Operation Pantry

Organizing my kitchen cabinets can be a daunting task.  But there's a clause in my Operation Pantry that says, I am allowed to tackle this one shelf at a time.  Over the kids' spring break, I took a few days off and I tackled two shelves. 

 

The first shelf (top) houses majority of my baking ingredients, like whole flour, sugar, sprinkles, cupcake liners, choco chips, baking powder, ground cinammon and vanilla extract. I put the extra stocks right behind so everything is in one place.

 

The lower shelf is taken up mostly by my cooking spices. I have saved the empty jars of babyfood from my kids' wee years knowing that I'll put them to good use someday.  They are now home to my spices - basil, thyme, curry, cumin, oregano, cayenne, bay leaves, 5-spice, plum powder, and Italian seasoning.  On the lazy susan, I have my soysauce, vinegar, toothpicks, salt & pepper and sesame seeds.

 

Yes, I have a Hello Kitty obsession in the past. I collected the HK Strawberry edition of mostly kitchen and bathroom supplies. It was crazy, but I have made sure they get used now.

 

 

Temporary Solutions

My Operation Pantry began with a shopping trip to Dollarama and Home Sense.  I have been procrastinating this, but with all the baskets, tubs, labels, racks and liners I now have on hand, there's no more excuse not to get on with it.  I am on a mission to organize my pantry one cabinet shelf at a time.  The corner cabinet in my kitchen is not the best to work with.  Think diamond shape.  I have to make sure nothing will get hidden in the nooks that will not see the light of day. 

I got this expandable stair-step rack for only $6.99 to organize my canned goods, which luckily I don't have much of.  The rack is a good tool for organizing, at the same time, it controls my purchase of canned good to the rack's limited capacity. 

On the other side of the shelf, rather than leaving the space unused, I have placed my morning coffee/creamer/honey & PB&J jam on a tray that is easy to slide out.  This will be the temporary set up until I find more efficient pantry solutions. Maybe another stair-step rack?

Above this shelf is where I stash my tea and coffee sachets. 

 

I always first shop around the house for what I may already have before buying. Reuse. Reduce. Recyle.  And so I played around with the boxes I already have.

  

By trial & error, the 2 tea boxes fit perfectly inside the sturdy fruit cup box which I have saved earlier, knowing I'll make good use of someday.  That someday is now.  I just have to cover the box with some pretty paper when I get one.  Meanwhile, I am loving this temporary solution.

 

Coffee, tea or fruit cups, anyone?

  

Family Photo Wall

This was one wall of our kitchen in the old house. It was the hub of the kitchen. However it was a mix of school papers, homework and schedules, plus rice cooker, breadbox, what not. Even the sideboard didn't match the cupboards.

We switched things around.  Bought a pantry cabinet and office desk. But it messed up the existing photo wall. It was like that for a while. The next thing, we took everything down, repainted the house, and sold it.

 

Now what to do with the frames?  I thought this would be the last on my list since moving into our new home. Besides the mere thought of drilling holes - not one but a lot - on our clean bare walls gives me shivers.  But what i also thought would take me long, took me less than half hour to complete.  No painters tape needed to align. No measuring required.  I only made a mock light switch, which is on the wall I'd be putting this up on. I mapped out the frames on the floor.

With a hammer and a nail. Screw and a driver. And some precision. Tada!

The pictures are yet to be updated. Notice the inverted picture/art.  Meanwhile I intentionally left a space for some wall stickers. It was not transparent as I wanted, but I liked what it says.

A nice reminder, that the kids are only little for so long... Play with them!

Organize: The Meds

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday with your families and friends. Now that the holiday is over, it's back to regular programming. And I start with organizing!


I found these alphabet stickers from Walmart recently. The lollipop font was screaming my name from the shelves. It was my favourite handwriting font back in the days. So  I got them without batting an eyelash. Then went home and immediately found the place to stick them.

There's this one cabinet in the kitchen that I have devoted to Mr. Hotpot. The hub has always been the family's physician, so the meds are sorta his thing.

 

I hope his collection doesn't go beyond the FEVER & FLU baskets I have put out for them.  The GLOW basket contains candles, scents, lighters and batteries.

A place for everything . Everything in its place.  One shelf at a time.

Project of the Day: Binders

This has been a long overdue project that I haven’t tackled until today. The magazine box that houses the manuals/warranty of the appliances/gadgets we have accumulated over the years has exploded.


On my quest to organize one room at a time, I thought to start on a smaller scale – one folder at a time. In this case binders. I went to Dollarama to buy 2 of them. And that’s all I need.

Laid all the manuals/warranty cards out and discarded those that are obsolete and of those appliances we have already gotten rid of.

I punched to my hearts delight. I attached the manuals in different orientation as long as they all fit within the perimeter of the binder.

 

I kept the manuals for the appliances/device that are affixed to this house together in this Ziploc bag [in the event we shall sell] – central A/C, fireplace, kitchen appliances, CO detectors, down to the garage door opener. I keep this in the kitchen in case I need some troubleshooting.

For the rest of it that are too thick to punch, I attach another Zippy bag into the binder rings and put them all in there.

Mission accomplished.

On Hiring a House Cleaner

Before, I can spend the money on something else.
Now, I can use the time doing something else.

Really now it’s time over money. I used to hog all the domestic duties. I was a gatekeeper. Everything has to be done according to my way. But I don't have all the time in the world for just housekeeping. And then guilt starts to eat me.

Sometimes it’s just money. But it's also time, and the bigger ROI in taking the guilt off your system.

I am lucky that Mr. Hotpot does his fair share. No nagging required. He is best at “let’s eat out!” He says eating out, I have to think of it, is like he is cooking and doing the dishes. Yeah right, but I am brainwashed.

