Two in One Day

I had plenty of time today to work on the kitchen cabinet drawers that I am decluttering to keep my New Year's Resolution.  So I did two drawers, one for the 4th and one for the 5th.  I can have a day off on Monday. 

I'm working on the smaller drawers to the left of the oven. 

Drawer 4 ( the top small left) was a rather big mess, but it didn't take long to straighten it out.  This drawer is where we keep our napkin rings and butter pats.   There were things here that didn't belong. 

Drawer four cluttered. 

Napkins, pot holders, hot pads belong elsewhere.

Two napkins, two pot holders, and more hot pads were moved to where they belong.  I found that I had so many cork hot pads that I decided to put some in the box for the Thrift Shop.  

There was also some fabric that I plan to use to make dish towels.  This reminds me to get this done. 

Dish towel fabric.

Drawer four organized.

I organized the napkin rings in plastic bags.  The butter pats are in a small box, and the large oven mitts fit better here than in the drawer where I keep most of the pot holders.

What do candles and candy have in common at our house?  They share the same drawer  (Drawer five the middle left drawer) in our kitchen.

Candles, candy and chewing gum in the before photo. 

I determined we have too many candles, especially since we now use battery operated candles a lot.  I know real candles give a nicer ambiance, but battery ones are safer and last longer than real candles and you don't have to worry about wax getting on your surfaces. And the battery candles look so real now.  Consequently, I'm adding a bunch of  candles to the box that will be going to the Thrift Store.

Candles that will be donated to the Thrift Store.

With some of the candles out of the way, I have room to add our Bic lighters to this drawer.  It seems the logical place for them.

I've added the Bic lighters to the candles section of this drawer.

In the candy part of the drawer I noticed that we were out of Werther's and low on chewing gum.  So I've replenished them. From the time the grands were very small, they knew where the chewing gum drawer was.  Even now that they are almost grown (Zach is grown) they will occasionally ask "Grandpat, can I have a piece of chewing gum?"  They didn't often have chewing gum at their house, so it was a treat to get some at Grandpat's house. 

Dan and I like to have a bit of chocolate on hand as well as Ricola cough drops and Werther's hard candy. 

The candy, cough drops and chewing gum organized.

 I can take tomorrow off, because I am one day ahead with my New Year's Resolution. 

Day 3 The Linen Drawer

♫On the third day of Christmas----♪♫♪     No. ♪♪♫♫ On the third day of decluttering my true love said to me♫♫  "Wow, you really are keeping your New Year's Resolution!!"   Yes I am!

The top drawer at the left of the oven is where I keep my everyday linens---tablecloths, napkins, pot holders.  There's another place where I keep my fancier linens---white tablecloths, white napkins. 

Panorama of drawer three before.

Everything dumped out.

This drawer didn't take much time to reorganize.

The recipes in the plastic bag don't belong here.  Oh, that reminds me! I need to reorganize my recipes.  Another resolution perhaps?

This one napkin ring doesn't belong here. Neither did the roll of freezer paper.

Tablecloths that we use outdoors.

Tablecloth with ants.  One of my favorites.

The two tablecloths are ones we use outdoors.  I especially like the one with the "ants" crawling all over it.  I saw this piece of oilcloth and had them cut a piece large enough for an outdoor table.  These are the kinds of ants I don't mind having on the table.  Somewhere I found fabric with this same design and I made eight napkins, but they don't seem to be here.  Maybe I will find them as I continue to declutter.  And check out these ant napkin rings.  Wouldn't they be cute to use for a picnic with this tablecloth?


This drawer also holds trivets and cork hot pads.  I seem to have two packs of hot pads that haven't been opened.  Every time I go to IKEA I seem to buy a pack.  They are such a bargain there---3 for $2.99.  Well I can quit buying these since I have a lifetime supply.

Panorama of drawer after organizing. 

This drawer shaped up nicely and quickly.

Tomorrow on to drawer four.  

Day Two of my New Year's Resolution

Here it is January 2, 2015, and so far I have kept my New Year's Resolution.  Today I cleaned out kitchen drawer number two, the drawer to the right of our refrigerator.  I was able to discard a few things from this drawer and others I moved to a more appropriate drawer.

This is the before photo:

Kitchen drawer two before decluttering.

Here is everything from drawer two.

I don't even know what some of these things are nor where I got them. They look as if they were hand craved (even have the name of the maker on them).  I think they were utensils for opening or eating something we had at a restaurant but I can't remember what or where.  Guess I just decided to bring them home because they were pretty.  Anyway I have jettisoned them. 

Unknown utensils from some meal at a restaurant. 

The skewers belong in the drawer that I did yesterday so out they go to that drawer.

These skewers belong in the drawer I organized yesterday.  Over they go.

