Livin' the Dream, Baby!

Okay so maybe that is an exaggeration, but my inner OCD child is so happy!

As you know I've been making preparations for life in my tiny house.  Last week I revamped my pantry, and my spices had to be next.

Here are the scary conditions in which my spices lived:

I mean, can't the spice companies get together and agree on a container size and type??



 But now -- and brace yourself for the glory...

Holy cow.

I need about 10 more tins, which are on the their way from Specialty Bottle. (Love that place - really inexpensive, and fast, reasonable shipping.  And they have everything!)   I thought I counted correctly, but no.  And I neglected to make a label for my kelp - I printed my own labels - you can order them online, but if you need immediate gratification like I do, you want them NOW.  Plus, most of the ones offered on line were fussy.  I just wanted plain, utilitarian labels.

The tins have clear lids, which is cool.  I was just amazed as I dumped each bottle into a tin how beautiful the different textures of all the spices were!  And the colors... and the aromas... Now I understand those posters of pictures of heaps of spices that I see around... they really are beautiful.  It gave me a whole new appreciate for spices.  Speaking of which, I really need a class on cooking with spices.  When I don't use recipes (often) my combinations are hit or miss.  I've thought about this book, but I don't really want recipes - I just need some spice know-how.  Ah, another topic.

So now that I know how much space the tins take up, I can start thinking about where I will put them in my tiny kitchen.  Originally I thought a shallow drawer.  Then I thought about a magnetic board.  I really want kitchen items to be visible and reachable - I don't know why, but I have this aversion to opening cabinets and drawers to get things out.  Like that is wasted time/energy.  I'd like to just grab something and set it back down in it's place.  If you Google that type of organization you get a zillion hits, so the ideas are out there.  I just need to devote some mental space to it.  But hey, one thing at a time.

But I'm getting equipped to be a kitchen ninja.  Fair warning.

And today the thing is

And today I am eating beets while wearing a new white linen skirt. 

Maybe I should go have Tex Mex for dinner, as well, and really be terrified.

And More of the Same

My reduction of material possessions continued this weekend... gosh it feels so good!  I tackled a few things that have been hanging over my head:

Sewing Machine & Notions:  A friend and former neighbor is going to "foster" my sewing machine and notions for me.  I don't want to get rid of it, but I don't need it in the immediate future.  And she was having seller's remorse for getting rid of hers - win/win!  I sat down on Saturday and sorted out all the spools of thread (organized by size, of course - OCD) and the bobbins.  And then consolidated all the notions from 3 containers down to two.  And, delivered them to her.  Check.

Christmas Ornaments:  I took down the big cardboard ornament storage box - you know the kind with all the little square dividers - and sorted them.  One pile was the Old World Christmas collectible ornaments; Some of those I am giving away, and some I am selling. One pile was the hand knitted ornaments from my Great Aunt  Hazel; I thought that pile was bigger, but somehow it was only 3 ornaments.  Hmm.  Then I pulled out the 3-4 sentimental ones that I want to keep.  And the rest?  After blast email to sisters offering them, I took them to Goodwill.  (And then I heard from a sister today - saying yes.  Whoops.  Things go fast here, people, you've gotta move fast.  LOL)

 

I found a friendly home for my golf clubs...and shoes.

I took more clothes out of my closet... and did a trip to Goodwill.

And then?  The big kahuna:  I opened my footlocker.  The home of things like report cards K- 12 and college.  Wedding items.  Sister wedding items.  Glass cats made by grandpa. My old diary from junior/senior high.  Piles and piles of notes I passed in high school.  It was a Pandora's box.  No wonder I had been putting it off!  But now, there is about 6 inches of paper in it.  I toted a huge construction bag of stuff to the apartment dumpster - I literally could hardly carry it.  But again - so nice to have that done!  I should have taken photos of the evidence of my progress, but I didn't.  I was on such a tear it didn't occur to me to document!

More Mason Jars:  I bought more jars, and tackled the nutty situation in my freezer.  Oh my gosh!  Here's what I pulled out of my freezer - total nightmare:

But just a few minutes later, it was transformed into this:

Ahhhh.  I feel sooo much better!  And my freezer is a lot happier, too!

Onward.  Upward.