KonMari 2016 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

Wednesday2000

How funny as I was just looking through my spice shelf. I found an out of date chilli powder to chuck, it only had a little bit left and I had already bought some new cayenne pepper. I never know how to organise that shelf either. I'm sure there must be a clever way of doing it. I'm making an Indian dish today to use up odds and ends of veg. It will be nice and warming as it is cold here today.:)

silvasava

I've got some small baskets in my kitchen cupboards. One holds liquid food colourings and flavourings, one holds all my general spices - cloves, nutmeg, ginger etc and the other all my eastern spices. Obviously some of these are double use but at least I don't have to rummage HTH

[Deleted User]

I have a dedicated spice drawer, on the r side of my hob, a small drawer. I designed the interior five years ago and have never looked back. I took the internal measurements and found lined round aluminium screw top boxes. They are two high and in rows. I have coloured labels on top of each box, white, green, yellow and red, according to intensity eg herbs are green, baking powder is white. The space left is filled in front with small similar boxes (lip salve sized) so that nothing shifts when the drawer is opened. It is fab, especially as I used to have to go into a low cupboard and root in the various baskets in there. The drawer underneath does contain overflow, like vanilla pods and bigger refill pots. Food colours are in a line down the side of the top spice drawer

I said an audible thank you to feng shui and MK, when I walked into my study this morning with new eyes, it is a wonderful transformation. One of the most effective things was to move a large stack of metal circular needles, which were hanging down in rows, all that metal in spikes and pointing downwards, a lot of them collected over many years. Now behind the door, which opens back to a wall and I hear the metal singing, like wind chimes, when I move the door but I no longer see them

Today I decide to wash my cream stone floor in the living area, a warm, sunny bright room with a tall scandi black stove, with a mult rug, small coloured squares, busy colours. I moved the rug temporarily into that snug and suddenly said wow, it has lifted the snug up another level. Going back into the living room, the energy now flowed unobstructed by that busy rug which was obviously causing stuckness. I need a rug to soften the stone but have now spent savings on a cream wool rug with nice soft pile and sculpted in curves. I think this will be the missing link

I am loving the effects all over the house, there is always a space to put things away and cleaning is minimal

LizzieR

Just thinking about the kilner jars you have GQ.... I also have a fairly substantial collection of jars - both empty and full of hm jams etc. Also no longer eat anything with too much sugar, so don't make jams anymore (have to find a way to kondo all the jam I have but that's another story...), but needed to find a way to preserve the fruits and other stuff from my foraging and allotment habits. For me the choice has been flavoured vinegars - raspberry is a favourite, but last year I also made elderflower, apple and lime; blackberry and sloe; wild strawberry and elderflower. I sometimes add a bit of sugar to the vinegars but it really depends on how they taste when I strain them. Might be worth trying something like that, but only if you like vinegar of course! Having raspberry vinegar on my food during the winter months is just my fave thing, and it means my poor freezer isn't struggling with the glut of raspberries which I used to try and eke out for so many months.... The other thing I love about fruit vinegars is that they're so much quicker to make than any other type of preserves!! Gives me more foraging time :-)

Currently researching how to preserve wild garlic so I can enjoy it throughout the year if possible. I reckon it's going to be a case of wilting the leaves and freezing them, but I'll probably also try a vinegar with them. I already preserve the seedheads in vinegar (kinda like garlicky capers) as well as packing them in salt, but the leaves are my favourite so I need to work something out. Any suggestions would be appreciated!!

Slightly off topic I know, but hopefully useful for anyone with empty jars....

LizzieR

kittie wrote: »

I am loving the effects all over the house, there is always a space to put things away and cleaning is minimal

Oh Kittie, I am so jealous! I can't wait for my place to be like this, and am slowly nibbling away at stuff.

I'm definitely still in the worse before it's better stage, although I was inspired by you to go through (and try on) all my long skirts last week.... I had 21 - actually less than I thought....! Eight back in the wardrobe, three are in the CS bag, 4 listed online (offers on 2 of them so far ), 5 for mending/alteration and one in the rag bag - although I'm reconsidering that atm - woke up in the middle of the night thinking I could cut it into a shorter skirt to wear over leggings (it's originally from a dress that I bought for my 42 year old sister's 18th birthday party :rotfl: ) as I've had to ditch a couple of shorter black skirts already as they're too big now. The elastic has withered and it just seemed fusty from storage which is why it went in the ragbag, but I might chuck it in the wash and then see how it looks - replacing the elastic and cutting it down is no biggie, and I'm trying to shop from my wardrobe rather than buy new as I plan to keep kondoing the extra lbs rather than £s!

