Thursday, April 8, 2010

April Get-Organized Challenge


Hi y'all! I am finally getting around to beginning my April Get-Organized Challenge, I'm only a week late. (We'll blame it on us having to fire our last realtor and get our stuff ready so we can sell our home ourselves, more on that later)

So for April I am challenging myself and you to clean up the kitchen. I always do a good cleaning of my kitchen in the spring which usually entails scrubbing the cabinets with Murphy's Oil, degrunging the silverware drawer, uncrusting the fridge, sorting the freezer to find out what that mystery thing is wrapped in foil. I choose spring because once summer hits, well, we are outside, then fall comes and it is back to school time, then winter which brings baking and holiday madness, so you get the idea, now's as good a time as ever.

I will admit that I am not going to totally overhaul every cabinet and drawer because honestly, they don't all need it. I have done a good job of keeping most of them clutter free and pretty well organized, but there are a few that need attention.

First, these. One of the things we saw in a model home before building this one that I fell in love with. I had visions of displaying all my Longabergers and pretty stuff. Then we moved in and I found them to be a weird size. Too small for most Longabergers, too shallow for most plates/pretty stuff and if you rearrange the shelves they look bad behind the glass doors. SO, I plan on purging a bunch of stuff from here, a lot of hand-me-downs that I don't use and stuff that won't fit in one of the teeny houses we will have to get when we move. AND I do hope to show off my beloved Longabergers better, while I can. I am pretty sure when we move, I will have about three total cabinets in my entire kitchen. Ho hum, tearing up, moving on.

This is my silverware drawer, except I don't have real silver, but who cares? It's not terrible, just needs resorted and decrumbed. And I guess I should put away those teeny baby spoons, Tanner is sort of past those...
This is my "junk" drawer. It is the only place in the house where things that don't have a spot go. It is usually not this bad but Zoe loves to get tape and staplers out of here (I keep a bare minimal amount of office supplies in here so I don't have to run up to my desk) and she is not the best one at putting things back in their proper place. Let me add, she has her own supplies and we have more supplies in our art cabinet but these are "easier" for her to get, so she says. As with most junk drawers, it is a catch-all and it just needs sorted and cleaned out at least once a year or so.
My tupperware cabinet, except I only have one real Tupperware piece, the rest are all cheapos from the grocery store. I do love Tupperware though, wish people still had parties like they used to, I would totally stock up. It is a complete mess, Tanner loves it in here, like all babies do. It also houses a lot of Zoe's baking things (Easy Bake Oven) that she uses like once every three months or so (that is about all I can take of the messes created by these toys). These will be stored elsewhere, very soon.
This is my spice/baking stuff lazy Susan. It is a mess of all messes. Tanner has discovered it and he loves taking everything out and pouring salt into nice mounds on the floor. I have been grabbing things and shoving them back in here at the end of the day so now it looks like a hurricane hit. I am not sure what to do with this, I really like having my spices here because it is right where I prep and cook, plus these cabinets are dumb, they don't hold much of anything due to their round design. So I will probably purge a lot and scrub up the spilled stuff and relocate some things to the big pantry. I have visions of matching jars and containers with labels a'la Martha style, but I probably won't spend the money on those right now.
Well wish me luck, I will try to keep you posted. I hope you are inspired to dump a drawer and resort it or get rid of those old chipped glasses or label something, it is so refreshing and nice to have completed.

2 comments:

Sarah said...

ok, I'm taking this challenge. It will take me the whole month to do the junk drawer! I'm with you on the organic groceries. Sometimes I can't get everything I want but I always do organic milk, eggs and chicken-uh what these Iowa farmers do to chickens, awful!

Becca said...

Holy cow! Could it be the last time I read your blog was your March challenge organized closet? Shame on me!! Good grief, I am in a lost world! Good luck on your kitchen...I did all that when we remodeled our kitchen last fall...it feels so good! I'm all caught up on your life now...I will be better blog buddy, I promise!