Spring Cleaning

This past weekend, in the midst of yet another snowstorm, I started spring cleaning. Yep. Nothing big. I started with our spice cupboard and moved on to a few other things from there.

Now you know how we need to be motivated to do something - we have to be in the mood to do it? Well I had fought with that cupboard one time too many and I was in the mood to change it!

By the way, I have a new coaching program coming up that will teach you how to change that, so things get done because they need doing. No more waiting until you’re in the mood! Cause let’s face it, for some things, you’ll never be in the mood!

So here is what I started with:

I had a bunch of pictures to make this post much more interesting. I have spent the last 45 minutes finding an easier way to get them on this blog. Needless to say, I have not. I have sent them out into cyberspace and they are out there somewhere, lost.

If you come across a bunch of before and after spice cabinet makeover photos, please send them home to me. Thank you.

In the meantime…

What I started with was a jumbled mess. When we moved here nine years ago, I took the spices out of the cupboard in Michigan, put them in a box, brought them to Indiana and put them in their new cupboard.

Did you catch that?

NINE years.

Sure, some of them had been replaced numerous times over the years. I’m pretty sure that our chili powder and cinnamon are fresh.

But I had a giant Costco sized bottle of bay leaves that I’m pretty sure I had two houses ago. That would make them about SEVENTEEN years old.

Bay leaves do not age like fine wine.

So anyway, I took everything out, wiped down the cupboard and then sorted what I had. About half of the spice cupboard was ready to toss. Seriously…what possessed me to buy a giant Costco size of Cayenne pepper? I can’t take regular pepper.

So being the recycler that I am, I emptied all of the spices into a plastic grocery bag - not recommended with cayenne pepper - and tossed the spices and recycled the bottles.

What was left was easy to organize and made finding what we need so much easier. (If you want to come over to my house, I can show you the pics on my phone).

So anyway, the whole process took about an hour. It would have been less if I had been willing to just throw out the bottles instead of recycling them, but I can’t do that. It hurts.

I’ll keep working on finding those darn pics, but in the meantime, maybe you have a little space you could clean out for spring?

And then maybe if we all do just a little bit of spring cleaning, spring will actually come.

I’ll leave you with this pic instead: