put it in your butter dish. How bad do you want it in bars? Enough to pay double?

No. Our butter dish has sat on the kitchen counter unused these past months. At one point, I found some popsicle sticks on the counter -- I had written on them in a strange fit of parental creativity. Write some fun things to do on a stick. Tell the kid to pick one. He doesn't want to do it and continues throwing a fit. Mm. The sticks needed a place. The butter dish was empty. I put the sticks in the dish. It was a convenient arrangement.

But a few days ago, after I cleaned the toaster, I noticed the butter dish. Forlorn. Full of popsicle sticks labelled with unoriginal ideas. "Go out of the house." "Read a book."

It was at that moment I decided to put my butter dish up for adoption.  It deserves a better home. It can do so much more than hold your rainy-day activities. It can keep your butter soft, so that it spreads nicely on your bread. It can remind you that you're a good mom, and that you can have nice things. Or, it can remind you of something else altogether. It has a lot of potential.

So. One adorable butter dish to a good home. (Fully house trained.)

I'm completely serious. If you want it, you can have it. But wait! What if lots of you want it? She is a beauty, after all.  I know all of you would take very good care of my butter dish. I'll let it go to the highest bidder -- the auction is open for one week.  We'll start the bidding at one big hug.