Two Tales of One Kitchen Cabinet

Here is the scene of the crime....it's bad, it's BIG, it's a mess!  Do you have a place in your house that looks a little like this? :)  You may be like me and have looked at places in your home that look similar to this, but just get overwhelmed and decide to just shut the door or turn away.  I have lived this way for 25 years.  But, recently I've discovered that you can have an unorganized room or shelves filled with clutter and it's just that...it doesn't define who you are as a Person.  This may seem like "duh" for you, but for me not so much.  I had a problem looking at things for what they are and not making them an extension of who I was. 

Normally this would freak me out and  I would be filled with shame, but let's look at what these shelves really represent.  When I look at these shelves with non-judging eyes I see that the person in this kitchen actually uses her kitchen.  They must cook at home more then they eat out.  I see bottles of food coloring from numerous science projects, Easter egg coloring sessions and endless nights of baking.  Extracts for all the fun drinks sipped while taking long walks, nacho cheese seasoning so their movie night popcorn is less naked.  All the baggies in the back filled with exotic spices found in little shops or Whole foods proves you can take a trip around the world and not even leave your house.

So, there is no need to feel embarrassed or discouraged.  Take what you have and make it Functional and Beautiful to you!  That is what I've been doing around my house and I haven't really been documenting it or blogging about it, because it's just been a lifestyle change for me this past year.  But, I want to share because I have meet so many people lately that carry this deep dislike for themselves and they have been dealing with it since childhood.  And everyday the pile grows taller and taller as they keep adding all their "failures".  The thing that helped me was realizing and truly believing that the things that I thought were "failures" were simply just areas of my life that I needed to give extra attention to.  And once I released the judgement and looked differently at the tasks at hand I found relief.  With relief I found motivation to tackle projects that burdened my soul for years.  Healthy eating, organization of the whole house, writing, Bible studies needing to be studied, building projects, hobbies I had wanted to start, languages I wanted to learn and a plethora of odds and ends that I had been putting off for YEARS!

One of my areas of weakness is the Kitchen, I have so much of everything!  I love to cook and I love flavorful food so I have spices and cookbooks galore.  A few weeks ago I donated 18 cookbooks and I still have about 35, that will be a slow weeding out process and I can live with that.  Right now they aren't cluttering the counters and floor of my kitchen, so I'm a happy momma.  Now my Spices are another story.  I couldn't just organize or get rid of them.  I buy most of them from Sams so they are huge!  Because of that they are bulky and I waste time searching for what I need.  Here is my solution....

My Son started buying these coffee drinks from Sams that came in glass bottles.  I've been keeping them for months because I knew they could be re-purposed.  I decided the bulk of them could be used to hold my seasonings. :)  After I took out all the seasonings from my spice cabinet this is what was left!  We wiped down the shelves and lined up our spices to look at what all we had.  We even found a few lost gems in the back! :)  
 
Make sure your bottles are completely dry any that you have removed any labels.  I used some goo gone and nail polish remover to help with the stickiness from the label.  We started filling up each coffee bottle carefully with a small funnel.  I'll give you a tip, gently tap the bottom of the bottle to the counter or table so you can get as much as possible into the new bottle.  It's amazing how much you can squeeze into just one bottle.

We decided to use black paper with a silver sharpie for labeling, that's what we had on hand.  We figured we would paint the lids eventually and maybe use chalk board paint to write the seasoning names on it if the paper messed up.  But, to tell you the truth it's been weeks and our black paper looks the exact same as it did on day 1.  

And here is the result, I feel so much better and looking for what I need is much easier.  I feel more inspired to cook new things when I look in my cabinet now.  I would say this project was accomplished in about 2 hours.  Now, what should I cook for tonight's dinner.....hmmmm.  First that huge container of coconut oil is making me want to pull some oil.  More on that later! ;)