8 Months In

Throughout these past eight months I have had to check my self pretty regularly.  What is my heart behind all of this?  What is the real motive?  Who am I doing this for?  To what end am I working?  Some days the motive for winnowing is to have less crap to pick up around the house so there’s more time to sit on my duff and surf the internet.  Sometimes my motivation is to do some awesome, kicking-butt-and-taking-names job on organizing or cleaning out or rearranging so that I can take cutesy/artsy pictures to slap up here to make you ooh and aah.  A number of days I have been propelled by the aspiration to bring even more peace into our abode.  More than a handful of days, there is no motivation.  Zero.  For any of it.

The last couple of weeks have been, um, interesting.  They have been in some ways a breakthrough in this whole WinnowingWoman lifestyle.  You see, eight months in (eight.flipping.months.), I am seeing progress.  Finally.  Real progress.  Not the *“look, I got the laundry room cleaned up!” long enough to take a picture of it and only to see it junked and cluttered with different stuff a month later* kind of progress.  Real progress. . .  

There is a place for everything, and everything is in it’s place (or can be put back there in about two minutes) in ALL of our bedrooms.  Clothes, toys, books, shoes, everything. A place for everything.

The Us-es have been observed day in and day out, helping me realize that out of a hundred toys, they consistently play with about the same twenty-five.  So broken toys have been trashed and the rest have been stored in an extra-large plastic container and put away in the garage for “trading out” every few months.

I can tidy the living room at a moment’s notice in less than five minutes, including returning the items back to where they go because now they actually have a designated location instead of “I don’t know, just put it somewhere” (read: our bedroom). 

The kitchen dishes can (and do) still get backed up and overlooked for a whole day’s worth of meals, but the entire kitchen can now be cleaned to a spotless shine in less than an hour because we simply don‘t own too many plates or pans or utensils.

Closets have been gone through and then thought through before anything went back on a shelf or rod.  We know what we have in there.  Nothing lurking in corners neglected or forgotten. 

The front and back yards have been purged of broken toys and random shrapnel (tools, plastic plant pots, wood scraps, etc.) so all that remains is the beauty of Creation, swings, slides, a playhouse, garden beds, and room to romp.

Eight months.  It has been a long time.  I look back in review and see this long string of starts and stops and steps backwards.  I have done huge things that ultimately made little impact, and tiny tweaks of things here and there that resulted in monumental improvement in the way our home operates.  Lots of trial and error.  Plenty of one-step-forward-two-steps-back.  Eight.Months.

I also peek back over my shoulder at the gal who started out on this winnowing endeavor and sort of chuckle and roll my eyes at how easy (or at least quick) I thought the challenge would be.  I actually and truthfully remember thinking around the first of February something to the affect of, “What will I do in a month or two when all the winnowing is finished?”  Ha.  Foolish, ignorant lass.  If she only knew then…

But I’m glad she didn’t.  Like everything else, this has required process.  Birth, death and burial, and rebirth.  And just looking at the components of the life-cycle and these elements of process, I see now there isn’t any one of them that in some capacity isn’t messy or hard or painful.  If I remembered that at the beginning of this quest, my own resistance to discomfort or hard work or change would have potentially locked me down.  I perhaps would have settled and “kept the peace”, a counterfeit, instead of “making peace”, the authentic, in our home and family.

I have stuff left to do.  There are things that remain to be learned.  Mistakes are still going to be made.  Thinking-it-through will continue to be requisite.  And I’ll still need some changing.  That’s good.  It’s all good.  More process.  Once again I am reminded that the process is likely the point.

Eight months later.  Who knew we’d be here?

Eight is great.

The Mother Lode

You asked for it. You got it.

Wait. You didn't ask for it? Well, you're getting it anyway.

So a couple dozen posts ago I think I alluded to that special place in the confines of our Quaint Cottage where all things go to die. It has been straightened, but never thoroughly winnowed. It has been ignored and very thoroughly neglected. As of this past weekend, this, my friends, is no more.

Operation Garage Clean Out started on Friday morning. Ma Luffin' Mayun and I loaded up the wee Us-es and took them over to Nana's and Pawpaw's for the day. We picked them up Friday night to let them sleep at home, and then returned them to the Grands' for the whole day on Saturday. We knew that if we were to get the epic task of cleaning out the garage anywhere near done, it would have to be without sweet and/or not-so-sweet interruptions from the kiddos.

