It's Noon, what have YOU done with your day?
I feel very productive this morning. By 10am I had mowed the lawn, blown off all the grass clippings, unloaded the dishwasher, and prepared two crockpots of potroast/beef stew for tonight's dinner (one small, one large - we're having company come in from out of town). Oh, and I sharpened knives, too. I'd never done that before!
After that, I straightened the pantry, cleaned old food and leftovers out of the fridge, cleaned and organized the pots and pans cabinet, the utinsel drawer/buckets, the knife drawer, and the measuring cups drawer, and most of the spice cabinet (gotta finish that one still). (oh, and I'm borderline PMS-y - in body if not in mood.)
I am the default space cleaner/organizer in our family. Refrigerators, pantries, under-sink cabinets, junk drawers - it generally falls to me. I actually like doing those kind of jobs, because it makes SUCH a difference when you're done. Sadly, though, in a family of six - with three kids home pretty much 24-7, it doesn't STAY THAT WAY.
I do the best I can to keep it like that. I have a very basic, workable system which I have TRIED to explain to the others. (It boils down to "Put things back where you found them: If you are not sure WHERE that is or where it should go - put it with like things." For example, dairy products go on one shelf; leftovers go on another; leafy/crushable vegetables on yet another; hard, bulky vegetables on the bottom rows. With this setup you would THINK that someone replacing, say, eggs, would place them in that nice slot by the cottage cheese and NOT stick them on top of, say, the carrots, but you'd be wrong.)
Anyway, I have been seeking for ways to make this and other aspects of housecleaning more foolproof, or rather childproof. For example, the upper rack of the dishwasher gets filled with glasses long before the bottom part fills up, because my siblings are drinking lots of water, what with the 100 degree temps, and go through four or five glasses apiece because they all look alike, and heaven forbid they should drink out of someone else's glass or - worse! - someone drink from theirs. The solution hit me a few days ago (while I was washing the 12th glass used on a day when only three other people had been home) - get everybody a "separate but equal" drinking glass - patterns or bordered rims or SOMETHING distinctive. I told Momma and she said she had thought of the same thing and was planning a trip to let everyone pick out their own to make sure they'll use it. Problem solved (soon)!
But a lot of the difficulty is the simple MASS of what we're dealing with. As a large family, we have a big house and a LOT of food/glasses/towels/sheets/bowls/fill-in-the-blank. A set of eight covers us and only two guests. A set of ten means clean dishes for two meals. Thus we have many many dishes - and silverware, and pots and pans, and utinsels, etc.
And, as I was talking about with melodinous earlier today, "too much stuff" is the number one enemy of organization. I saw part of a Martha Stewart show a few weeks ago (and I swear to you, smidgy06, I do NOT watch that show, this was one of the same two that I've mentioned to you before) Anyway, she was talking about organizing with of her guests and she opened up her drawers to demonstrate, and there was everything laid out perfectly - a set of knives, measuring spoons, measuring cups, etc all perfectly in rows from largest to smallest. Now, that is probably carrying things a bit to the extreme (after all, it is Martha [and we will not even speak of what she had the AUDACITY to call a "junk drawer"!]) but she had a good point. I mean, how many melon-ballers can you really use at one time? (Not that I've used a melon-baller...EVER, that I know of, but, ...you know.)
For instance, except on rare occasions of much-bakery, (such as Thanksgiving) we never use more than one or two long-handled spoons, or one whisk, etc. So, I selected a very few stirring spoons, serving spoons (both slotted and non), ladles, a SINGLE whisk, etc, arranged them in the untinsel bucket on the counter and put all the rest in the second bucket and moved it into the big storage cabinet under the sink. I really wanted to cut down on the spatulas, but that IS one item we often do use all or most of at once - cooking various pans of things.
(By the way, why do we use the same term for that kind of spatula as well as this kind of spatula? Since they have both different forms and functions, shouldn't they have a different name? I was referring to "that kind of spatula" i.e. a "pancake turner" earlier.)
Annnnnnnd, that point of course leads me to google the etymology of spatula and - I don't have time for this! An hour has already gone by between typing, eating lunch and folding a basket of laundry.
