Step by Step

No, not a terrible New Kids on the Block song, but what I'm experiencing right now trying to get things accomplished and move forward.  

I cooked the other day for the first time in a couple of weeks, but then Saturday we did so much work in the kitchen that I was done and we got takeout which, granted, we ate from for a couple of meals.  I didn't make the optional brownies, I didn't cook hamburgers, and other than a couple of chapters, I haven't read a lot more of my book or watched another movie.  But this year is about positivity and embracing what I DO accomplish, so here's what I HAVE done.

I inventoried and labeled the tops of all of my spices.  This was one of the reasons (honestly!) why I didn't cook Saturday night, because I have about 50 spices and had nowhere to put them because Chris wasn't fixing the wheels on the wheely thing he messed up so I had to stack them up on the big cutting board on my stove and on the counter for the time being and there was nowhere to work.  This ended up being serendipitous because Chris ended up putting together the other shelves on wheels from IKEA the next night, which was a much better place for spices and other things.  More on that in a bit.

Also on Saturday night, we went through and inventoried all of the food in the pantry and threw out expired things.  It was great to get a handle on what we have and what we may need, and to get things organized.  There's still a ton of work to do in there because there are a lot of drawers and cupboards to go through but the immediate needs have been met.

Organized and cleaned out the baker's rack.  I wanted to get an early start since it was Sunday night and I knew work was going to be a bitch today (Monday) because on a normal day it's busy for me because I do a lot of data analysis and reporting, but this week is special since everyone (but me) were returning from a week or more off so I knew it would be nuts - and it was.  But again, it was on Chris's timeline, so we didn't start until 90 minutes after I wanted to be done.  Nonetheless, we got it done and threw out a lot of expired baking ingredients, but I also moved a lot of stuff to one of the small carts that I can use for cooking, along with the spices.  There's still a little more to do with that because Chris needs to dig my new immersion blender out of my office as well as the set of Lock n' Lock to put on the rack but then that will be done.

Other than the pantry, there are still some drawers and cabinets to go through so I can pull together a utensil crock, and there's the cabinet with a bunch of platters and stuff in it that needs to be cleaned out because apparently it was a casualty from when we had the roach problem because of the assholes who used to live upstairs, but hopefully we're looking at maybe an hour of work.  That feels good.

Today was nuts, and we have a big grocery order to get and put away tomorrow morning after my morning meeting, and I have vowed to put things like fruit and salad, etc. in airtight containers right away so they don't sit and rot in the fridge.  I do the work upfront, I don't have to do it later.  I may even cook dinner to just reheat it tomorrow night.  I'm thinking of making homemade sloppy joes open faced on the Texas toast taking up room in the freezer that Chris has been complaining about.  Plus I'll need room because I bought two big packages of chicken.

What an exciting post... haha.  But time for bed, with maybe a chapter or two to read beforehand.  9am meeting tomorrow and then probably another nutzo day.

xoxo Shelly