A night of kitchen organization

Going without school for the spring term has been SO nice. Yes, I have gained another 2lbs. due to the ridiculous amount of time on my hands for eating, and cooking, and snacking, and grocery shopping. We are exercising four times a week so that is helping tons. Zac spends about twenty minutes running hardcore on the treadmill before he lifts weights while I am on the elliptical. It's definitely not as intense as running, but my 35 minutes on the elliptical allows me to burn 200 calories towards my inevitable after dinner splurges.

Anyways, back to the subject of this post. KITCHEN ORGANIZATION. These past few days, Zac has locked himself in our study to take practice MCAT exams. Sometimes he goes to the library to study, which is impressive considering we normally avoid the library during the semester. Tonight, he had a practice test, and I had 3 hours and 30 minutes to organize. My kitchen has been a disaster for the past few weeks and has been screaming for some spring cleaning.

This is what was accomplished:

Refrigerator and Freezer cleaning/organization and inventory. (There is usually an inventory list in the kitchen to avoid any food wastage, but this had not been done for weeks!)

All the cupboards cleaned and reorganized

Spice rack moved from my magnetic easel board to the side of my fridge (this was my favorite change)

Pantry dusted, cleaned and reorganized

Microwave cleaned

Dishes washed and put away

Baking canisters for flour, white sugar, brown sugar refilled

Floor swept and mopped
Snack cupboards reorganized (I finally got all of our snack stuff off the counters)

It felt so good to get all this done. But my body is sore. For one, weight lifting has made most movements painful and uncomfortable. Two, cleaning is hard work! As for as organization is concerned, everything I have is alphabetized so it's easier to find and return things. Some people call it OCD, but I think it's the best time saving, ingredient finding, kitchen habit anyone can have. That said, I do know many great kitcheneers who have no rhyme or reason to their kitchen organization, and are still in total control of their kitchen. I am not nearly as coordinated to do so without the ABCs. Someday, I dream that I will have enough cupboard and kitchen space to have designated (contained) areas for things like...olive oils, vinegars, finishing salts, grains, etc. Until then, I am very content with out kitchen.