Okay, don't freak out, but:
Eeeeek! True Horror!
I know, right? AAAURGH! What is that?! Yeah, it's my pantry. Or it was, as of last week. I swear to you, it was once organized. But while I had intended to acquire some type of bins or baskets to keep it that way, that just didn't happen. Surprise! The worst part was our kitchen linens. If you can keep a bunch of napkins, towels, and dustcloths neatly stacked and organized on a shelf in your pantry, even with other family members putting away the laundry much of the time, well, don't tell me about it. But if you're like me, that is so far from planet Earth it can only be glimpsed in sci-fi movies. We're talking outer space. Fiction.
Neater than usual, sadly.
I have been feeling sort of lost and discouraged lately. While I love Blogging Your Way, I can't help but feel a little insecure about how scattered my blog is--I have only the slimmest, vaguest idea of what I'd like to concentrate on ultimately. I'm hoping that writing a lot (hello, Blogtoberfest) will help me discover my strengths writing- and topic-wise, and re-discover my voice. But this week I have felt down and uncertain and just not in the blogging mood. So I took a little break. Rumor has it that growth and change are uncomfortable, so I'm going to take this unease as a good sign. *deep breath* Yes. Good. For sure. I think.
With this attempt at reinvention and self-discovery I have felt an overwhelming need to get our apartment in order. Partly so I can feel free to take pictures as the mood or opportunity strikes, and partly because (don't tell my mom I admitted this) I just feel better, freer, healthier, and more creative when our home is in order. Not that our place is a mess on the surface, but after living here for 2+ years, we've accumulated quite a bit of stuff in the nooks and crannies and closets but (NOTHING is as bad as our pantry, except maybe our spare room closet, but we'll deal with that later). It's time to do a good top-to-bottom cleaning.
So with that in mind my sweet husband pulled everything out of the pantry for me, and I tossed the old gross stuff, bought a bunch of 96 cent bins from Target to keep stuff together, traded my cookbook and linen storage (with the help of some baskets for the Expedit), and figured out how to make the pantry work.
Ta-daaaaaaaa!
Hooray! Check out all that empty space! When I re-stock some of the baking ingredients and other items that were expired I'm sure that will disappear, so I'm going to buy more 96 cent bins in preparation. But right now this is one tiny oasis in the house. It feels good. Next up: the office. The kitchen. The entry. The hall closet. The bathroom. Sigh. I'm tired just thinking about it. But I'll get it done.
But for the moment I am going to bask in this clean, organized, hidden nook in my apartment. And I'll try to finish out Blogtoberfest with a strength. Well, finish. With writing.
Bins and Books. Magic.