Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone had a nice spooky holiday. Sam played with his Halloween themed sensory bin, as pictured below. Dyed rice, black beans, and stuff from the dollar section (and seasonal section) at Target made a decent bin in an old cake pan. Originally I was hoping to have all the characters from this song, in the appropriate quantities, but I had trouble finding small witches and black cats. (Why couldn't it have been bats? Those things are everywhere!)

I made Sam's costume from a cheap t-shirt and puff paint. He is the villager from Animal Crossing and Super Smash Bros for Nintendo 3DS. I tried to get a butterfly net for him to go with the shirt, but ended up with a minnow net instead, that was barely used. It was pretty much too cold and he was too cranky to trick-or-treat. Here he is, first thing this morning, looking a little out-of-it, but it was as still as I could get him for most of the day.

For reference, here's a video of what his character is supposed to look like in Smash Bros. Here are a couple of videos of the Animal Crossing games he's played. Lately he's more into Kirby and Yoshi games, but I don't think he could handle that much of a costume yet.

31 Day Challenge: Pantry

Step 12 was the pantry, which followed after the kitchen cupboards quite nicely, as I filled a laundry basket with unopened staples that belonged "not in the kitchen". We designated two three full bookshelves in the basement office for storage of unopened staples and off-season or rarely used cooking canning equipment. I ended up using one of them for the home-canned foods I made over the summer, and one for empty jars, gear, and other supplies.

The other has more store-bought things that it just didn't make sense to store in the kitchen proper. One issue we have with Sam is that he gets a little obsessive of his snack foods, and will pester us relentlessly if he can see that we have one of his favorites and we aren't allowing him to have it right at that moment. For example, chips and cookies have to be stored out of sight, since otherwise he will eat a whole bag over the course of a day and nothing else. Or, worse, he dumps things out on the floor or the furniture and we end up wasting a lot of food, making a mess, and possibly attracting pests! Ugh!

Pictures! [Please note that once again, the office is a work in progress. Home office is step 22 and craft supplies are step 27. We'll get there!]

Before: Canned foods shelf, with two bags of lids and Certo and Sure Jell.

Before: Pantry shelf with empty jars and a lot of things that don't belong!

Before: Food removed from the kitchen

After: Canned foods shelf with nothing on it but canned food! I couldn't quite get far back enough to see the whole thing, but top of the shelf is whole fruit in syrup, relishes, mustards, and some of the applesauce; first shelf is tomatoes and a couple of stray applesauces; next is syrups, next is pickles, next is jams, jellies, and more applesauces, and the bottom shelf is a quart jar holder with tomatoes, pickles, and possibly even more applesauce. You can tell what I canned last and didn't leave room for. I might use some small risers to make room for applesauces on the syrup shelf.

After: Canning equipment with food mill and other straining gear up top, lids and staple ingredients on first shelf, two shelves of jars, and bottom shelf with quart jar box with empty jars and the canner with tools stored inside it.

After: Food pantry with surplus food storage bags and wrap up top; pastas and rice; chips and bagged snacks; cereals, bars, and boxed snacks; baking stuff ingredients; and jars, cans, and bottles.

I had to kick Dan out of the office for awhile to finish this up and write this post, so I better give it back. Onward! #LWSLClutterFree

31 Day Challenge: Kitchen cupboards

Continuing with the kitchen, step 11 was the cupboards. OMG the cupboards. And drawers. Seventeen before shots. I momentarily froze, completely overwhelmed.

The cupboards drive me crazy for several reasons. There are a lot of them, but they are not particularly deep, aside from the ones below counter height. I am short, and cannot easily access most of the upper shelves without use of a step stool. Some are placed awkwardly over the counter. And then there is the "pantry". I'm not calling it that for the purposes of this project, because it houses our "open" staple foods we use daily, like cereals and snacks. (Tomorrow will feature the "real" pantry, aka shelves in the basement.) But it was overflowing with crazy.

Another huge challenge, which I am completely mortified about, but which I might as well be honest about, is that part way through this we discovered we had a mouse. A mouse family, really. We only noticed "evidence" of their arrival in the last week or so, just as I was starting on this part of the purge. So far we've trapped at least two. So anyway, as I cleaned, I wiped out everything with bleach and ran everything I could through a sanitize cycle in the dishwasher. It made the whole process take much longer, but forced me to be more thorough, which was good. Apparently this time of year, with the weather turning colder, they are more likely to invade. Whatever. I am still freaked out. But we're managing. And buying a ton of traps.

