Organization

Just off my kitchen lies a small butler's pantry.  There are narrow shelves in the closed-door cabinet above and below are four open shelves that I use to store a variety of things: extra garden seeds, hand towels and extra toilet paper for the powder room just across the hall, plastic plates and cups for eating outdoors, paper napkins, cookbooks, bug spray, super glue, cookie cutters……the diverse list is endless.

For that reason, of course, these shelves are awfully easy to clutter up.  I use baskets and have tried to maintain some organization but over time the shelves had become a disorganized heap.  It would be one thing if I didn't see that heap every day, but I did.  Worse yet, so did most visitors to my home.  The shelves were a natural first target for the summer clean-up season.  The before picture, which I remembered to make after I had cleared off the first shelf, tells the horrifying story.

Two hours and one trash bag later, things are ordered and tidy.  I'll be able to find what I need and I won't be overwhelmed by the clutter. 

I am particularly pleased to have the water bottles organized.

It's nearly always a defcon 4 crisis when we need one of these bottles for some sort of sporting event.  The new method of organization means that I can tell at a glance that the bottle supply has been depleted (i.e., it's time to check JT's baseball bag, backpack, locker, and goodness know where else, to liberate some bottles now filled with brackish water).  Something about organization makes me feel empowered...I am neat and tidy, hear me roar!