New Year, Fresh Start

What are your plans and dreams and hopes for 2012?
I hope to accomplish several things this year - a simple one I've recently been thinking of is learning to brush my teeth without running the water.  Yes, I have sung the Barney song about this with all 3 of my kids.  I know why it's important I've just never made myself do it.  Not sure why - but it's a good thing to change and something I've made myself aware of and will consciously try to do.

I am rolling my 2011 goal for contentment into an element that will hopefully be a catalyst for just that - Organization.  I am typically organized in various degrees of piles and clutter.  I want to be really organized not pretend organized and ask my family to help so that we can have more time for fun and togetherness.  (You think they'll buy it?)

First stop is my pantry areas.  We flipped rooms in our house last April and turned the dining room into an office/pantry area with large cabinets from IKEA -so fun and creative.  We have a smaller eating area in the old piano space that links to the family room.  It's an extension of the kitchen as well so it all flows together.  The piano was moved to the old office area and a reading corner created in that room.  More napping has occurred in that corner than reading but a girl can have goals.

Back to organizing the pantry -  So I have scoured pintrest.com looking for organizing ideas.  Found a few that fit in my current cabinet system and will employ some small changes.  Keeping the pantry drawers in cabinet #1 organized will entail the use of some containers and labeling so that users (my family) know where to find AND return items.  I will put snack and lunch items within kid reach in the kitchen cabinet so that Mason can help pack his lunch and snacks.

Cabinet #2 is devoted to serving trays, large baking dishes, pitchers, sports bottles and other assorted small appliances and tools.  This has been nice to have so close to the kitchen instead of in the basement collecting dust on a shelf.  I need to tackle the things we really don't use and just get them out.   This will provide better use of this space and keep things organized.

The third cabinet is designated as a utility cabinet for cleaning tools. supplies and the recycling bin.  It's so handy to have them all in one place.  I will just have to organize and make sure it's efficient and tidy.

As I pull things out I'm finding some surprises:

4 bags of marshmallows, only 1 is unopened.  (I just told Mason last week we didn't have any.)

I discovered my vinegar is a multi-purpose cleaner and NOT pure vinegar for food consumption.    (uggh, yuck, blah)

many small bags of non-wheat flour that I didn't know I had - now we can dabble in more gluten-free goodies (like maybe birthday cake for my New Year's day birthday boy)

I will continue this week with this organizing task and include a good cleaning of the fridge as we rid it of the large quantities of holiday foods that we've enjoyed.

Next organizing project will be the Christmas boxes.  I hope to get to those by the weekend.

Happy New Year and God bless!