Zone 1 - The HOW

Somehow I've suddenly gone all organizey on this blog....but it is where I'm at, so I'm gonna roll with it.  This should be the last post on my kitchen. Then I'll get back to sappy Navy wife business and psycho crazy-mama stories.

This is my "tutorial" on how to organize your kitchen. 

Well, at least the steps I follow/followed.

(Like there aren't enough organizer things online already! 

We've lived in 8 houses - I've had to figure out quite a few kitchens!)

First - psych yourself up. Pep talk yourself about how easy it will be. How totally awesome you are. And that HGTV will want to interview you after you are done. 

Then sit down and drink a cup of coffee. (This is vital)

Next, pick ONE drawer (preferably your junk drawer) to go through. Stand next to it with a trash can...and throw away. If you have held on to that recipe from a magazine for 2 years and have never made it - throw it away. It is sitting in the drawer (1) guilting you about not cooking something particularly amazing, (2) causing clutter, (3) adding to a list of ridiculous expectations for what you should be doing.  THROW IT OUT.  Broken crayons, scraps of paper, expired coupons, crappy plastic toys your kids got at the doctor, Sunday school papers - throw it all away. 

If it made it to the Junk drawer - it most likely wasn't a special enough, whatever, to keep. 

Chuck it. 

Once you are left with the important stuff - screwdriver, cookbook, masking tape, AWANA books, pencils that actually have an eraser, smoke detector that never shuts up - then you can figure out what to do with it. BUT FIRST - figure out the NEW purpose of your old junk drawer.  Put the stuff back in - making a list of any organization stuff you need - close the drawer, and you are done for the day. 

Seriously - don't burn yourself out! Anything that involves paper is exhausting to go through. So pace yourself!

**side note about organizer stuff: You want to go to Dollar Tree. DO NOT go to Wal-mart or Target and spend $6-$10 on one bucket just because it says Martha Stewart. That is dumb. Plastic bucket thingys are all the same - buy the cheap one. **

Next step - the rest of your drawers. I have an massive kitchen - for which I am very thankful - but that meant I had THREE drawers with papers in them. So, I managed to do all of them in the same day. Then, another day, I did the silverware drawer, the measuring drawer, and the tupperware drawer. A third day - I handled spices.  You do NOT have to do it all at once! Allow yourself a 2 week window and then commit to a certain amount of time to go through the smaller areas. 

After your drawers look beautiful and you can find everything easily - you will be annoyed that isn't the case for every spot in your kitchen! (This is why you do little things first - they give you the umph to tackle the big areas.)  

First wipe your counters - clear them off and scrub them. Wipe down your toaster - empty the crumb tray. Scrub your coffee pot. And then replace each item on the counter carefully thinking about its purpose. . . does it make sense to have it there? 

Does it have to be where its always been? 

Do you typically have to move it out of the way? 

Do you use it? 

Do you like it?  

Sometimes, there are decorations in a kitchen and they are there because they've always been there. Try clearing your counter off and seeing what it would look like set up differently. 

Maybe no decor? 

Maybe with a fruit bowl? 

Maybe a basket for collecting the mail? 

Think about what you use the space for....and what you WANT to use the space for. 

When it comes to the dishes/pots/pans/appliances section of organizing a kitchen - this is a bigger job. Leave this as the only thing you do in organizing the kitchen for one day. 

(I actually split it up over THREE! 

Dishes/serving dishes on one day, appliances another, pots/pans another)

First - pull everything out. 

Do you really need 6 serving dishes of the same size? (The answer is yes for some, and no for others!) Do you need 12 muffin tins? (I don't - but I have friends who definitely need all the baking gear they have) 

Kitchen at house #7

Are your dishes too many for your space? If yes - and you don't want to get rid of them - do you have a place where you could box them up and store them? 

If yes - and you DO want to get rid of the excess - walk them straight out to your car.  The next time you drive near the thrift store - drop them off.  

Go through each item carefully - why do you keep that one platter you've never used? 

Could it be displayed on a plate hook? (Use it as decor instead of as a platter)  

Or, use it in another area of the house as decor, or to hold plants, or jewelry, or bath things....just because it is sold to be used with food - it doesn't mean it has to stay there!

Kitchen at house #7...slightly short in the space department! And no dishwasher...very, very, sad.

Basically, when it comes to your kitchen - it shouldn't stress you out to work in it. If you have a small kitchen that can hold 5 days worth of food for your family and not a canned-good-more....don't fret! You have the gift of not "losing" food in your pantry! (Our last kitchen was that small. We stored cereal in a bucket on top of the dryer, and paper goods were stored in the back of our Suburban - along with the stroller) A small kitchen enables you to learn how to be more organized than if you had gobs of space. 

The white cabinet was my "pantry" at my last house!

Finally (probably a separate week!) attack your pantry. One shelf at a time...go through everything in there. Throw out what is bad or expired or stale. Donate stuff you will never use. Write down the things you have a little bit left of...and then figure out what you can make using those ingredients.  The goal is to streamline what you have. If you were moving in 6 months (we aren't!), you would start cooking from your pantry as much as possible so you wouldn't have to throw anything away....try to do that.  It will save you money, it will de-clutter the space, and it will make you feel like superwoman because you are so creative and thrifty! 

