18 Jul 2012

De-junk your kitchen

Halfway thru Leftover Week – just pasta puttanesca and pumpkin soup to go on the dinner front! Here’s another entry from the deep-freeze of my journals (Feb this year). I hope you enjoy. Perhaps you even identify with me a little?
I cannot read a home magazine or one of my beloved Ikea catalogs without sooner or later moving from the couch and into the kitchen in search of a makeover to deliver. Or the laundry, or the bookshelves. These magazines create an itch to re-arrange and re-organise and re-style, in my own limited way (since I don’t have a block of Marseilles savon or artful roll of wallpaper to hand – not at 9.30 at night, anyway).
This usually results in re-organising the ingredients in my pantry. Yes, that is my guilty secret (actually I have worse inclinations, like re-organising my cutlery drawer or tea towel stash). I decant half empty jars of walnuts into smaller jars, so the supply looks more substantial (and aesthetically pleasing) and the shelf space is better used. I transfer things from one container to another, creating new groupings, like with like. And then I usually label the daylights out of everything. Yes, I know.
Last week, I was prompted to re-arrange my baking drawers by the purchase of my new measuring jug. Because I’d somehow lost my other one (how do you lose a measuring jug?). Out come shoe boxes, clean and saved for just this kind of re-purposing – corralling my measuring spoons, scoops, cups and jugs into new and exciting combinations!
About a month ago, I also got ruthless with the plastics – the ice cream containers, takeaway containers, yoghurt pots; the ones with lid and the ones without (however in a short time they have multiplied again; every time I open the cupboard door I risk being bonked on the head by a falling container). I sorted thru the salt and pepper and found a new display spot for them on the bench (the yellow Twinings tin I kept the salt flakes in was too pretty to hide behind cupboard doors!).
I get this wonderfully calm feeling when I stand back and survey the results. When I open the drawers and doors, or walk back into the room solely to have another peek at my handiwork (only five minutes after leaving the room. Again - yes, I know).
There’s this calm optimism that my life will be better – that I am now a better person. That life is now smoother, more logical, and more liberated because of this beautiful underlying structure I have imposed on things. I am fully aware that I’m thinking that the next day will somehow be better and brighter because of this magazine-induced frenzy to sort my flour collection.
I chuckle to myself – I can see thru all of this! And then I think, I really should get back to my more productive and less OCD hobbies. Like folding my socks just so.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous06 July, 2015

    I am totally with you here. There is nothing like sorting out the pantry for sorting out your life. I have a sister-in-law on the other side of the globe and we both agree that organising cupboards (especially in the kitchen) is cathartic. So that makes three of us.

    And you should just see me pack a suitcase!
    It's the Virgo in me.

    I am enjoying reading through your old blog posts this morning. A great blog.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. hey jean, thanks for your lovely comment here!
      oh, i think one of the best parts of a trip away is planning what to take and laying it into the suitcase.
      maybe i'm part virgo - i'm Taurean actually, where does that fit? :-)

      Delete

Word-verification is on, as the robot-spammers are loving my tuna past bake too much at the moment! I hope you understand - and I hope you'll still leave a comment at Dig In. I love hearing your thoughts, knowing someone is reading, and will always reply. Unless you're a robot-spammer.