An Organized Kitchen!

For once, I would like to write something that does not revolve entirely around Emmy!. And I would like dedicate this post to Kim Garber, who is a really amazing and sweet and fun lady I am thankful to know and have in my life. I've been trying to send her an email for a week, but am having technical difficulties, so I decided to put it in a blogpost.

This may come as a surprise to some of you, and I hope we can still be friends if it does, but I am not a naturally organized person. *Sigh* ,Maybe it's because I come from a big family and never had a whole lot of stuff and never had my own room to organize- just a little corner....I was just telling Bron that the year before I moved out, I did not have a bookshelf, and I would just neatly stack my books in little stacks all around my twin sized bed, and I didn't think anything of it. I say this not to boast or to make my Mom feel bad or something, but to reminisce of when life was simpler. Anyway, I could come up with a lot of excuses!, but I won't.

Kim has been encouraging me to seek to be more diligent in this area, and to think of it as a fun adventure. Kim has had some practical tips, but mostly it's been emotional support for the journey. Thanks Kim! I am so thankful to have you as a caregroup leader, and friend, and sister.

So, here are my cabinets Kim:) Starting with the ones beside our oven.

So, this used to be a very annoying cabinet, but now it is a very useful baking supply cabinet. I had my mixing bowls way up where the coconut oil is, and can't reach there without a stool or standing on tiptoes. My bowls were all stacked on top of eachother, and I would be on my toes trying to pull one from the middle of the stack. Highly frustrating! My Pyrex also used to be in another cabinet high and out of reach, but I use these every day! So I finally figured out that reaching coconut oil is really easy on my toes, compared to the bowl stack dilemma. And I love having my bowls close, and my Pyrex close. And I can admire how pretty they are -I have a love for Pyrex and sturdy mixing bowls. A plastic container from Dollar tree holds my lids, and measuring cups. Yay:) Up high are things I don't use much, so I don't have to pull out the step stool too often.(, and then discover Emmy excitedly climbing up to join me.)

This cabinet is an example of how something organized and useful to me may not be to another person. But I love this cabinet and it has made my life much easier. I used to have my teas in another cabinet with not quite enough space-so it was quite a mess. I also used to have the cereals in the bottom shelf here in the tea's current spot. But then I realized that Bron is the only one who eats cereal in the house, and not very often, and he is able to reach a bit higher than I. So again, I have things I use almost every day right at my level. So nice.

^My lovely assistant will show you the storage space below the counter. Some day, Bron will make this into nice open shelving, with pretty baskets. But for now, we have a curtain to hide things behind. I won't go into what it used to look like. But it was a hiding place for all kinds of things. Emmy would get into it and I would want to cry sometimes!. But now there is not much for her to disrupt. Just pots and pans, and small appliances, and drinks that don't need to be refrigerated yet. So nice to have a permanent spot for these things! Oh and those fancy plastic drawers- one holds candles, and a few misc. items. The other holds spices, which hopefully will have a more useful spot soon.

We finally have found a useful way to use this cute vintage cabinet that came with our house. The bottom shelf that you can't see, is for my crockpot. Now I have a place for cookbooks, and pretty spice tins. And other ingredient-type things like honey and apple cider vinegar which I use most every day.

We brought up another old cabinet that came with the house- an old metal pantry. And it works perfect for just that in our Kitchen. Not sure why it took us so long to figure that out:)

On to my cabinets over by the sink. Another example of a "You call that's organized Liz?!", and yes I really do:) It took a long time to figure out a good place for Emmy's plates and bowls. But they fit nicely with our normal-sized plates and bowls. And plastic tupperware...we don't use a whole lot of that, so I hid them out of reach. And my glass bottles, they just fit well there, so now I know where to put them

I also have a love for jars, and I think it's fun to wash and save little ones to re-use. Bron probably has developed a hatred for jars because I always had a different place to hide them. Anyway, this is our awkward above-the-sink cabinet, which I think has become the perfect spot to store them all. Top shelf has large jars. Middle shelf has one side full of smaller jars, and the other side is for Emmy cups. The bottom shelf holds supplements and medicine type stuff. Easy for me to reach.

Lastly, we purchased this inexpensive kitchen island at Kmart. Finally, I have drawers for plastic bags and things like that! (Oh and not to mention a prominent location for Bron's jar of cookies.) I have a small collection of picnic baskets, and they work well for hiding Bron's snacky items for his lunch, and odd kitchen utensils that don't get used often. The baskets used to be on the top of our cabinets...

but I'm now working on a collection of mix-match pretty plates to have Bron hang up there at some point. Also, he put up some hooks for me to hang colanders- another thing that never really had a good spot.

