Kitchen Nightmare
A hippie once told me "The unexamined life is not worth living". Be that as it may I think the better saying to sum up what I'm up to these days is "The unexamined apartment is not worth living in".
Do you have any idea how much CRAP I have in my apartment that I have never noticed, despite it being in plain sight?
On Saturday Adam and I awoke early to get our place straightened up before the arrival of his brother, sister in law and their incredibly adorable baby. Now, I always clean my place before guests come over but ESPECIALLY so when Adam's family comes down. They are an incredibly neat people. Their house is always spotless despite them both working full time and having a new baby. And I mean SPOTLESS. Even when we drop by unannounced. So when they come over it's like throwing down the Neatness Gauntlet. I am sure they don't even notice/care how our apartment looks but still, bring it!
Anyway I tackled the kitchen and was perplexed about where to store the Roasting Pan we just bought. It was too big to fit in the under counter cabinets and there were already too many pots and pans in the Baker's Rack.
Wait a minute how can there be no room for it in the under counter cabinets? I keep my large appliances on the counter top (not because I use them all that much but because I like to look a them. Hello Kitchen Aid Mixer. You complete me). So what the christ is in those cabinets?
A frenzied cleaning out revealed the following (in addition to things like the George Foreman Grill and plastic bowls we actually use)
1 rusted old baking pan I think I stole from my parents when I moved out
1 not-been-used-in-3-years Quesadilla Maker
1 not-been-used-in-3 years Fajita Maker
1 never-been-used Ice Cream Maker
10-12 Tupperware lids
No Actual Tupperware.
Hmmm. Yeah that shiz got thrown right out (none of it was in any shape to be donated). Well the Ice Cream maker we DID keep but under the condition that if we don't actually make ice cream within a month, it's out of here.
So once all that clutter was cleared out we actually have TONS of room in that cabinet. Who knew? We also seriously need some Tupperware. How can I manage to lose every piece we own but KEEP all the lids!? This is some serious skill, people.
Ok so once that was out of the way I took a step back to survey the kitchen and while it was sparkling and neat, the Top-Of-Cabinet storage was looking reallly disorganized and messy. So I tackled that next and managed to get ride of
1 broken wooden serving tray
1 completely rusted Wok that I think we used ONCE
1 Pampered Chef appetizer tray with a cracked frozen insert and broken handle.
1 box of expired (seriously expired) Wheaties (?)
A chipped Santa plate.
I could not believe the crap that was laying about, taking up valuable space all this time and I just never really noticed. I can ALMOST understand how some people still have their Christmas decorations up. If I can be in my kitchen every day and not notice a huge rusty Wok on the top of one of my cabinets, can leaving my Christmas wreath up until April not be far behind?
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11 comments:
It happens. I need to go through the cabinets myself but I did take the liberty of tossing all the plastic containers as I'm converting to glass (I'm paranoid about plastic leeching into the food - don't ask - this is what happens when you have MONK for a boss). It's amazing the room you can find though.
Fajita maker AND quesadilla maker??
haha i know. from his single days!
Wanna come over to my place? I need a kick in the arse to clean. Especially since we're having BOTH of the mothers over for Mother's Day. You could eat off the floors in their houses without any concern. My house? I would not recommend it.
OMG! Join the club! I just started going through all the stuff that I have in our kitchen and I had the same thing happen... non-matching plates, broken trays, and all that sh*t.
I have some serious cleaning up to do.
I LOVE throwing out crap we don't use!! It feels so good to make all that space. I did this to our upstairs hall closet about a month ago. I couldn't believe all the useless/expired crap we both dragged over from our old apartments without even noticing.
Lys: try being married to MONK!!! I'm surprised he hasn't made me switch from plastic to glass....yet.
ha! I just bought the Let Go of Clutter book yesterday and read half of it last night!! It's SO Spring Cleaning time!
I think I have all the tupperware containers that go with your lids! My husband is always asking why we have so many containers without lids. Haha.
(P.S. - I used to be "Turgid Prose" -- that blog fell to the wayside when other things started happening. In case you wondered who this stranger commenting was).
hey welcome back! also, i am convinced there are Tupperware elves lurking around everywhere, waiting to steal a dish and trick you into thinking you left it at work.
oh my gosh Sarah, I can SO relate right now. Nothing makes you realize how much garbage you have laying around, hidden in plain sight, like MOVING. So much of what was in my house didn't pass the It's Worth Moving 400 Miles test, it's ridiculous. I stood there looking at the mountain of rubbish laid out on the curb thinking, I can't believe I *lived* with all this stuff for so long and now it's literally kicked to the curb, being picked over by bums.
It's so cathartic, isn't it?
haha I was laughing at your tupperware because I have so been there. My main problem is that I seem to keep both tops and lids, but none that actually match each other (it's always too big of a top or too small of a top), so it is a pain. I finally threw out everything and have resorted to buying the glad tupperware thingies every month or so to try and keep some semblance of order. It still doesn't work.
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