There aren't even words to describe the mess we let the garage get into. There were nooks and crannies that had some semblance of order from long ago (i.e. Christmas decorations in their boxes and grouped together, personalized mementos boxes for each family member, etc.). Those little bright spots of organization were helpful reminders that we are fully capable of implementing workable systems, which was nice in the midst of the massive amounts of cumulative disorder we've been building up.

Here are some things that led to such a monumental clean-out job. For starters, owning too much unnecessary, unused stuff (funny how it goes back to that, huh?). Second, not caring well for some of what we do possess. This second thing shows itself especially in the haphazard way we have maintained the interior of our vehicles. Let me explain...

If we leave to go anywhere there is nearly always an accompanying sippy cup and bottle. Most times a toy is also added. Now that Brilliant Beauty emulates being a grown-ish type gal, there's usually a pocket book thrown in. Possibly a jacket or sweater. Maybe a snack. Of course there's my purse and a diaper bag. Then, no matter where we go, there is the undeniable urgency for my kiddos to remove shoes and socks and fling them about. Add to this the occasional junk mail envelopes, miscellaneous school papers, fast-food wrappers (gasp), random rocks plucked out of parking lots by tiny hands, and the cornucopia of CDs rolling around in the floor board from a frenzied effort to find the exact music to calm the savage beast(s). Stir in a couple of bedraggled parents and three kiddos who've been crammed into a backseat where no one has even pretended to maintain their own space bubble or their inside voices (our family doesn't actually come equipped with inside voices...I blame Ma Luffin' Mayun. If you know him, you blame him, too, right?). By the time this party-on-wheels rolls back up to Quaint Cottage, there ain't nobody standing in line to straighten out the fresh mess in the car. So what happens? It's starts over on the next ride. And the cycle continues.

Where the garage factors into all this is when the vehicle has reached critical mass, it's contents are emptied into a box or bag and then thrust into the garage to be dealt with "later". And so on, and so forth.

I've got no sob story. We just own too much; more than we can steward well. And even as I have winnowed within the livable space of our home I would so often just take the winnowed content to the garage. Again, until "later".

"Later" needs to be taken out to the woodshed. "Later" was Friday and Saturday.

And let me just say, we were some winnowing fools. We spanked it.

How about some pictures?

Disclaimer: Ma Luffin' Mayun would rather willingly ingest long-expired honey buns laced with pesticide than show these pictures, but in the name of catharses and for The Greater Good, he's consented. Besides, he's already had that type of honey bun, you only live once, and he needs to try something new.

And it's okay to gasp in shock and awe. Really. It is. We'll never know you did it.

Here you have it.  The nightmarish mess.  There are toys to be gotten rid of, books to be sifted through, boxes to be emptied, trash to be cleaned out, out-of-season clothes to be sorted, furniture to be decided on...Go ahead, gasp.  You can even vomit if you need to.

Same crap, different angle.  The curtain was from a long ago time when we used the garage more and I wanted to cover up the stuff being stored in the alcove.

You can see we are making progress.  This is about mid-way through our work on Friday.

More sorting and shuffling and shipping out.  That guy is the other staff member of our two-person team.

This is toward the beginning of Saturday.  By this point we had filled up our Volvo station wagon, with all but the front seats let down . . . TWICE . . . and taken stuff to the thrift store drop off.

That's a lot of cargo space for a whole lot of CRizzAP.

Goodbye THIRD carful of stuff!

Ma Luffin' Mayun is pushing the.last.box of unidentified stuff in our entire house.  Front to back, side to side.  What a great face actor.  TRUE STORY...In this, the last box, I found buried at the bottom of it an organization system I had painstakingly made once upon a time.  It was the Sidetracked Home Executive system I had borrowed from KakiBlack.  I thought hubster and I were going to bust a gut laughing at the irony.  Classic.

This is the Jeep with all seats laid down, full of nothing but trash to be thrown out...papers, broken toys, blah, blah, blah...

