The Coziest Jars

November 25, 2024

a jar snuggled up in one of our cozies

Living in a tiny house is strange because when everything has a place, it feels entirely harmonious, on the other hand, if you have one too many stools, a slightly full cupboard or you bought too many groceries (don’t shop when you’re hungry), you begin to feel like you are competing for space. It’s not a pleasant feeling and until you identify the root problem, it’s as if no matter what you do, it is impossible to keep the place clean and tidy.

I would say this happens at least once every two months, where we are able to realise that after feeling a bit agitated but not sure why for a few days, it’s because we have too much of something, or a piece of furniture isn’t working. We had this for months when we had a permanent desk, and when we got rid of it, it was like we could breathe again. Like when you know you are stressed, but not why, and then someone turns off the kitchen extractor and you’re not sure how you didn’t notice it because it was absolutely deafening.

Anyway this time it was the cups. Cups and mugs are definitely what people buy for you when they don’t really know what else to get you, or to convey a funny message or to bulk up a gift, and we definitely held onto them telling ourselves that they’d be helpful for when friends/family come to visit, or for sauces or any other number of reasons when the root is that we have some evasion of getting rid of them because they were bought for us. And I think about this a lot, especially this time of year, that the cups I have in my cupboard are cups I don’t use, typically going for the same one over and over, and would never have chosen for myself, and yet I find myself unable to remove them just in case the person who has definitely forgotten their purchase of this cup finds out that I no longer have it displayed in my cupboard.

All this to say that we have a lot of different types of jars and we really like things to have multiple functions, so we decided to use all the cups to grow herbs, and jars for our beverages, which we both independently spent years doing when we were younger anyway. We use mason jars for food storage, left overs, soaking, and now they are our primary hot beverage vessel. The only issue was that if you filled such a jar with fresh hot tea, it was just under boiling and might hurt someone’s hand. This is something I typically forget about because I have trouble identifying an extreme temperature until it’s too late, but I didn’t want our guests, or db for that matter, to burn their hands! So I bought some cotton yarn and spent an hour or so one night making a jar cozy. After the first, I made another in a slightly different style, and unfortunately don’t have a pattern because I made them on the fly, and honestly they’re quite simple but they have been working beautifully! I was generally pretty happy with them, but db uses one every single day for his drinks, and I feel a small flutter of pride each time I remember that I made it.

We now have all of our jars and one cup each in the aforementioned cupboard, which also contains all of our brewing equipment and ingredients. There is space should we want to add another bag of coffee or jar of tea, and I no longer have to pull multiple things out to find a vessel in which to hold my beverage.

(aj)