Getting Organized: Week Two, 2015

     This is week two, and boy has it been an insane week. I had a three-day weekend, which was awesome. Two of those three days, it was just Ray and me, and that was just fabulous, and that is why it's been so long since I blogged. I'm working on another post, but it's a long, tough one. Then Monday, we went with my mom to Dothan for a day of fun. Then all hell broke loose.

     Tuesday, one of my co-workers had to leave work because of family illness. Then I ended up having to go to the hospital after I got off work because Alex cut his foot open on a metal grate and had to get stitches. Then yesterday, another co-worker had to leave because of family illness, and another left because of personal illness, so I ended up staying until after we closed to help out.

     But I have the most awesome family, so while I was at work today, they cleaned up the counters. All I had to do when I got home was refill the herbs and spices and organize them and take pictures.
     This is our prep area. It's right between the refrigerator and stove. We have our vegetable cutting board here. This is also where we keep our spices, arranged alphabetically. We use apple pie spice, basil, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, cumin, dill, ginger, marjoram, mint, mustard, oregano, rosemary, and turmeric a lot, so they are out on our counter. We have a few that we use a little less, so they are in the cupboard. Our local honey is there, with our salt, our pepper grinders, our vanilla extract, and our vinegars. The other side of the stove is where our microwave, blender, and coffee maker are kept. The spice jars that we use are from the spice organizer Ray and I got for a wedding gift. We repurposed them to only hold the herbs and spices we actually use constantly.

     Then there's our other counter. This is where our sink is. This is also where we make our delicious bone broth. That's what's in the white slow cooker. We also have a scrap bowl that put our compostable scraps in. We have a few gluten-free/corn-free flours that are used in our beauty products and some baking. They are tapioca flour and arrowroot flour. We have raw sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries, and whole flaxseeds. We also have a three-pot slow cooker for occasions when we have to cook more than one thing in the slow cooker. I wish we had more counter space, but this is a small, single-wide trailer, and we have limited space everywhere, so we have to make the best of it, so I like this arrangement. Organizing is a great way of making what you have work for you. So make your space work for you.