Autumn Update (and Kitchen progress)

Things have been really out of control lately... I say that like my life doesn't constantly shift between out of control and just busy. But lately things have been extra chaotic.

Right now I'm working for a corporate company, something I considered expanding on with training and certification beyond my current position, but if I'm being honest it's not really my passion. The smaller store that I was working at was slated to close mid-september, and with all my extra hours, I decided to take a break from everything else until I got through that. Leading up to the close, my hours kept expanding well beyond what I was comfortable with. The week of cleanup, my schedule was all over the place. Luckily, I managed to have a week off from work before transfering to another location. 

My time off coincided with my birthday, and weekend plans out of town with friends of ours. So, more or less it felt like Monday through Thursday off, but that's still nice.  ^_^

Fast forward to Monday morning, and I ended up dealing with some issues that came up with our bank... That lasted the first two days of my days off. So for the last two days, I have been busting my butt to get our kitchen under control.

When I decided to take a break from everything, I told my husband that other than necessary laundry, I was letting everything go. I was getting so stressed out that I was finding myself overwhelmed, anxious, and overall unproductive in my exhaustion. I just needed to "get thru".

Our  situation is a little crazy, because it's not like we have a normal, functioning house that I'm just cleaning up. We don't just have one messy room, or a garage, or an office that got crazy. We have an entire apartment that is completely filled from our wedding gifts, things from college, furniture from friends and thrifting, stuff from my grandparents estate... It's just really gotten out of hand. It feels like a an episode from Hoarders, except that there isn't any excrement or piles of the same item.

I would say that probably 50% of it is paperwork, and most of that is trash. We have a lot of items that we've accrued with the intention of using, and haven't gotten around to actually using. When we first moved in, I bought a small steamer because I used to steam vegetables at my parents house a lot, and it has sat in our cupboard with a sticker from the Salvation Army for nearly three years. That is now in a box, about to be re-donated. 

Anyway, sometimes I find it really hard to share our progress... Because sometimes I'm just organizing drawer. And because lately things have gotten so out of hand with my schedule that I really didn't have the energy to focus on organizing the house. But tomorrow is my first day at a new store, and my hours should be down from what I've been working oh, so here's hoping. 🤞🏼

Update on the space... still not finished, but I am aiming to have it wrapped up this week. Or at the outside by the end of this weekend.

It probably doesn't look like much, but that's because a lot of stuff that was in the back got pulled forward.

This is how the area looks behind our kitchen nook, in the back corner next to the door. Admittedly, I liked having my kitchen items on the baker's rack, but I'm going to be caring for some potted plants this winter. So I decided to use this space to start bringing them in before it gets too cold.

This is the area when you first step into the kitchen, to the right hand side. You can see that I've started a box of donation items - in front on the left. I also still have this step ladder folded down, because I climbed up on top of our pantry shelving and cleared out what was in that box. I sorted all of the coffee that my husband has, based on best by date, and I stored them above the shelving. The food items that had been that box had gone bad, so I tossed them.

I have been moving everything that doesn't belong in the kitchen out of the room, or at least sorted things as I go into piles to be removed. Nothing that doesn't belong in that room will go in there once we are done. We 

I will, of course, share the finished pictures when we are done with this room. Admittedly, this whole project has surprised us both in the amount of time and energy needed to complete our goals. But we are both in agreement, that we don't want to live this way going forward.