Organize ME!!

In moving preparations I've gotten my house as clean and organize as I have the energy for, and trying to keep it that way is rough. It's a full, uninterrupted hour of work every morning to get it to "pristine" (as pristine as is possible with the Lubbock dust and winds, two indoor dogs, husband and 18 month old little boy) then another hour in the evening to recover from the day, in which I am constantly picking up and cleaning something. I got all the closets organized, bookcases presentable, bathroom cupboards organized, and surfaces decluttered, but I stopped short of kitchen cabinets. Without a pantry, it's tough to keep all our food, pots, pans, spices, dishes, silverware, serving platters, freezer containers, and so on, all organized. When we moved into our then-forclosed house, the kitchen was so filthy and roachy that we were terrified to keep anything in the cabinets below the counter. (It is no longer that way, and they've been cleaned...) but since day one, we have put stuff wherever it would fit rather than truly organize it. Baking stuff was mixed with pasta and hot chocolate mix would be hanging out next to tuna fish...it was a mess. To get the sugar out, we would have to move all of Oliver's snacks and things out of the way. Oh yeah, aside from the crazy we had BEFORE the baby, the lack of making space for his stuff made the mess, messier. With the cupboards closed, no one knows, and for me, out of sight is definitely out of mind. THEN...

I was reading a neighbor-friend's blog for the first time the other evening. It is called Organize Me 2010, and upon reading through her road to organization - her starts, and stops, her large and small accomplishments, feelings of HOORAH and defeat, all in the first year of her first child's life - I was inspired to tackle one particular kitchen cabinet that had been bothering me more than the others. It's the cereal cabinet that also houses water, picnic items, snacks and other assortment of edible and non-edibles. Stuff had been crammed in there that we weren't even sure what we had (I found out we DID have a jar of peanuts after all, who knew?) and if you breathed wrong, a plastic bowl might come crashing down from the highest shelf. So, I went in, and re-did the whole thing. I was happy with the result, and I don't think Nich noticed, ha ha ha! Such a guy :)

The next evening, I went to grab a bowl of cereal, when I noticed the GIANT box of goldfish in Oliver's snack basket, and it was just so ugly. I'm overly-observant of these things in my "pristine house," so I decided I would put the goldfish in the cupboard. Well, they didn't fit. So in an attempt to tidy of the small 18"x10" basket, I reorganized the entire pantry section of my kitchen.

I didn't think to take "befores" of the chaos that existed behind closed doors, but here are the "afters."

The first cabinet...the troublemaker.

 

Hey look! Pasta with pasta, cans with cans...so much better!

 

I found THREE white vinegars...what on EARTH do we need 3 vinegars for??? Lots of pickles in our future...

And 3 things of cornstarch. WHY? That's what happens when you can't find anything! Oh yeah, and 4 things of brown sugar. Again, WHY? What will we possibly do with all of that?

Anyway, it took most of the morning, and Oliver kept me great company! He enjoyed throwing away the expired cans I found, ancient spices, and "sharing" the stool I was standing on. He's teeny, but not so teeny on the 6"x12" stool... He did manage to dump a jar of seasoning salt all over the floor. That was like walking on sand. Very savory sand. Not fun. BUT, our kitchen smelled like something delicious was cooking for the rest of the day which made it hard to not eat a ton. Especially since I now know where everything is!