We took all loads of giveaway and trash IMMEDIATELY.  Not "later".  That felt so good.  I really do think the two of us enjoyed working together on this.  We made a great team and shared a unified focus and vision.  One day soon, this garage will be renovated into more livable space for our family, a Family Room.  We don't know when, or exactly how the financing will happen, but we know it will.  We need it.  And now we are about two bazillion steps closer to it being reality.

Are you ready?  I don't think you're ready.  Are you?  You sure??  Here it is...

Uh huh.  Yep.  That's the floor, my friends.

The pink and blue bins are toys, alongside a toy stable and Mister The Pooh.  In the back left corner, the alcove that was formerly being used for storage, I set up an arts and crafts area for the kids with all sorts of bins for supplies.  Ma Luffin' Mayun took my Christmas decorations and our memento boxes that had previously been stored there into the attic.  Prior to him doing so, there was nothing being stored in the attic.  Brilliant Beauty spent the better part of Monday in this new space for creativity and imagination.

This is the wall of furniture we need to decide on keeping or letting go of.  The bags/box piled there are clothes that have so generously been given to us for the kids that I need to sort through and assimilate into their wardrobes.  These clothes are such a blessing, but the sorting thereof is one of the banes of my mommydom.

On this wall is three pieces of furniture we will definitely be keeping, and the items we found going through everything that I need to sort and find places for in our home.  My goal is to empty ONE bag/box/container per day until it's done.  If I do this, that whole area will be completely cleaned out in under two weeks.  Not bad, totally do-able.

So, here's a couple of side-by-side, before-and-after comparisons...

Not too shabby.

God willing and if I have my say, never again will that kind of anarchy hide in our house.  It felt so good to get all that stuff out of here.  We didn't know what we had, and realized we didn't need most of it.  And the best thing is that now we can see what is to come in this space.  In so many ways, it can already be used right now before the first renovation happens.

Did I learn anything?  Oh, yeah.  Enough to fill another post or two.  Mostly, that "later" is certainly an enemy of a truly peaceful "now".  Things shouldn't be left lurking.

Winnow we did.  And, boy, that feels amazing.  Now on to bigger and better things...but not more stuff.

Out, Out, OUT!

Hi all. So glad to steal away and have a bit of time to write.

So a couple of posts ago I alluded to the unscheduled-but-entirely-imperative winnowing of Brilliant Beauty's room. I still don't have the energy to poetically or prosaically tell the story of why or how (ummm, isn't that part of what this blog is for). Once again, it is sufficient to put it simply: "Needless to say, there was plenty of opposition". The gal had too much stuff (not a ton too much, but too much to manage even by eight-year-old standards - too many garments, too many scraps of paper, too many shoes, too much dress-up stuff, etc.), couldn't keep it straight, and repeatedly lost the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates to her floor. No one should have to suit up for extended deep sea diving just to find the surface of their carpet.

I am most happy to report that the winnowing SO helped, and the little cutie has happily and capably kept the room tidied all week. Once again, everything has a place so she can't give me the "But Mo-o-om, I don't know where it GO-oes!" crapola. Today she tidied again so I can take pictures of the cutie's new-and-improved crib. I'll post those tomorrow.

Today...ah, today...it ended up being Little Big Man's turn. In a stark contrast to Brilliant Beauty's scenario, he definitely had a ton too much stuff.

I fully expect to find toys strewn about every day from his happy play. I'm okay with that. It's not my favorite thing in the world to step on the jagged edge of a building block or slip on a toy car or to have to clean it all up at the end of a day of play. But he's two, and I'd rather have him, even with his highly accomplished mess-making skills, than not at all.

But here's the cycle in which we have found ourselves. Not only are toys strewn, but they are also abandoned in their location, wherever that may be, and forsaken for some other toy. The "new" toy isn't played with for long when it, too, is left wanting for it's owner. This goes on all day where his toybox toys are concerned. Lots that catches the eye, but nothing that holds his interest. It's tooooo much. Sensory overload. And I believe there's a level of agitation, in him even, with so many choices of things to play with.