Since there are so many different cupboards, I am following the before shots with their corresponding after shots.

Before: Cupboard above fridge holds very little.

After: Cupboard above fridge holds defunct knife block with spare steak knives, rice cooker, blender, booze.

Before: Cupboard between fridge and microwave holds large baking dishes, and other stuff. Cupboard above microwave holds bowls, strainers, and small stock pot.

After: Cupboard between fridge and microwave holds everyday plates, bowls, cups; cupboard above microwave holds strainers on left, ramekins in middle [probably temporary], mixing/serving bowls on right

Before: Corner cupboard next to microwave holds knives, rice cooker, specialty cutting tools, liquid measuring cups, thermometers, etc. Cupboard to the left of the sink holds food storage bags and wraps, Sam stuff, pastas.

After: Corner cupboard next to microwave holds specialty cutting tools on top shelf, liquid measuring cups, food scale & thermometers on middle shelf, and small selection of knives on bottom shelf. Cupboard to the left of the sink holds anchor baking dishes on top, and plastic containers with lids on middle and lower shelf.

Before: Cupboards above the sink, with medicines, coffee mugs, plastic cups, dishes, etc.

After: Cupboards above sink, with medicines [to be organized in a later task], coffee mugs, cleaning materials, and towels, dishrags & shamwows.

Before: Cupboard to the right of the sink, with towels, dishrags, shamwows, and sippy cups

After: Cupboard to the right of the sink, with Sam stuff for sensory bins, play doh, bubbles, etc.

Before: Lower cupboard between fridge and stove, with baking dishes & pans, cutting boards, double boiler, etc.

After: Lower cupboard between fridge and stove, with skillets, wok, griddle, lids, cutting boards, and trivets. Thinking about getting a lid rack.

Before: Drawer below oven with skillets, wok and lids

After: Drawer below oven with metal baking pans, cookie sheets, muffin tins and cooling racks

Before: Lower Cupboard below sink with plastic containers, stand mixer and cleaning products, and unbeknownst to me at the time, a happy home for mice. :(

After: Lower cupboard below sink. Mostly empty but for mouse traps. Going to sit empty until I'm satisfied there are no more pests.

Before: Utensil drawer between fridge and stove

After: Utensil drawer between fridge and stove. Very little changed, just cleaned out properly and a few old rubber scrapers and wooden spoons purged.

Before: 2nd drawer with random small-ish cooking and baking items [The top drawer was the junk drawer I've already featured.]

After: 2nd drawer, mostly the same. Got rid of duplicate items aside from pizza cutters (yes we do need 3, shh)

Before: Drawer with dry measuring cups, measuring spoons, and mason jar drinking lids and straws

After: Drawer with dry measuring cups, measuring spoons, and mason jar drinking lids and straws. Again, not much change, just grouped like with like and made a mental note to get some rings to keep the sets together where possible.

Before: Drawer with more cooking utensils

After: Drawer with more cooking utensils. Got rid of a few unnecessary duplicates and items that were in poor condition. Otherwise, pretty much the same. 

Before: Top 3 shelves of food storage

After: Top 3 shelves of food storage. Got rid of anything that was open, expired, or otherwise questionable. Moved unopen unexpired foods to basement pantry. Still need to figure out a better solution for spices and baking ingredients.

Before: Bottom 3 shelves of food storage

After: Bottom 3 shelves of food storage. Did the same as above, but also moved plastic food storage bags and wraps, plastic utensils, etc to middle shelf and paper towels, napkins, lunch bags, wet ones, and vinegars to bottom shelf. Fruit is temporarily locked up on top shelf.

Before: Spice racks

After: Spice racks. Removed non food/cooking items, but still need to work on this area.

Before: Space above left side of kitchen cupboards, full of junk

After: Space above left side of kitchen cupboards, empty!

Before: Space above right side of kitchen cupboards, also full of junk

After: Space above right side of kitchen cupboards, also empty!

