Baby Step #3: Meds and Spices

Today, I tackled three upper cabinets in the kitchen, the ones currently holding medicines, spices, and what used to be our primary food cabinet, but now most of the food is kept in the big pantry in the laundry room.

Seriously, can I ever take a "before" photo? What is wrong with me? It's not like I accidentally stumble into these projects and didn't know I was going to be decluttering and organizing until it's too late.

So, once again, you have no idea how bad these cabinets actually were when I started, but I hope you can still appreciate how great they look now.

This cabinet used to have a small lazy susan, which orginally held less frequently used spices (I guess that was my logic?). The rest of the bottom shelf was supposed to have a few medications. Yeah, well, that was ten years ago, and now we have a lot more medications, including a whole 'nother person's worth.

So, I took all the spices out, contained Shrike's meds and Peeper meds (both labeled) and miscellanous stuff (free samples, dog meds, etc), which left just enough room for the giant bottles of Ibuprofin and Acetaminophen. (I have quite a stash of meds myself, but I keep them on top of my desk, because I can't be bothered to walk into the kitchen to take them or to set up my Old Lady Pill Box once a week.)

This cabinet was full of spices and the like, to the point of having to remove several bottles to get to anything that I don't use pretty much daily, and the the garlic / sea salt grinder was falling out pretty much every time I opened the door.

Out they all came, for inspection and organization. Of course, a ton ended up in the trash. There were things with expiration dates before Peeper was born. Some things, I couldn't remember the one dish I bought them for, but I'm pretty sure it was back in early 2007 when I wasn't working, and was doing a lot of cooking. (Around the time I started this blog.)

I found a can of Tony Cachere's season, which had tape on it, which means that it was sealed up for moving, at least once. We have been in this house for over ten years. And, while it is available here, I suspect that I bought it in Texas.

So, out with all the spices, and in with the few things from the big corner cabinet that we actually need to keep in here. Some staples, like oats (actually, there's only a tiny bit left in that giant container, but it will eventually be replaced with a full one, so I kept it, to reserve the space, flour, sugar, rice and (white and brown), plus some things that Shrike uses a lot, oatmeal and peanut butter.

So, what happened to all those spices? Into the big cabinet, all on its lazy susan, which originally held canned goods. (The little lazy susan is out completely, and may be used in the big pantry at some point.) If you had a better view, you'd see that I have them sorted into savory (garlic, onion, oregano, cumin, sage),  "sweet" (cinnamon, cloves, allspice, etc.), and salt/pepper, with back-up bottles and bigger things behind. To the far left, behind the big bottle of garlic powder, you can see some ziplocks containing dried herbs that we picked at the farm this summer: basil, dill and cilantro. I've used up all the oregano, and the mint is on top of the K-cup drawers, with the tea ball that I got for Christmas, for making peppermint mocha and hot chocolate.

On the shelf above these are a few things that we use less often, like food coloring, extracts, etc and on the very top shelf, are sprinkles and cupcake liners.

Next time I will try to get a before picture.

Yup, That's My Wife

I went to get out some socks this evening, and found this.

Baby Step #2: The Desockening

Why can't I remember to take before photos when I start a project? Because this drawers drawer would be much more impressive if you had any idea what it looked like before.

Does it help to paint the picture if I tell you that I packed up 25 pairs of socks, 4 stretched-out nursing bras and one or two pairs of stretch (but not mesh) hospital undies, and threw out more than that?

The drawer was stuffed, plus a pile of unmated socks on top of the dresser. I went through them, trying on all the socks and looking for mates. Anything threadbare or with holes, I tossed. Any socks that required effort to get on, I gave away.

(Shrike's mom gave us a bunch of socks a while back, and Shrike doesn't like this style, so they went it my drawer, but her feet are smaller than mine, so several pairs were too tight, but I kept wearing them anyway.)

I was left with a pile of single socks, which I started to set aside to wait for their mates, but then I took another look at them, and asked myself, "Which of these would I be excited about if I found the mate? Which would I actually want to wear?" I kept one, which I think I wore yesterday and I'm pretty sure the mate is in the wash now, and threw out the rest.