One of the supremely coolest things about parenting (in my humble opinion) is watching all the developments take place in these little eternal souls, including the development of their interests. I'm not talking about the flash-in-the-pan interest like "Oh, I sooo want that toy that's advertised every 3.62 minutes on the Dizzyney Channel so that I can play with it, figure out it's not even as fun as watching the commercial, and toss it aside" kind of interest. I'm talking about who they are becoming, what they like doing. So far, my little guy (and his sister before him) are steady and firm in the things he likes most - ANYTHING that has to do with instruments (especially drums), Georgia Bulldog football (with all other sports a close runner-up), reading books, playing outside, and playing with cars. Now obviously he will gladly do other things, play with other stuff, but when this toy abandonment scenario plays out its usually because of one of these five things.

Here's a little of what we've done right:
-We've always read to the kids. That's a big deal to us. Ma Luffin' Mayun has the patience of Job when it comes to reading book after book, and if given the chance, they would do just that for hours. That's pretty cool (especially coming from a mama who dearly loves the written word). Admittedly, it can get old reading kid books when you're an adult, but it doesn't get old to them, so we try not to squelch it.
-We've given them room within limits to find out the things that not only pique their interest but hold it. For Brilliant Beauty it is dancing and reading and singing and playing restaurant and dressing-up while playing teacher/mommy/"famous"/widow/orphan (read: being melodramatic...oh the teen years to come...please God, let her melodrama be several notches down from my teenage angst!). She does and tries all kinds of things, but these are the things she comes back to, her default. We are watching Little Big Man for the cues to tell us his favorites and strengths (and potential weaknesses) much the same.
-We have always held the position that a lot of toys is far from ideal in how we want the kids to grow up.* In no way do we want the kids to feel neglected or impoverished, but when it comes to material stuff, the things that pass like a vapor, I can live with it if they are left with a certain healthy measure of wanting. I would give them the deepest desires of their hearts if I were capable, but I am not, and this life does not (and should not) work in such a way that we get all we want. And as they, we, get older there is something pretty awesome about discovering the happiness and joy and peace that comes from "doing without".
*The same goes with clothing

Now, here's where we've fallen down, blown it, thus leading to these two near-emergency winnowing projects:
-We have let toys accumulate far too much.
-Instead of weeding through the toys, we bought a bigger toybox for Little Big Man's room. That was a bad idea. Besides being too tall for him (if you didn't know, there is a strong emphasis on the word "Little" in his name), he skims only through about the top third of what is in the box. He has no idea what is down at the bottom. Heck, before today neither did I.
-Clothing that doesn't fit (outgrown or can't yet fit) has been left to pile up anywhere it can instead of being rightly dealt with (given away, packed up for the next season). I will say again that we have been blessed beyond measure with clothes for the us-es. It is amazing and humbling and almost unbelievable. But I have to stay on top of what comes in and KEEP IT MOVING. Remember, we live in 1,154 square feet. There is not the space, time, or energy for little mountains of stuff everywhere.

So I stepped in my little fella's room today and new it needed straightening (as does his two-year-old ATT-IT-TUDE of the last several days...Jesus, take the wheel...), but the thought of cleaning it without winnowing it first felt ridiculous. And, I assure you, it would have been. Keeping his key interests at heart, I did a pretty ruthless purge of his posessions. Boy, did it feel great. And it looks pretty awesome, too. I didn't take "before" pictures (oy, do I wish I had. Bad, blogger, BAD!), but here are the "afters":

You know me and my caddywompus angled shots. Here's his room from the door (it's a little blurry).

This is from another corner of his room. His books are now on a bookshelf. Before they were in a little red bin that was not really big enough to store them properly. That glowing craziness on top of the bookshelf is his "faux" fish tank. EtothaRtothaItothaCUH, do you remember making the artwork on the wall above the shelves?

This is the red bin that used to house the books, but now it's the location for all his favorite homedogs (real men aren't afraid to love a pink bunny) P.S. I need to vacuum.

Here is his closet. When I started today, I couldn't see the floor of the closet and it was stacked deep and high (about 4 feet) full of crib bedding, clothing and shoes that don't fit, and big, bulky toys. It was a nightmare.

Here is the closet now. All of his toys are right here. ALL OF THEM! His shoes are to the right, and FYI...that's a dress being saved for Pretty Baby hanging there, not for him.

