Baby News

Kitchen Organization Goals

Yo folks, iHeart Organizing is doing a monthly organization challenge and February is kitchen month. Now I am not usually a participator, it's just not my thing, but I do love me some organization and I thought perhaps, just maybe you would want to see what I come up with. So children's attitudes permitting here is what I hope to accomplish this month.

My kitchen organization goals:

1. Create a lunch prep station for my Beloved.
I want to move all of his lunch needs to one location making sack lunch prep uber easy. Here are a few of my inspirations.

For the cupboards:

ApartmentTherapy

 For the Fridge:

iHeartOrganizing

I have a bit of a start on this, but they are on opposite sides of the kitchen. That bugs me.

For the cupboard:

For in the Fridge:

In this box I keep lunch meat, sliced cheese, carrots, sting cheese and the small containers are for ranch, but this week they have fudge inside :). I haven't put the ranch ones in yet, but I will. I try to restock this after I grocery shop but sometimes it gets a little neglected. 

I would like to find storage on the fridge side of the kitchen for lunch prep. I have my eye on two drawers on that side. They currently house pasta and baking goods. I think the pasta could fit on the shelf that currently houses the snacks but I may need to get creative about the baking goods. I like things near where they are used but I can't fit everything on the stove/oven side of the kitchen.

2. Spice Storage

This is an on going issue for me. And one that I think if I can solve I might have a home for the aforementioned baking goods.

I previously housed my spices on a double tiered lazy susan in the cupboard to the right of the microwave. However, I decided that my cookbooks would do better there and so moved my spices to a drawer. I  labeled the tops of the jars and placed them in. I don't have photographic proof of this because as the spices were used the containers they came in were tossed and I often forgot to save the lid for the new container. Now when I need a spice I spend several seconds, sometimes minutes, searching the drawer for the one that I need.

Here are some of my inspirations for this project.

iHeart Organizing

Raising up Rubies

I've been thinking for some time that I need to go to universal containers but this scares me. Mainly because I sometimes buy a small container of a spice and other times a large container and what do I do if there is excess spice? I don't have room to store excess spice! And I keep a LARGE stash of spices, at least large compared with what I see in blogland cupboard photos.

Here is my spice drawer in it's current state of MESS:

My other concern with universal containers is they have to be easy to obtain that way if I buy something out of the ordinary it's not hard to maintain the cohesive look of the space.

3. Organize Freezer and Maintain an Inventory List

I have a confession, I have been coveting. . . for sometime now. . . I have coveted this freezer:

iHeart Organizing . . . yes again!
I can't get enough. It's become a disease. . . perhaps a disease of the heart? Probably just in my head though.

Wouldn't it be lovely to open your freezer and see this loveliness staring back at you? I've tried a variation but my boxes weren't large enough and they just over flowed and now I am stuck with this:

We have loads of frozen berries, vegetables, meat, breads, goodies and msg laden frozen foods for lazy days. Oh hey I think I just came up with my categories!

This? . . . well this doesn't bother me. Actually I love this! This is a freezer FULL of beef! It's just a little baby freezer, but when it's full it means I don't have to think to put beef on the grocery list. If I need it, it's probably in there. And I've re-organized it since this picture was taken. We had to use a bit before I could make each category easily accessible. Mmmmmm beef.

As for that inventory list. I did this once upon a time when I had more random items in the chest freezer. Now that it is almost strictly beef storage I fell out of the habit. So last night I defrosted some ground beef and seasoned up some taco meat only to find as I stowed the leftovers in the freezer, that there was a bag already in there! Seasoned and everything all I would have needed to do was thaw and reheat. Blast! Foiled again by my lack of a list. Well That Ends TODAY. . . well not literally today, but when I get around to the freezer project that problem is history.

Creative Organizing

I found this free printable and it's one idea.

I used to have a small dry erase board propped up next to the freezer and I kept that updated but that area is getting a little busy with my cleaning schedule, grocery list and hand towel so. . . this one is going to take some think tank juice to figure out. Perhaps I could place it under my grocery list on the clip board.

Or perhaps inside my household binder or the recipe one. . . . hmm something to ponder. (No, Aunt D., I will not start a whole new binder for this list . . . I don't think.)

~And So That's What She Did.