My final judgement was to group the remaining socks by color and ask myself, "How many pairs of pink socks do I need, really? And how many need to be exactly the same shade?" So, out went a few more, to the donate pile.

When I put everything back, as you can see, I was able to organize them into "lady socks" (trouser socks that I wear to work with slacks) and "regular socks" (crew socks that I wear with everything else), with a panty-and-bra-wall down the middle to separate them.

Look at all those lady socks! No more standing there in the dark, groping around hope to find two similar enough to wear together, while trying not to wake Shrike up.

Also, look how the socks are all rolled up in tight little balls? Usually, I just fold the cuffs over together, but I figured this could be a sock version of the thing where you hang all your clothes up backwards once, then put them back normal, so after a while you can see which things you have actually worn. I've instructed Shrike (the clothes-putter-awayer) to just fold them over, and in a few weeks, I plan to purge again, and get rid of those that it turns out I actually don't like so much.

At least that's the plan.

Well, We Can Check Off That Milestone

So, Peeper trimmed her own bangs this afternoon.

Sigh.

Luckily we have haircut appointment scheduled for tomorrow anyway. (Hence the too-long bangs that were bothering her.)

One side, she didn't touch at all, but the other side is about an inch long. Except for the part right in the middle that's about, oh, a centimeter long.

I took some photos (ostensibly to send to the hairdress, so she'd know what she was dealing with), but Peeper doesn't want me to post them, so I won't.

Of course, it could have been much worse; she could've hurt herself with scissors, or cut a lot more hair, so we should probably be thankful that this is something that will be fixed fairly easily.

But for now, she is really upset about it. When I told her I was putting the scissors up high, she said, "I WANT them up high!" No additional punishment needed. There's nothing we could do to her that would be worse than how she feels right now, and waiting for it to grow out.


While comforting her I said, "What if I read and find out what kinds of foods help hair grow fast?" and she said, "There's no such thing!"

I told her that I was sure protein would help, because hair is made of protein. Later, as we were googling it, and I said that again, she asked, "But how can hair be made out of meat?!"

Turns out that protein is good, and also things high in vitamins A and E and omega 3s, like carrots, spinach, citrus, salmon, and so on. So, that might be helpful.

Super Galoot

As fast as the wind, as strong as two plates!

Vampire

Welcome Back to Pennsylvania!

This is why nobody had school today.

In case you can't quite make that out, it says -4°F. On our back patio. That is officially the coldest temperature I've ever experienced. I saw zero on this thermometer once.

And while I've seen 100°F plenty down in Texas, I've also only seen it here exactly once. The summer that our air conditioner was out.

Finally Home

We came home from Texas today, and I suppose our day was much better than the trip down, if only for the lack of vomit, but we this one had its adventures, too.

 When I was planning our itinerary, I was originally hoping to come back on yesterday, so Peeper could go to school today, but I couldn't find any flights that would get us back to Baltimore before evening, which would put us home close to midnight, so I went with a flight that left at 6:55 am, arriving in Baltimore at 1:30 pm.

 Great, right?

 The airport is only about fifteen minutes from my parents' house, and it's tiny, so it doesn't take but a few minutes to check in, drop the bags, go through security and get to the gate, so we aimed to leave the house around six, and came pretty close to it.

When we arrived, we got in line - well, we started a line, no one else was there yet - and waited. And waited. And waited. At 6:30, a TSA agent came over and told us that, under Federal law, you can't check in less than thirty minutes before a flight, so we weren't getting on this plane.

I realize (now) that we were cutting it close, but I know that I'd been there for more than five minutes, and one of the people behind me in line said it was 6:22 or so when they walked in, but the ticket agent had already shut down the desk at that point, so we were out of luck.

After a bit of polite (sort of) ranting, and a lot of tears from Peeper, we got ourselves booked for an 11:30ish flight to Dallas, and on standby for a flight from there to Baltimore, called Anoymama and had her come back to pick us up.

Once we got back to the airport and actually got on the plane, things were fairly uneventful the rest of the way to Baltimore, but Peeper had been up since about 5 am, so she was pretty pooped. She conked out about the time we took off in Dallas, and slept almost the entire flight.