Here's the view from his window, now with the footstool to the rocker there to serve as a little window seat (and don't forget the sippy cup with Bulldog koozie).

And another shot from the window. He likes this spot. He climbed up on the stool and reported back to me everything he saw. I asked him if he saw any birds and he replied, "Nope. I'm sorry, Mom. I don't."

Here's the top of his dresser. This is one of my favorite spots because it has a pull toy my Daddio got from Ukraine, and also it has the three Hollyblocks (as they are known around here) via my friend Hollyster. Besides being ultra cute and fun and soft and cuddly, these blocks have an awesome, supernatural story. She and I didn't talk about the theme of his room, and I didn't know she was making these. They were in a delivered box on my doorsteps shortly after he was born. They may have been the thing that saved me that day. Seriously. I love them so much. I think of you every time I look at them, Holl.

Here's some evidence that God cares about the small intricacies we care about. Look how the blocks match the quilt.

The bed (duh). This is another favorite - the bed came from TheWorld'sGreatestNeighbor, and the artwork above it is pictures from nature that make up the alphabet and first ten numbers via Rach. Love it (but it looks like I need to straighten it tomorrow...).

I also had to winnow down which peeps could sleep in the bed with him. He would prefer all of his stuffed animals, but I narrowed it down to Nemo and The Street kids . . . and a football (hey, this is not the hill I want to die on, you know what I'm saying?).


Now, in addition to two 30-gallon trash bags of clothing that he can't wear anymore, this is what we got rid of. It makes my head spin just to think this was all in his room...

Don't be hatin', the pink car was Brilliant Beauty's, and now will be Pretty Baby's. We got Little Big Man a more, ahem, masculine ride.

Here are the girls, simply agog at the stuff, and that it ever all fit in the boy's room (I'm agog at the stains in the carpet...wood flooring someday, someday).

Welp, there you have it. The first and second us-es live in winnowed spaces. Hooray. And hopefully this will help us ALL to do better keeping the place straight.

Now how did it get to be 11:55 PM? AGAIN? This can't be the new norm. Get to bed!

Thanks for reading. Happy sifting!

Monday, Monday (ba-dah, ba-da-da-dah)

There you go, a little Mamas and the Papas for you.

I just finished an epic game of Bananagrams (read: in the top two of Best Games Ever) with Ma Luffin' Mayun, so my daily allotment of intellect (wanting to begin with) is beyond spent. (I won, by the way. We finished at almost the exact same time, him a little before me, but he misspelled a word so I win. **Find the word he misspelled and I'll send you a cookie. Seriously!)

I'm tired. REALLY tired.

We're blessed around here to generally have weekends that stay pretty free from plans other than just being together as a family, getting into whatever we decide in the moment. Some weekends are a polar opposite to that and seem to be full from closing time on Friday straight through to Monday morning. This weekend fit the latter description. I had big winnowing plans for Saturday and made sure the FabFive knew about them on Friday night. They nodded and went on with life. Then Saturday morning arrived and almost from the outset, not one thing I planned to do got done. Not.one. All day. The entire day. Not.one.thing.

It certainly wasn't a bad day. In fact, it had a lot of good in it. But there seemed to be a huge presence of the tyranny of the urgent throwing it's grotesque weight around. I am not easily ruffled or worn down in my patience, but I ended Saturday really exhausted, more than a little befuddled, and beyond ready to just go to bed and hit the reset button.

I'm tired, but there are lots of good things going on around here. And since I recently heard there was a study done by every other person who has ever lived in the history of the world that determined sleep is a good thing when you're really tired, I'll try to keep it brief using Ye Olde Bullet Points...

-Brilliant Beauty and her messy room, paired with the subsequent meltdown when she was told to clean it, got an unplanned bedroom beatdown on Saturday. I consistently help her winnow her room (otherwise her sentimental illness would dictate saving a scrap of every little thing she's ever touched), but we still filled one thirty-gallon trashbag with clothing and toys to give away, and another one half-way with just plain trash (papers, broken toys, etc.). Sheesh. I just started writing out some more of the details, but I think it deserves it's own post, so we'll save it for later.

-Laundry is the order of the day for tomorrow. I've got to get it caught up. The air is starting to thin out near the top of the pile.

