organize now challenge: week 2

This week for the Organize Now Challenge, the focus was on sorting out the kitchen cabinets.

The assignment was to get rid of stuff we don't use, clear out broken tools and dishes, and toss the clutter. Jennifer Ford Berry, author of Organize Now, suggests keeping only a few of your favourite coffee mugs, ditching the mismatched plastic containers and giving the boot to appliances that are only collecting dust.

I was feeling a bit like an organizing smarty-pants because I had my dishes, glasses and silverware right between the sink and dishwasher, and my pots, cooking utensils and spices are all located near the stove where I do most of the cooking. (Even better? NO JUNK DRAWER.)

That's where the smarty-pants-ness ends, though. I have the opposite problem that most people face in a kitchen. I have SO.SO.SO MUCH COUNTERSPACE, and way too many cupboards. My downfall is letting the counters get piled up, "flat surface syndrome", if you will. Even before the challenge began, I have been vigilant about keeping my countertops in order. I feel so much more relaxed in my kitchen when I'm not surrounded by piles. The only appliances on the counter are my toaster oven, my Senseo coffee maker, and the microwave. The microwave and I are not pals, but I keep it around to heat up my Hotsy-Coldsy bags.  I have an enormous stainless steel bowl for making bread and pizza dough, and that lives on top of the toaster oven because I use it three or four times a week.

To keep my kitchen tools and pans contained to only a few cupboards, I store some of my home-canned jars of food in more than half of the cupboards. I find that we eat more home-canned foods when they are within arm's reach, rather than taking a trip to the basement every time we need some pickles or applesauce. When I'm running low on home-canned goodness upstairs, I get a box, grab a little bit of everything, and restock the kitchen cupboards.

I do have a handful of photos to document my efforts, but I'm having trouble getting Flickr and Instagram and Blogger to play nicely together, so I'm just going to hit the publish button and figure it out later. Some days are just like that, you know? I'll also post links to Jennifer's blog and the blogs of the other ladies who are participating.