Shrike was there to meet us at the airport, and of course, we stopped at Pizza Hut on the way home.

We usually go from there to Baskin Robbins, but it was getting really cold, so I suggested that we just get a dessert at Pizza Hut instead, but she was having no parts of that, so off we went. She had ice cream, and Shrike and I had hot chocolate. With ice cream in it, because we are temperature wimps.

While I was at the counter ordering the scoop of ice cream, a fellow who'd been buying donuts left, then a few moments later, came back in and bellowed, "How's that socialism workin' out for ya?"

I'm assuming he saw my bumper stickers.

"Great!" I said, "I've got a much better deal on my health insurance now!"


He went out, came right back in and said, "You shouldn't be surprised if somebody says something. You're advertising it!"

I said, "Yes, I am advertising, I'm very proud of that."

I should've said, "But I'm still surprised when some asshole suddenly starts yelling at me in public in front if my child."

Then there was something about Greece. I dunno.

We tried to have our dessert in peace, but as you can imagine, I was pissed off and kept ranting about it, while Shrike kept trying to settle me down. She said I should just ignore, but I said (and still maintain) that you should never "just ignore" a bully, because that is tacit permission to continue. I was wishing that I'd called him on his behavior, rather than just arguing back with him.

Then he came back again. This time he started with something along this lines of "This isn't anything personal to you two, God bless you, this is a political and economical. . . " some shit like that.

This time I did tell him something along the lines of, "Stop, Your behavior is absolutely unacceptable, you don't just yell at strangers, just stop."

When he kept going, the kid behind the counter told him to leave. That part was cool.

He finally left, but of course, I was all riled up again, so you know Shrike was thrilled about that.

I will say, though, that I suppose I was pleasantly surprised at the "nothing personal; God bless you" part. I guess it says something for how far we've come as a society, especially recently, that even the raving Tea Party lunatic is okay with gay folks now.

The rest of the drive home was uneventful, and we finally got in close to midnight.

Oh, and the school thing? They went back on Thursday, were off Friday for snow, today for ice and tomorrow for expected subzero temperatures. So there's that.

Playtime

After Christmasing for a couple of days, Peeper and I took one last trip to the mall for some shopping, lunch and hanging out at the mall's play area.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Everybody came over this evening for our big Christmas Giftapalooza.

Peeper got some cool stuff, but some of it was things that we couldn't play with right away, and when she ripped through all her gifts, and her cousins still had a bunch left, because they were taking turns, and because they had two packages each from us, whereas Peeper had a tiny package with cash in it from them, it took some talking to get her back on board with the whole "celebration" thing.

She was particularly interested in one of DaNiece's gifts, so I asked her "Do you want to spend some of your money on it?" She did, so I pulled up the Amazon app on my phone, and bought it right then and there.

She cheered up later, and by the time all the kids had a "glow show" with their new light-up Pillow Pets, she was pretty happy about her stuff, and even declared that the Pillow Pet "is perfect!"

When we were making plans for Christmas dinner, I volunteered Peeper and myself to help with several things, since we were in town for a few days ahead of time. Yesterday, we made pies, and somewhere along the way, Peeper had gotten the idea that she wanted to help prepare the turkey this evening.

So, after telling Uncle BabyBro, HerLovelyAunt and the cousins good night, (yelling up from the bottom of the stairs, "Good night! Have a good sleep! Don't let the bedbugs bite!") we got started on the turkey.

I'd told her all about what was involved, to make sure she knew what to expect. "It's a big, naked, dead bird. Are you okay with that?" She was very okay with it.

She wasn't especially thrilled when I opened up the giblet bag to show her the heart, liver and something, "I'm done looking at them now," but she played with the neck for quite a while. When it was time to get the kidneys out, I was icking out about doing it with my hands, and Peeper said, "You just have to be really brave, Mama. You can do it, you can do it. "

Well, hell, now I have to do it.

Once that was done, it was time to do the buttering, and she was all about that. She buttered that turkey up, but good, saying, "I love getting messy!"

Between the butter and the turkey juice, there was definitely another late-night shower before turning in.

Tomorrow will be the the Big Christmas Dinner.