Karmacat

LizzieR wrote: »

Currently researching how to preserve wild garlic so I can enjoy it throughout the year if possible. I reckon it's going to be a case of wilting the leaves and freezing them, but I'll probably also try a vinegar with them. I already preserve the seedheads in vinegar (kinda like garlicky capers) as well as packing them in salt, but the leaves are my favourite so I need to work something out. Any suggestions would be appreciated!!

Slightly off topic I know, but hopefully useful for anyone with empty jars....

Very interesting to me, at any rate, thanks Lizzie - I like the strong flavours of fruit sauces etc that go with savoury foods, but massively increasing the amount of vinegar I have might well play havoc with my arthritis ... I'm wondering about a pesto type sauce, leaves dried and preserved in oil?

Floss

We have a dedicated spice & herb drawer within one of our IKEA kitchen drawer units - the deep veg drawer below the cutlery drawer has a wire half drawer inside and above that is the spice drawer. It's cool and dark, and everything is stood up in jars with labels on top, filed in a-z order so what is needed can be found easily.

LizzieR

Karmacat wrote: »

Very interesting to me, at any rate, thanks Lizzie - I like the strong flavours of fruit sauces etc that go with savoury foods, but massively increasing the amount of vinegar I have might well play havoc with my arthritis ... I'm wondering about a pesto type sauce, leaves dried and preserved in oil?

Thanks Karmacat I like the suggestion of a pesto type sauce - will investigate. Re the vinegar - I'm not sure about the effects on arthritis although I do seem to recall seeing something about apple cider vinegar helping with arthritis, so that may be worth checking out? Personally I tend to just use shops own wine vinegars when making my fruit vinegar, although I have used ACV and it does make the end product a little fruitier - it just tends to be a little more expensive. Of course, you'll know what is likely to help / hinder your arthritis better than I would especially as it's only a vague recollection that ACV might be beneficial

[Deleted User]

I have lots of kilner jars, some still brand new in boxes, under the stairs. The used clean jars and collars are in the shed. I will be using them for bottling fruit and also for keeping my hm sauerkraut. I need to keep allotment fruit in places other than freezing as I have so much. I use light syrup when I can and then drain the fruit for use. They make good storage jars for inside cupboards eg I keep my herbs in them, in the dark. I take the air out via a special lid attachment that attaches to my vac sealer. The american sites are hot on this and I sent to america for them. They are also good for storing dried pulses etc and I ferment my kefir in them. Re ACV, it is wonderful, the pure fermented unpasteurised one with the `mother`, I aim to drink some diluted on most days, lol have forgotten for two days.

lol 21 skirts Lizzie!! not just me then

GreyQueen

Thanks for the tips about fruit vinegars, LizzieR, that hadn't crossed my mind as an option. Good suggestion.

I reckon by declaring a 12 month moratorium on getting rid, I will have gone through an entire set of growing and foraging seasons and, if I haven't used them by then, I probably won't. Like I say, they are out of the way on the above-head-height shelves at the top of my wall units.

You guys tickle me pink for the pleasure you profess in my little adventures a-kondo-ing in the parental homestead. I'll be there for two nights and most of two days this weekend and for most of the Easter weekend. It's a disappointing time for me if I visit and aren't allowed to kondo. I can't guarantee anything as funny as blue false teeth, mummified sparrows or other random items, but there's sure to be something going on in some random corner which shades into !!!!!!?! territory.

I was thinking that it would be good to have an inventory of the loft contents, especially as Mum cannot get up there safely now. So that she knows what she has and what doesn't need to be re-bought when she needs something.

From memory; two large cabin trunks, a tin hat box (don't tell the preppers, they'll only be jealous!), a table for a projector which hasn't been used in at least 30 years, a foam overlay to use on the sofabed, three cat travel baskets (never had more than two cats at once), more yarn than a medium-sized yarn shop, a sunlounger, a large canvas parasol for the table we don't use on the patio that is too small for a table, several stick-back country chairs, a ceramic gazunder (chamber pot), an offcut of carpet from my late Nan's rented bungalow, a decades' plus supply of gift-wrap, a crate of Xmas and birthday cards, the overflow of brushes and dustpans from the broom-cupboard downstairs, an historic collection of suitcases from the 1950s to present day, wheeled and non-wheeled, a wallpapering table still in its box, boxes for several appliances large and small, a willow shopping basket, Xmas tree and box of trimmings, other suitcases and holdalls full of spare bedlinen and towels..........

There are other things but my memory is quailing to recall them. Yarn is about 80% of it by volume.:rotfl:

ETA; I should add that the house is only 22 feet wide (not sure of depth, but much narrower than that, so all this is rammed into a smallish rectangle criss-crossed with joists). Many areas involve crawling on the joists and using the loft-hatch hook like a gaff hook to drag things out into reach. It is the reverse of King Tut's tomb - there are no wondrous things up there.