-Little Big Man is still riding the PottyTrain and doing pretty well. We're not to the destination, but we're getting there and the ride isn't as uncomfortable as I thought it would be.

-It's time, no Time, with a capital T. Time to get a grip and winnow some weight. I'll tell you what's in the plan for making this happen. I'm excited and already have my feet on the path. We'll see.

-The kitchen's winnowed, Brilliant Beauty's room is winnowed, the living room is in process, and Little Big Man's room is next. Hopefully, it will be quick, fast, and in a hurry. Afterall, how much can a person have who's only been on the planet for under three year? (you don't want to know...)

-I'm loving Ma Luffin' Mayun's and my upcoming thirteenth anniversary. I'll post about it this week.

skj OIr fs .ffs.;kioooooooooooooooooooooooooo . . . okay, I'm basically falling asleep as I type. I think I'll go conduct my own research study to see if all this talk in praise of sleep for curing tiredness is really accurate.

I got nothing but love for ya, blogosphere homeslices, but I've got to go to bed.

P.S. Here's our Bananagrams game** (on the table my mom used to do her homework on when she was a kid...I love it, ESPECIALLY where the finish is rubbed off) Don't forget to find the misspelled word!

A Scullery Scower and Scrub

Well, you can all breathe easy in the knowledge that my kitchen is officially winnowed (I know the suspense has been stifling your oxygen intake). How about a little pictorial tour? Your wish is my command (within reason).

I tried my best to get before-and-after shots of everything for posterity, and, in some cases, I believe it will once again make me feel as if I might have flounced around in front of all of you in sundry states of undress. But in the tradition of God's original design (read: naked and unashamed) here are pictures of the process. I'm among friends here, right?

I didn't straighten any of the messes before snapping the shots. I have often heard of people who can afford someone coming in to clean their houses cleaning up before the cleaner(s) got there (SandraLane, you know I'm talking about you!). Nope, this is what it looked like and what we were dealing with on a daily basis.

This was my exact starting place. As we would say around Quaint Cottage when staring a mess in the face, this was "crunchy" (thirteen years of marriage with Ma Luffin' Mayun has developed quite an, uh, unique vernacular). A nice, hot mess. This cabinet was being used to store platters, underused appliances (i.e. ice cream maker), glass baking dishes, and a bunch of other bull butter (another us-ism...hey, is that a rabbit trapped under a glass cake plate lid?!).


Here is the same cabinet now. I know exactly what is in it. These are all appliances that I use on a regular basis (food processor, crockpot, blender, dehydrator, lightbulb oven (okay, maybe I don't use that regularly, but Brilliant Beauty can't bear parting with it), but don't want out on my counters. And all of the attachments and accessories for each of these appliances are stored together in the repurposed clementine oranges wooden box to the bottom right of the cabinet. This cabinet has been like this for a couple of weeks and TOTALLY makes sense, as well as kitchen life much simpler. *I also purged from my small appliances a deep fryer. I simply never used it. Judging by my thighs I shouldn't start now, so off it goes.


Next came this cabinet. As you can see it is half the size of the previous one, yet I was trying to make it contain all of the appliances.



Here it is now...


Good grief, what a difference. The contents are now mixing bowls, a few platters to actually BE USED (isn't that innovative?), glass bakeware, and measuring cups and spoons. This cabinet is located under the largest counter workspace I have and parallel to the upper cabinets where all of my pantry items are stored, so it makes too much sense for this to be home to mixing and measuring tools.

Another repurposed clementine oranges wooden box is home to my measuring cups and spoons.


This is some of the crizzap that came out of these two cabinets (except for the guitar...but don't think it couldn't have been in there buried under all that stuff). It will now Keep On Moving.



Next, the top of the refrigerator was quickly becoming the stuff of nightmares. Blech. I hate even looking at this junk heap.


Ahhhh. That's better. These are all things that I love and use (or want to use more), but haven't had in the right place to access or enjoy. I love it!


This is the cabinet above the stove. It's high up and really not a good place for the cookbooks, but I haven't put the thought into what should be there instead before now (really as with all the other kitchen elements).


So now the cabinet contains the ice cream maker, extra paper towel rolls, and extra napkins.


