Survey #241—Full Response from CHRISTINE
| Pronouns | She/her |
|---|---|
| How often are you troubled by clutter in the kitchen and/or pantry? | My kitchen is a clutter nightmare! |
| What sources of clutter or specific issues do you experience in the kitchen or pantry? | tiny kitchen in a small old house...no pantry... For organic healthy food prep, i need extra prep space, that I do not have. I have been using rolling carts to handle the overflow, but they are in the way when I have to move around the kitchen. I wish all my lower cupboards had sliding drawers, to access items in the back, but I hope to move, and do not have the budget for those improvements |
| What organizing solutions or strategies have you tried or used in the kitchen, and how have they worked—or failed to work—for you? | 1.storing spices, in a tiny kitchen, drive me crazy. I have tried many spice racks etc. and none work out for me. I do use all my spices up in a year. Interesting story... my adult son, a good cook, has a nice kitchen, and installed one of those pull out spice units, for lower cabinets, that hold a hundred spices. Well, my young grandson figured out how to pull out that unit, and he opened and emptied every spice jar into one huge pot. it was over a thousand dollar lost in expensive spices. So now I know why every grandmother i has a simple wood spice rack, they hang up high on a kitchen walll, out the reach of children. 2. no room in small kitchen to store equipment like roasting pans, food mills., baking pans.... needed but not used often . so I have to store these under furniture, or bedroom closets, and it takes forever to search the house to find them, when I need them. 3. my huge and easiest improvement was immediately getting rid of everything in the kitchen that had lead in it.. lead is toxic. leaded mugs, expensive leaded dish sets, leaded crystal wine glasses, And getting rid of dangerous plastics that make its way into the food....plastic cutting boards, plastic mixing bowls, plastic cups, plastic food storage. Just by getting rid of toxic kitchen supplies, I have been able to reduce my kitchen supplies by 50%,. |
| What “one-trick pony” resides in your kitchen or pantry? Why do you keep it? | 1.a rolling pin to roll cookie or pie dough to 1/4 inch depth. especially when baking Christmas cut out cookies with my grandchildren, having the cookies at the exact same depth, makes the difference, so the sides of the cookies do not burn. and the organic ingredients are so expensive...I do not want to lose half the cookie to burning... and children put in so much joy into making these cookies, and the adults said the cookies look professional, , that it seems worth it to store this rolling pin. 2. anything safety is l worth the storage space. I ended up in emergency room for stitches, with cut from cutting chestnuts. so I bought a "chestnut cutter" and it works well a cherry pitter is safer than using a sharp knife, to pit cherries. |
| Here’s your chance to ask Gayle and Ed any question you’re curious about. It need not be related to this survey’s topic(s). If we think that your question—and our answer—might be useful or instructive to The Clutter Fairy Weekly audience, we’ll share them in an upcoming episode. | what is a new to you, organizing product you have found helpful |
| Future topics | "INVISIBLE HOARDING" this past holiday turned into a medical crisis for me, by staying with a daughter in law who is an invisible hoarder. Big house, so the house does not look like the t.v. hoarders shows. The house does not look "messy" because it is so big..., but everything in it is filthy. She is a constant compulsive shopper, keeping everything .. and will not anything go. !!!!. even soiled bed linens.,, that she put on the solid guest bed. soiled pillows, thick comforter that cannot be washed, they are so thick... I developed a huge skin bacterial infection, over my whole body from sleeping on the the soiled bed linens, pillows and soiled mattress. The bacterial infection has moved from all my skin also into my blood at this point, so it is serious.. Even worse, she has a newborn and a one year old, living under these filthy conditions, which are "invisible" to the naked eye. Besides the filthy bed linens, kitchen towels, bath towels, sofa throws etc. , the air quality in that house is lethal, especially to the fragile lungs of babies. 7 fake very old xmas trees, full of glitter, flocking, and dust that comes off and floats around the rooms. My eyes water, just walking into the rooms. The house is full of life sized old"velveteen" Santas that cannot be cleaned or even dusted. Tons of holiday decor , on the walls and table tops, that cannot be cleaned, and have years a accumulated dirt. I realized how bad her hoarding was, when I urged her, when I left, to get rid of the filthy bedding/jmattress, that cannot not be cleaned and sanitized. Her reaction was rage of getting rid of even one thing. She does not work outside (or inside) the home. My heart breaks for my son, who does the best he can. He hired a housecleaner who vacuums the carpeting and cleans the bathrooms, and machine washes all their personal laundry. He cleans up the kitchen daily, does all the cooking, , but he cannot keep up with the daily flood of more junk she has coming into the house. This "crisis" has caused me to look at my own home....for my own "invisible hoarding". Any junk I am keeping , that cannot be cleaned or that I do not have the energy to clean it. I tend to think of things I store as not needing upkeep....but fabrics and even books get moldy and dusty. even the covers of plastic bins I use to store stuff, get covered in filthy dust (which I then breathe in). |
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