MORNING ARRIVED and I was ready for it. What a great feeling to be ready for the day. No coffee for me. Water. Sipping out of a 1.5 LITER bottle of ALPINE SPRING WATER. Sipping it. Shall see how much I can drink before evening without guzzling it too quickly. Slow, steady stream.
Outside temp is presently at 31 degrees with hopes of reaching the mid 50s this afternoon coasting into the high 40s in the night. I should take an afternoon walk to the POST OFFICE to get the mail and stretch my legs. Fresh air and sunshine. Good combination.
Plans to stay HOME and not go to TOPEKA this fine Tuesday. I desire to work at organizing our sweet little KITCHEN. Hubby has plans to repair the PT Cruiser's window. I need to be HOME while he works on the car.
I started the morning chores by finishing placing the umpteen pieces of everyday dishes into the cabinet. The pots 'n pans started migrating to the metal cart from which the dishes had been. When we were replacing dishes after the 2016 house fire, we truly were in shock and went overboard replacing dishes.
I have dishes running out of my head sideways. We were on a mission to purchase nice, good quality everyday dishes. We started at the great store TUESDAY MORNING in Manhattan, Kansas. They had such a nice selection of dishes that we decided to go on a treasure hunt to find what we could. We went to the Manhattan TM, the Topeka TM, and a couple in Kansas City. Maybe three there and then went to different communities in Oklahoma to find JUST THE DISH.
We ended up getting enough dishes to feed a small army. Regular dinner dishes, larger sized dinner dishes, charger size dinner dishes, large soup/salad/spaghetti bowls (which are my favorite of all time), dessert, saucers, coffee cups, large platters, medium size platters, dinky platters, cereal bowls, vegetable bowls, small round and oval serving dishes, tea pot, creamers, and miniature pitchers. They are well made and quite heavy. Again they are quite heavy. Moving them from one spot to another was a work out like lifting light weights so I do feel like I had a physical work out.
LOWER CABINET
The way it went, we had an adventure of a treasure hunt to find them. The clerks worked with us making phone calls to the other stores to find out their inventory. At any rate, this was in the past, 7 years ago. I hope and pray we never go through another house fire again. Ever or any other natural disaster where the home front is destroyed. I lift up a prayer of THANKSGIVING that we were not injured or killed. Our insurance helped us get back on our feet through this awful event. It was an emotional trauma to experience.
We are living BIG in this tiny COTTAGE. The challenge now is to downsize to fit in this sweet place. It is taking a great deal of time. At the end of February, I hope to have the KITCHEN functioning with ALL the items in place.
I shake my head as I don't know where all the cooking/baking dishes will go. Visited with HUBBY about bringing into the small KITCHEN, a metal rack that would hold pots 'n pans plus cake pans and baking dishes. I have been blessed to accumulate so many baking dishes, etc.
We have several of these racks out in the garage that can be used instead of spending any money before a KITCHEN REMODEL happens.
Patting myself on the back with what progress I have made doesn't feel quite as good as I thought it would as I am still not out of the woods with having a truly ORGANIZED KITCHEN. I have failed to achieve THE GOLDEN STANDARD which implies that I have my act together as a HOMEMAKER. Something all old HOMEMAKERS knows is what a neat KITCHEN should look like. I am not there.
Shouldn't have so many hang ups? Should I be more relaxed about all of these messes??? This uncomfortable feeling that comes with the territory is partly why I keep forging ahead to get where I need to be. I thought I would be there by now. NOPE.
I'd prefer to not store pots 'n pans inside the oven. There's a warming tray on the bottom of my oven that is holding cookie sheets. I can live with this, but I DO NOT WANT TO HOUSE big pots and pans inside the appliance.
My dear sweet MOMMA had to do this through the years and every time she needed to bake something, the pans ended up being pulled out of the oven to sit on her already over crowded countertops. It may come to this and if it does...I'll have to deal with the reality that this is the way it is. NO BIG DEAL. Right?
I do remember the time MOM forgot her pans were inside the oven and she turned the oven on to use. The handles on her pans melted. Not a great thing to deal with.
PROGRESS: I have a tidy food pantry again.
The fridge is clean and orderly.
The freezer is orderly.
The baking condiments are sitting neatly in a cabinet.
I have a tea cabinet above the stove that is in order.
Now, the daily dishes are neatly placed in a couple of cabinets.
Soon the medicine cabinet will be organized.
The pots 'n pans are making their way to the cart and in a few days a tall metal rack will be in the Kitchen so I can place bakeware, cake pans of various sizes and types, bread pans, meatloaf pans, etc. on it.
I have yet to create order under the sink. This will take a day or two to make happen as too much is under the sink at this time crying out for order.
The Kitchen will hopefully have tidy countertops and a scrubbed stainless steel Kitchen sink.
Until the tall rack is brought in, the pie plates and cake pans, bakeware and mixing bowls can all go into a laundry baskets so they are grouped together ready to go on the rack when the time comes. This will get these items off the work station table, countertops and in boxes off the floor. Temp problem solved.
I still have the portable table in the middle of the room being used as a work station to assist me in this ordeal. By the end of February, I pray it will no longer be there. I can hope, can't I?
I have a book SOMEWHERE which is for newly weds starting out with helpful suggestions as to what you need for setting up a household. I need to locate it to compare what I have to what they suggest having. I wish I knew where that book was. Eventually I will come across it and then I can compare. That will be interesting. Lookin forward to it.
It would help simplify my KITCHEN, I believe and this would be very helpful. The book came from DILLARDS when they published them for BRIDES and GROOMS of a young age starting out. I am still a bride except I am an antique. Going on 50 years of marriage this AUGUST! That is something I am trying to wrap my head around. I pray we make it. 50 years!!!
I have had 18 different KITCHENS during my marriage to HUNK...I think. 18. Each one was so different that it took some doing to arrange them to suit our needs at the time. All had the common factors of having a refrigerator, a stovetop/oven, a kitchen sink, cabinets and countertops.
Our first dishwasher happened in 1975. This was the kind that you wheeled to the kitchen sink to hook up to run. Built-ins came later. Our first microwave came along when we lived in Texas back in 1987. It was above the stove. Garbage Disposals? I can't remember. Each Kitchen has had running water, electricity and natural gas for the stoves and hot water heaters. Each Kitchen had nice windows and good lighting.
Big or small, each place we have lived has had a KITCHEN, indoor bathrooms, bedrooms, closets, living room. Not all have had a dining room.
I have few thoughts of what my DREAM HOUSE would be. Right now just getting settled into the COTTAGE KITCHEN is a dream with all the brain power in use. It's been a long drawn out procedure. With the metal rack, it will allow me get organized quicker. Let it happen soon. AMEN.
HOMEMAKING 101 has not been easy for me this go round at 68 years of age. Can you believe this? 68? It boggles my mind. If this KITCHEN ORGANIZING were a class taken at school, I would have flunked the class as being too slow for progress and tardy for class too many times to count. I would be forced to repeat the class again. Maybe I won't flunk the final? Would there be a GED diploma I could earn? I be self taught by reading good books, meditating and watching those wonderful videos about how others run their homes.
I still have a desire to be a domestic HOMEMAKER. I will succeed. I will. God is with me in this challenge on the Prairie.
~d
