Old Mother Hubbard Ain't Got Nothin' On Me

I’m super excited to have been invited to join a blog group alongside three talented bloggers.  Each week, one of us chooses a topic and we all post a blog entry on that topic, usually on Thursdays.   

Here are the links to the other fabulous blogs:

Merryland Girl

Froggie

Moma Rock

This week’s topic came from MerrylandGirl, who asked:  Find an article in a magazine or online for something you’d like to do, self-enhancement-wise and follow *at least* one of the suggestions.  Here’s my take:

                  When Merryland Girl gave us this topic, I’d just finished re-reading Jen Lancaster’s book, The Tao of Martha, and had begun re-reading Gretchen Rubin’s tome, Happier at Home.  In both (excellent and much recommended) books, the authors tackle home organization projects.  Gretchen’s are major, year-long undertakings, complete with plans and mantras and themes and shrines . . . so following her was out.  (Go Team Low Commitment!)  So, instead, I turned to Jen.

                  If you’re looking for a lifestyle coach, you could do worse than Jen Lancaster.  For the uninitiated, Jen is a local New York Times bestselling author who writes some light fiction along with the most humorous memoirs ever (second only to David Sedaris).  She’s sarcastic and witty, and a superb writer – and she’s really very nice when you approach her in the Target parking lot and tell her you love her.  (True story.)  But Jen’s also lazy (her word) and disorganized (also hers) and a bit neurotic.  In The Tao of Martha, she attempts, in part, to fix the organization issue by embracing the tenets of Martha Stewart.  (The neuroses are here to stay, thankfully.) 

                  Well into the book, after tackling her “Drawer of Shame” which teems with used dental floss and old eye cream, and after cleaning her desk and her medicine cabinet, she turns her attention to her kitchen and decides to create a dedicated “Baking Cabinet.”  Because I have no drawer filled with shame (though I do have a pile of old journals full of bad choices and questionable reasoning), and because I’d just purged my unused cosmetics and hair care products in October, I decided to follow Jen into the kitchen.  I love baking (have you tasted my caramel cookies??), so I already have a Baking Cabinet, but hell if it wasn’t a mess.  I have a bad habit of just stuffing items back in and slamming the door, the ensuing chaos out of sight.  I knew it was a mess; the last time I’d opened it, a half-used brick of baking chocolate and a can of spray frosting leapt right out, freed from their disorganized jail.

                  I had to bite the Baking Cabinet bullet.  So, I opened the doors, sat on the floor, and pulled out every last container and bag and shaker of sprinkles.  While my husband looked on, amused, I dusted the shelves and planned out how to replace everything in an orderly way.  I stacked the cookbooks on their sides, and filled a wide plastic bin with miscellaneous sprinkles, cupcake liners, and icing tubes.  Very nice.  Very neat.  Off to a good start.

                  As I pawed through my stash, I discovered that I own a ridiculous amount of corn starch.  Like two full boxes of corn starch.  And a full canister.  And no recollection of ever cooking anything that contained corn starch.  Huh.  I chucked the box that expired in 2011 and placed the other two containers on a shelf, promising to either give them away or else find an edible use. 

                  Behind the wall of corn starch, I found a container of nutmeg that, although an ingredient in my annual apple pie, belonged not in the Baking Cabinet but in the Spice Basket, which I keep in the Pantry.  I put it aside, finished up the Baking Cabinet, and stood up.

                  And then I opened the Pantry door. 

                  Ah, the Pantry.  Sadly, we don’t have an actual Pantry, so a few years ago, I improvised and bought a free-standing antique wooden cabinet at a house sale.  We use it for cabinet spillover and bulk items (finding Barilla pasta on sale?  Priceless.), as well as lunch boxes and water bottles.  And plastic cutlery.  And snack foods.  And my Grandma’s old but incredibly powerful Dust Buster.  And the giant plastic Target bowls that are perfect for popcorn but too unwieldy to fit in a traditional cabinet.  Oh, and the Spice Basket.

                  Now, even though I love to bake, I’m not much of a cook.  Yet, somehow, I’ve managed to amass an array of spices, most of which I never use (because I’ve no idea how).  I pulled down the basket, ready to toss in the rogue bottle of nutmeg, but then I thought:  Well, if I’m tackling the Baking Cabinet, I might as well clean up its cousin, the Pantry.  I dumped the Spice Basket on the floor and sat down to sort. 

Did you know I had two jars of bay leaves? Nope, neither did I.

Do you know how to use bay leaves? Nope, neither do I.

Did you know that, when expired, bay leaves stop smelling like “bay” and start smelling just like dead leaves you’d find outside? Nope, neither did I.

Did you know that if you keep garlic salt long enough, it turns into garlic salt clumps, large enough to use on snow? Nope, neither did I.

Did you know I had two containers of basil, both of which were only slightly younger than my youngest child (who turns 8 in March)? Yeah, me neither.

                  Following Jen’s advice (she, too, tackled her spices), I smelled the contents each bottle (blegh) and tossed those that seemed “off.”  (I avoided her mistake of smelling the cinnamon . . .  which I keep next to the stove . . . my system works, dammit!)  I slid the neatly arranged basket back onto the shelf – where it immediately jammed up against two boxes of vanilla pudding.

                  Rats.

                  Vanilla pudding does not go in the Pantry; it belongs in the Big Cabinet to the left of the oven, the one which houses baking mixes and boxed goods and which requires me to either climb on the counter or use a chair for accessibility.  So I dragged a chair over to the Big Cabinet.  Of course, it was a mess, and I found no space for the two boxes of pudding (which is probably how they ended up in the Pantry).  I sighed.  And I tackled the Big Cabinet.

I found cake mix older than our “kitten,” Jake Ryan, who’s now three.

I found cookie mix that I remember moving from our house in Chicago – in 2008.

I found the saltines that no one could find two weeks ago, probably because they belong in the Pantry, and not in the Big Cabinet.

                  I tossed the ancient products and re-organized the remaining items, now with plenty of room to spare. 

                  As I cleaned and rearranged, I wondered why I’d let things get so cluttered and outdated.  I’m not a particularly neat person, but I’m not a total slob.  I’m the only person in the house who checks and tosses leftovers, and I’m generally responsible for grocery shopping.  But how we ended up with multiples of items and boxes of food older than family members is beyond me.  It makes sense, I guess; if the cabinet is so disorganized that I can’t actually see all of the contents, it’s just a matter of time before I think we are out of something and buy another, when, really, the item is just hidden behind the Sam’s Club-sized box of Bisquick in the Big Cabinet.

                 

                  I’m pretty happy with the way the cabinets and Pantry look now; in fact, I even opened the Baking Cabinet today just to take a peek at its neat rows.  I certainly enjoy the spoils of a good cleaning and solid organization; I just don’t know that I’m wired to do the maintenance required to keep such a system running smoothly.  But, hey, if Jen can do it, then, maybe, so can I.

                  Now, to just get on that New York Times Bestseller’s list . . .