And then there's Margie.

This Week

Minced duck meat in lettuce cup at Yang's Fine Chinese Cuisine for Auntie's 75th birthday

Quiet moments at the library

Soft-shelled crabs at Ocean's - weee!

Stormy Friday

Made an ensalada of tomatoes, mangoes, onion and bagoong (shrimp paste)

Design idea for the 3rd bedroom. Mr. Hotpot has strong objection to =[

Steamed seabass with dried black mushrooms and scallops

Letting go for a good cause

Tako Sushi

Reduce. Reuse. Recyle. Have enough paper & plastic bags already.

The Dining Table

Our dining table has always been covered in table cloth to protect it from the playful kids. Think die-cast toys, scissors, crayons, whatnot. I rotate between cloth and vinyl on top of a protector. But it’s most often in vinyl since it’s easier to clean. I had always let it hang lose as I didn’t want the use of table cloth weights or clips. But then it often gets pulled here and there, and it moves as I wipe. So I went to find a fix to this.

In order to keep it tight, I did hospital corners.

And used duvet clips (Walmart) to secure the folds underneath.

I bid farewell to my cork trivets and welcome these cute LAGG trivets, of course from IKEA.  They look nice on the table even after the meal is over.

Trust In Yourself. Do Your Best.

I used to have a binder to compile the quotations, poems and short essays that I had saved through time. Nowadays I save them in a subfolder in my Inbox. Anything I’d see at random places, I would jot on my notebook or Post-its and stick it up here.

I know, this is ancient. And I need more room. That's my next project. Meanwhile, aren't these wall art clever?

Gotta have it.  It's now up on our kitchen wall. Some good constant reminders.

Yesterday Sushi was having a bad day from school. I asked him to read what's up there. And he felt much better.

Boxes & Things Repurposed

Every new year, I make a resolution to organize more. I say more because it’s already a habit, and at the new year because over the holidays we have raked in more stuff than we really need - from presents received to personal acquisitions. So there's a lot of organizing to do to make everything fit. As I have said, an organized space makes an organized life. This is also a good time to freeze the shopping - okay, minimize - and to purge the excess, if not, reuse and recycle the existing.

We use Kleenex boxes a lot, and I thought I should find good use out of the empty boxes.

As plastic bags dispenser

And as dividers and liner for the snacks drawer. It doesn't take space you could barely see it.

Empty can of Similac to store toothbrushes that goes under the vanity

I hooked my scarves hanger onto an old medal.

And I use the hub’s favourite Ferrero boxes for my jewelry.

Boxes of anything I reuse to store old and new greeting cards, receipts, stationery, what nots. I even found use of the Mcdonalds kids’ meal box to store gift tags.

Before I even think of heading to Solutions to buy the nth basket or box for organizing, I first have to look around the house for what I can repurpose.

What's In Your Bag?

The Kangaroo Keeper is the bag within my bag. It organizes the hundred things inside it, including the essential water bottle I take with me all the time. And that makes my everyday purse weigh about 6lb. tsk tsk tsk. The set comes with a large & small keeper, like a joey inside a mama roo, both are reversible to make more room. Can also be used separately or together.

I prefer the tan colour over black, as black would turn your purse into a black cave.  Switching bags is now hassle-free. I just plop this Kangaroo from bag to bag. Not that I change bags too often.

These are my bric-a-brac:

(1) Water bottle (2) 2 foldable shopping bags, I don't like retail plastic bags (3) coin purse (4) foldable fan that doubles as kids toy (5) cellphone (6) Advil for hubby (7) Polysporin for kids (8) Salonpas for headache (9) Gloss  (10) pen (11) emergency kit (12) kids colouring book  (13) granny-ish wallet (14) notebook (15) saline nose spray when it's too dry (16) work badge (17) crayons for kids (18) extra battery for my camera (19) hand lotion (20) hand sanitizer (21) house/office/mailbox keys (22) store coupons

Without the organizer, it would be a pain to comb through my 22 things, sometimes more, just to look for one.

As Seen on TV.  Order your Kangaroo Keeper now =]

My Kitchen

The kitchen is the busiest room in my house. Not only it is my throne. It is the hub of all other things non-kitchen – mails, calendar, homework, office supplies, gadgets, and whatnot. So... A place for everything. Everything in its Place. This is my mantra.

What used to be an empty wall, we put up a collage. We had IKEA’s Spontan magazine rack  and magnetic board as the focal point, and filled the rest of the space with assorted frames in the same silver scheme.

All paper trails from school and elsewhere go into those coloured folders. Kids' school/daycare calendars, grocery list, library book list are pinned on the magnetic board, making it disappear in the background. Good!  The frames hold memorable family photos and kids’ artwork, which we constantly update one frame at a time.

We kept the MARKOR sideboard even if it doesn’t match the kitchen’s new theme. It's hard to let it go, after all the hours we put into the assembly. Besides it provides ample storage. On top, a breadbox, a tray of glass jars & vitamin bottles, the tired rice cooker and cereal boxes.

This drawer keeps an assortment of tea which we drink a lot of especially at Fall/Winter, noodles, yummy instant noodles, and pasta.

I have saved the emptied babyfood jars knowing someday I will make good use of them. Now they uniformly house my spices.

Beside the stove I have all the cooking sauces.  In lieu of a drawer liner, the aluminum tray catches all the drip if any.

This drawer is for all the disposable wraps and bags. I use an empty box to keep grocery bags we later use to line the trash cans.  I snatched the small red container from the kids for my rubber bands.

This is the bento corner, for the Tupperware®, lunch and snack boxes. The lids and all the bento tools are in the plastic bins from ONE’s.

An organized space makes life more organized. Especially in this high traffic space.