Alas, another poorly used cabinet, just to the upper right of the stove.


Now I can reach my cookbooks and the teapots (which I intend to use more).


Our medicine is stashed on the top shelf of this cabinet, with cooking oils, vinegars, and some spices on the bottom shelf. This cabinet is to the left of the stove.


I basically tidied this cabinet up. Once again, our super-consumption of clementines is obvious by the wooden box that now contains our medicines on the top shelf (I.love.these.boxes). And I put our frequently used spices (salt, pepper, creole seasoning, and cinnamon/sugar mix) in a glass bowl that can be taken down and put back before and after each meal.


Okay. This looks so staged. But I assure you, it ain't. When I opened this cabinet to take the before shot all this nonsense tumbled out.


But now...



Oh yeah. Now, all the plastic containers are stored with their lids on in a soft-formed box that can be easily taken in and out of the cabinet.
Also, plastic cups are stored in this cabinet so that Brilliant Beauty can grab one when she's thirsty and get herself something to drink.


Alright. This is so gag-a-maggot-on-a-gut-truck (so is that phrase, come to think of it).


Wow. A clean floor. And the drawer got a clean-out and straightening.



For some reason I don't have a before picture of this cabinet, but it was thoroughly winnowed and now looks like this. Also, because of the consolidation I was able to accomplish from cleaning out unused and underused stuff, I now have a cabinet completely dedicated to my reusable grocery sacks which were sorely homeless. It's a bit crammed full, but since the bags are all that's in there, I can live with that.




Here are the drawers...
spices

extra utensils


silverware


large dinner trays and miscellaneous items


foils, wraps, and plastic bags


There are a couple of other things I added to make room in cabinets and cut down on clutter. One is the addition of hooks under the cabinets to hang coffee mugs.



One of my all-time favorite additions arrived courtesy of my uber-talented blacksmithing father-in-law, Pawpaw. He made this for me. A one of a kind...

I love it!

Here's the pile of chaff (although I could think of another noun to substitute there), boxed, bagged, and thrift-store-ready.








Now here are shots of my freshly-cleaned, thoroughly-winnowed, user-friendly kitchen that I love so dearly.








Man, this feels good. Genuinely, I nearly don't have words to describe how gratifying it is to walk into this space and know that everything in it has been deliberated over and thought threw to determine it's function and purpose, to get rid of excessive and ill-used items, and embrace possessions that can serve our FabFive to the fullest.

I really do so love my kitchen now. I feel peaceful within it and about it. It would have been so nice to have winnowed the kitchen long ago, but alas, it is what it is...and I'm loving it now!

I thought I would end this post with images of some of my favorite elements in my kitchen; a little show-and-tell. Most all of them, almost without exception, are things someone else has Kept Moving and now are treasured by my us-es. If you've made it this far into the post, thanks for hanging in there through the process. It's been somehow cathartic just sharing it, and I so enjoy having you along for the journey.


These are my daily-used untensils in my favorite red vase


The coffee station (Ma Luffin' Mayun's favorite spot in the room)


My humble and often-used collection of cast iron


My BFF water bottle


Our aprons


I have forever loved this sewing box I got from my grandmother-in-law, Ma, (where I get lots of my treasures), so I decided to line the inside and use it to hold my everyday kitchen soaps and cleaners


When we lost my grandmother, RubyLee, all I wanted was her house plants. This is one of them


Cuban oregano from Schilde, with a stained-glass angel from JoJo


curtains I made when we first moved into Quaint Cottage


My window to the world of birds and kids at play


A lovely lantern from JoCanMax that sits atop the kitchen table my mother did her homework on when she was a girl


Who doesn't love Kermit T. Frog?


A trivet given by a dear friend about a million years ago (remember, TopNotchTeacher?)


These glasses and wire rack were another find by Ma. I had them on top of my cabinets as decoration for years, but decided I love them too much and they deserve to be used well


An antique Emerson fan from my SandraLane that used to cool her grandmother in the heat of cooking on the hottest of days


An angel made out of dishtowels and a oven mitt made by TheWorld'sGreatestNeighbor

Thanks again for reading!

P.S. I just proofed and there's a lot of "love" in this post. But seeing that it's 12:53am, I'm gonna let it eat...