I had a crazy idea to put a small shelf unit I have into the pantry and maybe, possibly move all the herb/spice containers into one or two areas instead of in the kitchen, in the pantry in 3 places, and in the cabinets…?
It may work. In the process, I tore a lot of the kitchen/pantry/food storage apart and decided that as it was all over the kitchen, dining room, and pantry, I might as well “spring clean” the pantry and food storage, right?
Okay, so overwhelming amount of jars, cans, storage pieces, other bits & pieces. I was charging ahead for about 2 hours. Then I got overwhelmed.
And the victory? I told myself it was “okay, just take a break,” and have had lunch. There are still crates, bottles, jars, bags, baskets of food in multiple places and the kitchen is completely trashed.
So what?
I needed an overwhelm break and allowed myself to take it! So yeah me for managing my stress instead of beating myself up because I can’t just do whatever. The simple job I thought I was going to do when I started grew expontentially, so, yeah, a break isn’t wimping out; it’s prudence.
Well, the spices are in there. The rest of the pantry? Some of it is put together, and some of it is chaos. The kitchen now looks just messy, instead of bombed with containers!
Definite progress, but I’m out of ideas and it isn’t finished… yet.
I did a “make do” put together of the pantry yesterday. Four shelves didn’t get everything removed, cleaned and reorganized. I’ll do that today. And the pantry will have had its spring cleaning by 2/1.
Tried, again, one of my HM “instant” soups and it didn’t work as well as I hoped. I soaked it before cooking and didn’t solve the problem. Came up with another idea to try. We’ll see if that fixes it?
I came up with the alternative, instead of just swearing, what happened when I first made these.
I bought chopped, dried veggies for these mixes and the first batch… no matter how long I soak or cook the soup, the veggies are still leathery.
Today’s batch: I ran the veggies through the blender before storing. I’ll try that soup, tomorrow, and see if this solves the problem? I hope so!
The victory was remembering the problem and coming up with two possible solutions (the extra soaking before cooking and blending the 2nd batch). Last time I just got discouraged.
Part of life with our cat is that she likes to sleep on my desk for part of the day. Instead of picking her up and plopping her on the desk, I have started to lower the desk to where she can easily jump on it and then raise it back up to my standing height so I can keep working. Kitty seems to be enjoying the rides up to tall height.
Mixture of TC/TV today for a meetup with friends and then matinee+dinner, but definitely leaning towards the TV side
TC: The drive down to Denver wasn’t fun. I’m pretty sure we managed to hit the worst of the rain/sleet/snow just given the timing, and while I’m used to driving in snow given a lot of skiing, but the point where it transitions is always ugly
TV: The hotel was able to get us into our room early and actually upgraded us to a suite which means the two Denver friends can just crash here with us rather than trudging through slush to the light rail after dinner
TV: Excellent show
TC: Restaurant with dinner reservations decided to close early (although I don’t in any way blame them, given the slush and snow on the roads when they freeze it’s going to be a mess)
TV: Since their early-close-time still isn’t until 7, they were willing to change our reservation to take out…I’m killing time until everything is ready, but the others have already gone in search of a couple of six packs and then we’ll meet up back at the hotel and be able to spend a lot more time chatting than we could have at a restaurant anyway.
I have been eating a lot of Activa to try and help my digestion. It is expensive, so I’ve been exploring alternatives.
I found a yogurt maker I really liked. The last time we had one, it made individual cups and I rarely made it. The one I found would make a quart at a time… but of course, being me, it’s the most expensive out one there.
Then I remembered. Hadn’t I found a recipe for making yogurt in a thermos years ago? I googled and yes, there were some such.
Nothing to buy, except plain yogurt; we’re out.
Yay! I remembered, so I won’t buy the new appliance. I have everything, except the plain yogurt, to make this, so really, really cheap!
yeah me for managing my stress instead of beating myself up because I can’t just do whatever. The simple job I thought I was going to do when I started grew expontentially, so, yeah, a break isn’t wimping out; it’s prudence.