So that's almost all of it. I forgot to include a cabinet that faces the dining room, which is where the stand mixer ended up, and the china hutch in the living room, which is where the large baking dishes and platters and things ended up, in the lower cupboards there. It's still all a work in progress, and as of last night I was super unhappy with the state of my counters, but I'm plugging away at it. Trying not to let the mouse thing get me stuck, like it did for awhile on Friday. My mantra has been "Can't go over it, can't go under it, can't go around it, guess we'll have to go through it." It's not like I can just "nope" my way out of it: the pest issue has to be addressed, for my family's safety, and sticking my head in the sand will do absolutely no one any good at all. Saturday I pretty much ran the dishwasher all day long. Threw out two large black trash bags worth of crap, and set aside a few things to donate.

Anyhow. I'm more than ready to move on to another area, after tomorrow, which is the pantry! Onward! #LWSLClutterFree

Loosely collected thoughts

No new 31 day challenge today. I am working on kitchen cupboards and drawers, but it is turning out to be a bigger/tougher job than I had anticipated. Luckily, later in the challenge, there are things I had already done or things that we don't actually have (separate master bathroom and kid's bathroom, for starters.) I'd also been working on our bedroom for a few weeks before this whole thing started, so I am not going to have a whole lot of "before" pictures there. In other words, I'm probably going to do some skipping ahead until I can finish the kitchen properly.

A little bit ago I did something I haven't done a whole lot of this year: started a crochet project. Sam is in private therapy in the afternoons a couple of days a week, and now that he's not a baby, I get to spend a lot of time in waiting rooms, instead of in with him. I have grand plans of reading and crafting during that time. We'll just have to see if it happens. My current project is one I've done before, but not since I was pregnant with Sam and on bed rest.

I spent the summer preserving all manner of fruits and vegetables, mainly local, mostly from recipes from Food In Jars. I didn't take many pictures during the process, but I'll try to get a few of what the author calls "preserves in action" over the winter. Thinking that all of my jams and jellies will be excellent on my homemade bread. I'm still menu planning, so there is that.

What else is going on with me? Not a whole lot. Just sticking to the "Susie Homemaker" stuff until I get the house sorted out. Somewhere along the line I realized that we've been living here for years now, but not really ever finished moving in or decorating. For awhile, when Sam was small, it felt futile to even try. He just destroyed everything we tried to have up on the walls. Now, I am taking a different tack, getting rid of the things that don't fit our life as it is now, and adding new things that work for us. Vertical blinds destroyed? How about simple drapes with tie backs instead? Candles not an option with little kids around? How about LED candles, in sconces, up high? So we're learning. (And trying not to buy anything so expensive that we'd be heartbroken if he ruined it, e.g, a $35 synthetic rug from Target instead of a $200+ wool rug.)

31 Day Challenge: Kitchen counters

Oh, good. We're breaking the kitchen into pieces. Thank goodness. Step 10 was the counters. It's going to get a little confusing from here on out, because a lot of the things on the counters ended up belonging in the cupboards (which is the next step).

Before: Long counter

Before: Corner between sink and stove

Before: Small counter between stove and fridge

Before: Lunch containers removed from corner area before I took pictures (oops).

The long counter, aka the peninsula (since it's not an island but acts like one) is simultaneously my favorite part of the kitchen and the bane of my existence. There is so. much. workspace. But that means that there is so much space to attract clutter. When things that come into the house don't get to their final destinations, they end up either left on the entryway, in the living room, or here.

Following the rule that everything on the counter should be used at least 3 times per week, here's what I ended up with: 

After: Long counter

Cup drying rack, fruit bowl, mail inbox, binders, toaster, coffee pot, dish soap, hand soap. These are all used daily.

After: Corner between sink and stove

I put my cleaning brushes in an old utensil holder, then we have flour, sugar, brown sugar, salt, coffee & filters, carafe, salad spinner, utensil holder. Not all are used daily, but at least a  few times a week.

After: Small space between stove and fridge

I broke down and bought a bread box. Since I bake my own bread a lot during the colder months, I find this to be a needed item. Plus, that way the bagels and buns and whatnot aren't just lying around wherever. I especially like that the lid is translucent, so I can sort of see what's in there.

After: Here's what happened to some of the plastic lunch containers. I made a lunch station on top of my rolling cart.

After: The bread machine, crock pot, and rotisserie fit nicely into/onto this cube organizer in the dining area. I added a small bin for potato storage. It's the one spot that isn't underfoot that doesn't normally get much direct sunlight.

A good portion of what came off of the counter was tossed out, but some of it may end up in cupboards as needed. Which, like I said, is the next step. Onward! #LWSLClutterFree