The History of the Spatula must be saved for another post (I also have a dream to tell you, but I'm not quite ready to re-live it yet [I tried to tell my sister about it a couple hours ago and I got all goose-pimply and freaked out all over again *shudder*] so that will have to wait as well.) I'm going back to clean the fridge and mop the floor.
After that, I straightened the pantry, cleaned old food and leftovers out of the fridge, cleaned and organized the pots and pans cabinet, the utinsel drawer/buckets, the knife drawer, and the measuring cups drawer, and most of the spice cabinet (gotta finish that one still). (oh, and I'm borderline PMS-y - in body if not in mood.)
I am the default space cleaner/organizer in our family. Refrigerators, pantries, under-sink cabinets, junk drawers - it generally falls to me. I actually like doing those kind of jobs, because it makes SUCH a difference when you're done. Sadly, though, in a family of six - with three kids home pretty much 24-7, it doesn't STAY THAT WAY.
I do the best I can to keep it like that. I have a very basic, workable system which I have TRIED to explain to the others. (It boils down to "Put things back where you found them: If you are not sure WHERE that is or where it should go - put it with like things." For example, dairy products go on one shelf; leftovers go on another; leafy/crushable vegetables on yet another; hard, bulky vegetables on the bottom rows. With this setup you would THINK that someone replacing, say, eggs, would place them in that nice slot by the cottage cheese and NOT stick them on top of, say, the carrots, but you'd be wrong.)
Anyway, I have been seeking for ways to make this and other aspects of housecleaning more foolproof, or rather childproof. For example, the upper rack of the dishwasher gets filled with glasses long before the bottom part fills up, because my siblings are drinking lots of water, what with the 100 degree temps, and go through four or five glasses apiece because they all look alike, and heaven forbid they should drink out of someone else's glass or - worse! - someone drink from theirs. The solution hit me a few days ago (while I was washing the 12th glass used on a day when only three other people had been home) - get everybody a "separate but equal" drinking glass - patterns or bordered rims or SOMETHING distinctive. I told Momma and she said she had thought of the same thing and was planning a trip to let everyone pick out their own to make sure they'll use it. Problem solved (soon)!
But a lot of the difficulty is the simple MASS of what we're dealing with. As a large family, we have a big house and a LOT of food/glasses/towels/sheets/bowls/fill-in-the-blank. A set of eight covers us and only two guests. A set of ten means clean dishes for two meals. Thus we have many many dishes - and silverware, and pots and pans, and utinsels, etc.
And, as I was talking about with melodinous earlier today, "too much stuff" is the number one enemy of organization. I saw part of a Martha Stewart show a few weeks ago (and I swear to you, smidgy06, I do NOT watch that show, this was one of the same two that I've mentioned to you before) Anyway, she was talking about organizing with of her guests and she opened up her drawers to demonstrate, and there was everything laid out perfectly - a set of knives, measuring spoons, measuring cups, etc all perfectly in rows from largest to smallest. Now, that is probably carrying things a bit to the extreme (after all, it is Martha [and we will not even speak of what she had the AUDACITY to call a "junk drawer"!]) but she had a good point. I mean, how many melon-ballers can you really use at one time? (Not that I've used a melon-baller...EVER, that I know of, but, ...you know.)
For instance, except on rare occasions of much-bakery, (such as Thanksgiving) we never use more than one or two long-handled spoons, or one whisk, etc. So, I selected a very few stirring spoons, serving spoons (both slotted and non), ladles, a SINGLE whisk, etc, arranged them in the untinsel bucket on the counter and put all the rest in the second bucket and moved it into the big storage cabinet under the sink. I really wanted to cut down on the spatulas, but that IS one item we often do use all or most of at once - cooking various pans of things.
(By the way, why do we use the same term for that kind of spatula as well as this kind of spatula? Since they have both different forms and functions, shouldn't they have a different name? I was referring to "that kind of spatula" i.e. a "pancake turner" earlier.)
Annnnnnnd, that point of course leads me to google the etymology of spatula and - I don't have time for this! An hour has already gone by between typing, eating lunch and folding a basket of laundry.
The History of the Spatula must be saved for another post (I also have a dream to tell you, but I'm not quite ready to re-live it yet [I tried to tell my sister about it a couple hours ago and I got all goose-pimply and freaked out all over again *shudder*] so that will have to wait as well.) I'm going back to clean the fridge and mop the floor.