Simplify my Life 2011

I liked what a friend of mine said about New Years goals: “January is for dealing with all the crappy leftovers of the previous year. February is really when you figure out what it is you want to focus on this year.” And in keeping with that theory, I have decided that 2011 will be the year of simplification. My motto is Simplify My Life, and with this end in mind, I am going to work on small or large projects that simplify my life.

I am not sure how I ended up in the kitchen with this small project, but that happens to me sometimes, as I am cleaning or working on something else around the house. The kitchen is one of the most used places in our apartment and also one of my favorite places to be. Considering how much it gets used, I thought I would do a Power Hour Purge. This is when I pick one area of my apartment and spend an hour purging all old/unused/unwanted things and clean and spruce it up. Although this did not take me an hour, I decided to go through all the drawers in my kitchen and purge.

In the process, I found out that I had two meat tenderizers, of which I have used one twice in the past 3 years; 7 spatulas of different colors; three can openers and I only use my favorite one every single time and ignore the others; random measuring spoons from two different sets and different colors; manuals to appliances mixed in with screwdrivers and nails in a drawer that never gets opened; three bottles of the same spice – dried parsley and 6 boxes of matches. Wow! Really??? You should try it sometime and you will be amazed at how much Clutter is in your kitchen drawers!

I realized that since I cook everyday and had very little precious counter space, I should reconfigure where I had my spices, since they were all cluttered together and I almost always had to knock down a few to find what I wanted in the shelf overrun with spices. So as I cleaned out one drawer, something happened and voila!

All the spices that I use the most fit in this little drawer right next to the stove, which previously used to house the 6 boxes of matches and oven mitts! I cannot tell you how thrilled I was (I am easy to please) to make something so simple to use and easy to access. This allowed me to clean and reorganize my other spice shelf (yes I have more than one) so that I could see all my spices and use them more easily.

Operation Simplify is on its way! Let’s see what else I get into next!