Anyway, so there ya go Kim! My daily life really has gotten alot easier because of this. And I don't feel like I have to keep the gate up in the doorway all the time to keep Emmy out of the kitchen. If she gets into things, I know where they go and it's not a huge disruption to life. It's kinda fun to see her explore. I think we are both feeling more free in the kitchen, in different ways:)

Her favorite place in the house.

Another fall walk,

This time, just Emmy and me, and a baby doll.

Teething has returned to our life again, probably for the first time since August! , and I think all 3 of us forgot how hard it can be. Thankfully, there are a lot more ways to distract and occupy Emmy with now that she's at this age (-almost 16 months!), rather than just wanting to be held and nursed and comforted.

So this week, we went out into the cold and took a walk. It was around 3 in the afternoon, when all the city kids are walking home from school. This is usually the time of day when I prefer to be inside, because of all the kids/teens and the cars and buses and noise. But it just had to be done.

Emmy loved all of it, and she thought all the kids were her best friends! It was sweet.

It's also the time of :year: when I prefer to be inside, I don't love the cold! But I'm thankful for having a toddler who needs to get outside. It's good for us both:) And 40 degrees is not so bad.

If anyone knows where we live, you'll understand,- we walked up to the end of our block to the corner at Walnut, turned left and walked halfway down the block to the alleyway behind our house, through the parking lot and into our backyard. And Emmy walked the whole way in the cold, stopping every so often to try to talk to teenagers (or dogs or cars) .

But she did request her pacifier, which I usually have in a pocket somewhere.

Let's go for a Fall-walk,

Bron said no stroller, let's do the backpack. (Thanks for this gift from my Mom!)

Bron decided to skip hunting for the whole fall season, to work on the house, and to do things like this between paint coats on the trim.

Don't you think a baby backpack suits Bron very well?

Emmy needed a leaf to hold.

Stopping for coffee and hot chocolate, 

And to watch the cat in the store window.

Home to read some books on the floor,

And wings for dinner:)

Another November,

This time last year, Emmy looked like this! She was just over 3 months old, and her cloth diapers looked especially funny on her little body. Fall for us looked quite different last year with an infant to figure out.

 Flash forward to this morning- the first Saturday morning in November. And Emmy is eating the same breakfast as us, bacon and eggs. ( Minus any coffee or orange juice, plus plain yogurt, which we've tricked her into believing is delicious, hehe.)  And she is babbling to us with excitement and seems to really know what she's talking about.

She can say a few little words now. Most recently-cheese and cat, two of her most favorite things of the moment. She also says car, and 'woo-woo' for dog. -Or any animal, she is obsessed with animals of all kinds. She says variations of "more" and "yes", which she may or may not actually mean when she says it. She does a lot of communicating by nodding for yes and shaking her head for no, which has changed our whole world of knowing what is going on in her little brain. I am very thankful to be in this stage:)

She of course says Mama and Dada, but most often she is talking about Dada.She has this new thing where as soon as Bron gets home from work, she immediately begins to show off in some way. She is usually watching a dvd at this point of the evening while I make dinner. And if there's a song on, she'll dance like crazy, or if there is a part of the show that could be considered even a little funny, she laughs hysterically and points and wants Bron to sit with her and play.

She is usually very shy and serious with people at first, but she is really a silly and fun little girl. 15 months old! I am sorry that I have not posted much on here with updates. She is changing so fast and I am busy chasing her around.

This picture is blurry, and a bit outdated, because we did paint our room by now. And none of those samples were used if you're wondering:) We didn't have to teach her how to brush samples on the wall, but she was watching and just knew exactly how to pretend to do what we (well, Bron in this case,) do. Toddlers are amazing!

Hopefully soon we can show pictures of our living room. It is all painted, and Bron is working on trim and electrical things. An Ikea trip is in the works, which we are very excited for! We've never bought new furniture before, so this is like a dream. Can't wait to share, and to have you over for a visit!

September Harvest

This weekend, we reaped a surprise harvest from our mess of green bean plants. It was so funny to us! Our entire garden this summer was a failure, and we didn't really get upset about. There were more important things to attend to. The only thing that came up was this green bean plant, at the end of July. We didn't expect any beans at all, since it seemed so late. But after all the rain, it was bursting with them! It was a surprise blessing for us. Green beans for dinner almost every night since then:) 

Another fun thing lately, Emmy's hair has now reached the point for pony tails and pig tails. It has definitely turned her into a toddler in our eyes.

Emmylou's first real word (Bubble.)

Yay!

A new project begins this weekend. Let's call it 'Goodbye to our ugly living room'! Bron says he has been waiting for this since the first time he walked into this room, before he chose to buy the house. He also says I can decorate and paint this room however I would like, even if the wall color I am dreaming of is a pretty blush pink with white trim. :)

For today, Emmy and I are enjoying all the space to run around in.

Join us in saying goodbye to all of these silly things: