Small Things, Big Impact
Small things can change your life. Case in point: the step-stool I bought for ten bucks after seeing one at a friend’s house in August.
Hers was chic grey and black, understated, in keeping with the tranquil colour scheme of her home. I intended to buy one just like it but, once at the hardware store, was distracted by another in turquoise with black polka dots. It clashes brilliantly with my orange laundry where it now lives beside the washing machine.
Here, it provides the exact 22cm leg up I need to find lost socks in the bottom of my wall-mounted dryer. Not just socks - whole garments are invisible to me there, and I’m even too short to reach in with hand and blindly feel around.
Prior to this, to embark on a search, I could have used the 3-step ladder tucked away in a cupboard. But that hulking metal thing is unwieldy and only brought out for major events, like changing light bulbs or a proper clear-out of a top kitchen cupboard.
Instead, I have been improvising – climbing onto kitchen benches or boosting myself from a low kitchen drawer in ways that resemble the opening scene of an ACC commercial. Asking for trouble, really.
But it has either been this risky improvisation, or I’ve just not bothered using things kept in the top cupboards. It’s one of the many reasons we’ve not used the fondue set since the 2001.
But now? I can whip out the step-stool at a moment’s notice and reach anything I want. Plus it opens so neatly and folds up with such a satisfying snap it could double as a fidget toy.
This will go down as one of the great additions to my life for 2025. Also on the list is the air fryer my husband gave me for Christmas.
It was given with suitable trepidation – he’s well aware that “appliances” are not synonymous with “gifts” and has heard cautionary tales about men presenting women with Birthday Vacuum Cleaners and what happens next. Spoiler: nothing good.
But he’d found a bargain, took a risk and it paid off. I love it. It’s ideal for the many nights I am cooking for one and, when there’s two or more, it’s useful for side dishes or a drawer-full of chicken nibbles. It bakes salmon better than my oven, and reheats leftovers more successfully than the microwave.
That mini convection oven sitting beside the kettle has had an outsize impact on how I cook and eat this year.
Another small thing with a big impact has been opening up a conversation with friends and whānau about bringing more kupu – more Māori words – into our everyday lives. I talked about it here a few weeks ago, and have talked about in other places.
A lesson for me has been that it’s not only Pākehā who feel whakamā, or shy about this, but Māori, too. That there are feelings of anxiety about not knowing enough, or getting things wrong even amongst those who appear fluent in te reo.
It makes you realise the path to reclaiming a language is extremely challenging, and especially when it is your own. And that puts my feelings about it into perspective – there’s nothing at all special about my nervousness, everyone feels it, and I just need to keep going.
Some of these conversations have brought many of us closer, and revealed rich stories about whakapapa, and family stories. Again, isn’t it amazing how small things change lives.