Kitchen/Soul Re-organization Part I

There is a friend who has stepped back into my life, and she’ll never know how grateful I am to her. In fact, I probably won’t realize how much she means to me until I’m old and gray and I’ve had the time to really sit and think about how great she is. We’ve been drinking lots of tea in the mornings while my belly shrunk and grew, and grew some more, lately. (There you go Lydia, it’s getting bigger!)

One thing led to another, and another, and soon, I had this smart little gal in my kitchen re-organizing everything. She has a degree in interior space design, has impeccable taste, and more importantly, is one of those kinds of people who can look at the Thanksgiving dinner left-overs and know exactly what will fit into the Tupperware containers you have.

Early one morning last week, she rolled up her sleeves and bravely pulled everything out of the cupboards, and handed the shelves to me to get rid of the syrup, honey, crusted stains and crumbs. Remember when the cleaning ladies were here and they said that cleaning a house full of four boys was the best birth control they’d ever found? It was like that, except my friend didn’t say a word about my messes. She is that kind… but I think she was actually too busy restoring order.

She was so good at figuring out where everything was supposed to go, that she had the stuff organized and ready to go back onto the shelves before I was done scrubbing them. As I was behind, she’d just move the the next cupboard and pull everything out of that one. Looking at the entire contents of my kitchen cupboards strewn out all over the counters and floors gives me a headache. I just want everything put away, and out of sight — I don’t care what goes where, as long as it fits, and I can’t see it anymore.

This kind of thinking — this shoving things back into the recesses of my cupboards — is exactly what got me into this mess. This mess of tripping over myself when I’m trying to cook. Still, this messy organization process was making me dizzy. Stuff was everywhere.

Yet, my brave friend had it all under control.  She knew exactly where everything was going to fit, how — and she was focused and doing it. She not only has the talent, but she has the mental stamina to deal with me as she’s doing it. She knows what emotional cobwebs got me into this mess… and she knows that getting my kitchen under control is a great way to get my life back under control. Plus, she knows me — which helps. She had not found my egg-poacher yet, but she knew I had one… somewhere — she she saved a space for it. She ran into the same problem when she couldn’t find my box of sprinkles, icings and birthday candles. She is grouping everything by task — baking items go together here, the beverage station there, etc. . .

Just when I was about to loose it, I turned around to see that she had everything back under control — in practically a snap of her fingers. My head soon felt better.

Things were not only back into their places, but I could open the cupboard doors, and they made sense. It’s just a matter of time before my soul catches up with what my eyes are seeing on the outside. When the internal world is just as pulled together at the outer.

We worked on phase II today. It’s just so complicated to me — trying to figure out where to put the mugs — with the glasses?  What about the wine glasses? And then, what about the Ovaltine? To be continued…