I tried this egg timer once with poor results and the egg timer made the water smell strongly of the plastic  from which it is made.  This will be thrown away.

Useless egg timer in my opinion.

The cookie cutters for making dog biscuits---some are shaped like bones---will go to the pantry with the rest of the cookie cutters.  One Christmas I made dog biscuits shaped like bones for all the dogs in the family.  They were a great success.  I had forgotten I had these.  See what you might find if you declutter!

Cookie cutters for dog biscuits.

The little cheese board with spreader made in New Zealand was a gift from Joe and Alice after their trip there.  And the little cheese holder (not part of their gift) is great for holding cheese as you cut it.  It is especially helpful for soft cheeses.

This stays in this drawer.  I always know where to find it when I need it.

I use the pastry cloth whenever I make pies.  I decided to move the rolling pin (the one my Mama had) to this drawer since I had room for it and this seemed the logical place.

Vintage rolling pin that I moved to this drawer.  It needs to be with the pastry cloth.

Perhaps my prize possession in this drawer is the Thermapen instant digital thermometer.  I always use it when cooking meat to determine the degree of doneness and it never lets me down. This is a rather expensive thermometer, but I think it is well worth the price.  We've had this one for over five years.

One of my favorite kitchen tools.  The Thermapen thermometer folds up and fits in a little leather case.

They  have produced a backlit Thermapen that would be great if you grill outdoors at night.  Check out this Youtube.

 Here is what drawer number two looks like reorganized.

Drawer two decluttered and organized.

I'm on schedule with reorganizing my kitchen drawers for the New Year.  Looking forward to day three. 

My New Year's Resolution

Our kitchen drawer that needs to be decluttered.

I haven't made New Year's Resolution in the past number of years because I never seem to keep them longer than maybe a month or so.  This year I'm make a Resolution for the first 11 days in the New Year.  In our kitchen we have eleven kitchen drawers that are in need of decluttering and reorganizing.  So I'm hoping this resolution will get the job done.  I resolve to clean/organize one kitchen cabinet drawer a day through January 11th.  And I will keep you posted from time to time.

Today I did the first drawer: the drawer to the left of the refrigerator.  As you can imagine I found things that simply needed to be discarded and others that belong somewhere else---not in this drawer.

Here are two before photos:

Before layer one.

Before layer two.

Here's everything that came out of the drawer.

Everything that came out of the drawer.

These are things that belong somewhere else, but not here.  Goody bags, can opener, Scotch tape, drinking straws, post ems, Ricola, mini whisk, owner's guides to various kitchen appliances. 

Things that belong somewhere else.

Here's the drawer organized.  Now doesn't that look nice?  The cake rounds and doilies belong here, but organized.  Party picks and skewers, shopping list tablets, hand held magnifier (if I need to read the ingredients on a product or read a recipe from the newspaper), and my kitchen scales.

The drawer organized.

Some things I definitely use a lot are in this drawer.

Salter digital kitchen scale.

Our digital glass kitchen scale by Salter.  It is so easy to use and so accurate.  If you need a reliable kitchen scale I recommend this one. I've found that for many recipes, baked goods for example, it is more accurate to weigh the ingredients than to measure them in measuring cups.

I like to have party picks and two sizes of bamboo skewers on hand.  I especially like the bamboo skewers for making meat or fruit kabobs.

Bamboo skewers.

One drawer down and ten to go, but I have ten more days.  Stay tuned. 

3 bags in 3 days

Cartoon by Amber Waite from her blog Voluntary Simplicity is a Lifestyle

I'm starting small.  Dan and I realize that we have a lot of decluttering to do.  This recent article in the News and Observer inspired me to try this but on a very small scale---3 bags in 3 days and then I could start over for another 3 days, etc.

Day One:  A bag full of books that will go to a library. 

A bag of books ready for a library.

This was a really big bag and it weighed a lot.  We have lots of books we need to purge.

Day Two:  Fabric and shoes.  I've had this fabric around in the garage that we are redoing using it to cover the fronts of shelves, and we are going to put doors on those shelves so this fabric had to go.  I need to go through my shoes again though and get rid of more.

Fabric and shoes ready to take to the thrift shop.

Day Three:  Magazines and Newspapers.   I tend to keep magazine thinking I will need to read them again, but I've decided to stop that.  If there are things in the magazines like recipes, I will remove them from the magazines and then recycle the magazines along with the newspapers.

A bag of newspapers and magazines ready to put in the recycle bin. 

I'm sure these three bags must total at least 30 lbs of less clutter in the house now.  So at least I've made a start at this 3 bags in 3 days decluttering mission.


Maybe when 3 bags for 3 days becomes a habit, I will expand to a longer span, perhaps 7 bags in 7 days.  Slowly but surely we will declutter.