Waiting until marriage?

I learned how to bake when I was young - so young, in fact, that I can't actually remember an age when I didn't help my mom in the kitchen when desserts were involved.  If I wasn't actually helping to bake, I at least always licked the beaters.

In high school I remember baking often for my friends and soccer teammates; my nickname was Mama, because I usually showed up with the extra soccer socks, band-aids, pre-wrap, tape, and, of course, snacks.  Bringing a baked good (usually cookies or brownies, I've never been a big cake person) was usually the best option, because I got to enjoy the batter myself as I was making everything.  In particular, I remember once in my senior year making a big batch of oatmeal raisin cookies, my first batch ever of this cookie variety, and eating so much dough I went to bed feeling ill.  The next morning when I woke up, I fainted in the bathroom (I fell off the toilet into the radiator... awesome) and I actually stayed home from school for a little while and ended up being forbidden to play in the soccer game since I had missed school, which was the whole reason I had baked the cookies!  To this day I have trouble stomaching oatmeal raisin cookies.

As in the rest of my life, my baking has its share of disasters.  We have a long tradition with our best family friends of getting together for dinner parties and baking blow-you-away-with-chocolate desserts.  A few years ago we got together around Christmas at my parents' house, where I attempted to bake a chocolate cake with a thick peanut butter icing.  This is how it turned out:

 (that's Carissa of The Kitchen Window pointing and laughing)

Yep.  Disastrous.  In fact, the icing was such a problem that it actually broke my mom's Sunbeam mixer and she had to get a new one... which brings us right around to the actual topic of this blog post.

For as long as I can remember (I would say "for as long as I have been baking," because that's how long it feels, except that can't possibly be fact), I have wanted a KitchenAid mixer.

If you also want a KitchenAid mixer or know someone who has talked about their desire for one, you know the typical response.

"Oh, just wait until you are married.  That is the quintessential wedding registry gift - someone will certainly get one for you."  

Am I right, or am I right?

That sentiment seemed totally reasonable when I was in high school.  I'm 17, I have this idea in my head that a girl goes to college and then BAM is suddenly married, so it's like... ok I think I can delay my dreams for a few short years.

When I broke my mom's mixer, I had been harping on long enough about the merits of a KitchenAid stand mixer that I think she may have actually bought one simply because I'd hyped it up so much.  It's a beauty - that nice Red Delicious apple color that is iconic to the brand - and it works like a kitchen saint is guiding its paddle attachment.

Did I mention I was living several states away by the time she got this new mixer-of-my-dreams?  Yep.  I've used this mixer, oh, twice maybe?

I'm 27 now.  I have wanted a KitchenAid mixer for at least 10 years.  I've been exploring new recipes even more lately - making my own breads for the first time, for example.  And I swear every recipe I read calls for a dough hook.  My Sunbeam does not have a dough hook.  I'm a recipe-follower; if it calls for a dough hook, I need a friggin' dough hook.

And the thing that blows my mind is that when I talk about how badly I want one, I still hear "just wait until you are married!" 

So what the heck?  I mean, I know it's different, but it still feels a little like being told that a husband will make all my dreams come true.  And that is just plain Bull.  I am independent, I have a comfortable income.  I don't need a man - I can buy myself a daggone kitchen appliance!  ROAR!


I made this decision right after my birthday in November.  It was kind of my quarter-life crisis a few years late... I thought, man, I am 27 and I am not married; ergo, I don't have a KitchenAid mixer.  I know that I am in a "serious relationship," so maybe to all outward appearances it doesn't seem like marriage is too far off.  But even if we got engaged today, a KitchenAid mixer would still be at least one year off, and since that can't happen just yet it's going to be longer!  I have been waiting a decade... I cannot wait another year.  I am too intelligent to keep buying into this "wait until you're married" mantra.  I am buying myself a mixer.

But I've procrastinated for the past few months on actually shelling out the bucks.  I can spend loads of money on random little expenses, but one big expense freaks me out.

So today, I made a bargain with myself.  You may know that I run a pretty tight ship with my budget (well... pretty tight in a good month... relatively loose in a bad one... but anyway, I have a well-defined monthly budget).  My bargain is this: if I can reduce my spending in March by $200, I will put that $200 towards a new KitchenAid at the end of the month, and pull the additional $80 or so out of my vacation savings because I have a nice cushion there or out of next month's budget allowance.

$200 sounds big, but when I broke it down tonight I'm confident that I can do it, if not surpass it, as long as I can keep myself from going stir-crazy and needing to get out of Meadville for a weekend (gas is my biggest monthly expense when I travel, but I have no plans this month).  Wish me luck - if I succeed, you may actually see a second blog post in 2011 to show it off.  Whoa!



P.S. See Carissa in that picture above?  I would like to point out that she asked for a KitchenAid on her wedding registry and DIDN'T GET ONE.  It's not a guarantee!!!!  (She did get one for Christmas a few months later from her parents, who took pity.)