Maybe that last one is just me. 

Final thing - if I'm re-organizing anything and end up putting something in a new spot...I label the spot. With an actual label maker (LOVE!) or with masking tape and a sharpie. It helps the entire family find stuff...and put it away in the right spot! 

Have fun organizing!! 

I'd love to see pictures of your spaces...or of you drinking coffee and pysching yourself up. :)

~Whitney 

 Copyright 2013

Zone 1 - The Kitchen

Well, organizing has been a'happening here.  And it feels good. I have little bit of control in my spaces. At least until the Beans wake up. :)

The first Zone I decided to tackle was the Kitchen. There were a couple reasons I picked the kitchen first...
1. It was driving me crazy
2. I needed to re-organize everything so the Beans could be more helpful
3. My pantry was too over-loaded because I've never stayed in one place so long

When we first moved in this house...Bitty Bean was only 6 months old. Jumping Bean was just past 2 and into everything.  So, everything breakable was placed as high as possible.

Just 4 months later - Boy Bean was in the pod. So those dishes stayed high to keep me from bending over all the time.

But no longer.

Now our plates and bowls are in a bottom cupboard - String Bean can easily unload the dishwasher, and Jumping Bean can easily set the table.

We DO have a couple more kid-friendly plates....but my dishwasher is running. :)

Tupperware are in a bottom drawer - everyone can reach it there

Kid cups are in a bottom cupboard....the girls can reach everything themselves :)

I need to hit up the store....we typically have 5 juice jugs stored down here 

Measuring cups. spoons, and all that jazz....obnoxiously organized together. This drawer just makes me happy. :)

My pantry wasn't horrid...but I didn't know what I had...and that was causing me to poorly meal plan and throw away food. Not cool.

Now, everything has a place. And I actually know where it is!!! I am extremely thankful for this kitchen - it is by far the biggest kitchen I've ever had as a wife. (The pantry cupboard is actually bigger than ALL of my storage space in our last house)

Normally, there would be 5 cereal boxes in that breakfast shelf zone. 

In fact, there are so many cupboards....we made one our "office zone." The bucket on the 2nd shelf has all of my correspondence stuff in it (stamps, address book, notecards, envelopes) and the rest of the area is important stuff like sharpies and masking tape. :)

 Over all, I spent $15 on all the Green and blue organizing bins (I love Dollar Tree!) as well as $30 on new airtight containers for various foods. A kitchen I can easily cook in, and know what I have? Priceless.

Do I feel more in control? Not really.

But at least I'm no longer hunting late at night for treat that isn't there!

~Whitney
 Copyright 2013

Control....

#1 question this week:

"How are you doing with him gone?"

A valid question. An understandable one. And a pretty easy one to answer.

"Fine. (Really) We knew this was coming - we prepared - and now we are in it. The separating is never easy - but the I'm-in-charge-of-everything-all-by-my-big-girl-self? That part we have down to pretty smooth."

The first time apart - Basic Training, 2004 - was wicked, insane, horrible, hard.  I didn't have any tools in my arsenal to know what to do when my favorite person is far away and unable to communicate. (2 letters and two, 5 minute phone calls weren't much communication.)

The next time - tour of the Caribbean January 2005-April 2005 - was less awful. Although, I still was often battling against some huge, heavy, wall of dark that just wanted to immobilize me. I had to fight exceptionally hard to not spiral into deep spaces of sadness.

And I learned that it is okay to use paper plates sometimes. (Doing the dishes is overrated anyway.) Especially when you are in your first trimester with your first child, exhausted from throwing up, at a new job, and only know 2 people in the city and are all by yourself and it is sleeting and 33 degrees and the sun hasn't showed up for weeks and when you DO hear from your husband he's in a tropical, WARM, paradise.  But I digress.

But, honestly, each time it has gotten easier. Not because I love him less (quite the contrary!), but because I know better what to expect and how to handle things. I know there are rhythms and normal ups and downs that will happen every time.

Like organizing like a mad fiend. 

What? You don't see how that has to do with a separation??? Well, let me explain.
I like control. Or at least the idea that I have control over something.
Being married to a Navy man....and an aviator at that!....leaves me with diddly squat in the control department. So, I organize. When he leaves - always - I pick SOMETHING to work on. To improve. Not because I need to "keep myself busy," but because it makes me happy to be in charge of something.

This year, I'm going through my house. We've never lived anywhere this long - 3 years!!! - so I've actually never had the chance to organize and re-organize a home. I've always just been prepping for a move.   I've gone through the house and broken it down into zones to work on. I'll do one per month. (I also have a sedentary project for each month, just in case I lack get-up-and-go, or get ahead of schedule. HA!)

January? 

The Kitchen.  

 More on that....tomorrow. ;)

~Whitney Copyright 2013