Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Can you spot what's missing?


Matt and I did a lightning-speed kitchen decluttering during naptime on Sunday, and much to the delight of Mr. CoffeePot, the blender has been banished to a cabinet. The coffee pot's new neighbor is my new best friend, the Crock Pot. I used it both Monday and Tuesday, and even managed to remember to put in the liner so we didn't have to clean the stoneware. I am trying to cook only with the Crock Pot on weeknights, so we can maximize our family time before the Nans goes to bed. So far it's a great success. Monday night was salsa chicken, and last night was pulled pork. Both were delicious, and both recipes made enough for leftovers. The salsa chicken is going to be reinvented tonight as quesadillas, and the pulled pork went into the freezer to use later.

Speaking of freezers, we are now the owners of a deep freezer. My parents decided to buy us one after they heard me stressing out over where to store my ever increasing freezer stash of milk (a good problem to have, I know). We got it this weekend, and it is sooooo nice not to have bags of breastmilk tucked into every nook and cranny of the upstairs freezer. I counted the stash as I boxed it up for the deep freeze, and in the past month I've gone from the all time low of 10 oz to my current supply of 270 oz! Elliot is getting about 2/3 breastmilk and 1/3 formula right now. I'm hoping to build up a large enough stash that I can quit pumping before she's one and still be able to give her a few bottle of milk every day until her 1st birthday.

During the kitchen reorganization, I decided I HAD to do something about the random feeding paraphernalia cluttering up my countertop. My solution was to organize all feeding necessities on a tray in the corner. I don't know why, but it looks so much better all contained on the tray. I finally found a use for a crystal jar I've had sitting around for years. It now contains spare bottle rings and nipples. I have limited drawer space in my kitchen, so the baby spoons went into a mug. Even the sharpie gets a home on the tray, so I am no longer searching for it to label the milk storage bags. We also keep bottles of water out with a formula dispenser, so it only takes a second to mix up a bottle in the middle of the night, and it's room temperature and ready to go! Since I'm exclusively pumping, I leave my freshly pumped milk out in a bottle rather than storing it (it's good at room temp for 8 hours) and keep that on the tray as well. The only time I ever heat a bottle is first thing in the morning. Matt or I throw a bag of milk from the freezer into some warm water when we wake up, and it's warmed up and ready to go by the time Elliot gets up.
I think my next project will be organizing the bathroom and linen closet. Any suggestions on how to fit an incredibly large amount of beauty products into a very small amount of space? I don't have the heart to be as ruthless in my decluttering of makeup as I am with kitchen utensils.

1 comments:

chae said...

Kind of a hollow victory for the coffee pot don't you think??

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