My Million $ Kitchen
November 5, 2008
Ladies and Gentlemen, I feel like a million buck$! No, I didn’t win the lottery or run a marathon. I didn’t just win the Mrs. America pageant, and I wasn’t just elected President of the United States. What did I do?
I reorganized my kitchen cabinets.
Yes, the hub of my home, my Command Central, has gotten a face lift. A gentle makeover, if you will. I know. It looked just fine with its wrinkles, which gave it character and that lived-in look. But every now and then it feels so good to update one’s look. So, I fitted our kitchen for new glasses.
Here’s what happened. The drinking glasses in our house were getting foggy, grungy, dirty-looking, and very unappetizing. It was embarrassing to have people over, because we couldn’t even give them a drink of water in what appeared to be a clean glass. My coach, Verena Visser Aibel, of Vibrant Visions International (www.VibrantCoach.com), would call this a toleration – something we put up with for a while and sometimes don’t even notice. Well, we noticed these glasses. Yuck!
So I went online to Bed Bath & Beyond and ordered some of the least expensive, but most substantial, glasses I could find. They didn’t have to be gorgeous. Attractive, yes, but functional and practical would be better. I mean, we have a 9-year-old son and a 7-year-old daughter. Our glasses have to survive an earthquake! I ordered 12 each of 4 sizes.
Two of the boxes from BB&B came last night. As a Professional Organizer (PO), I can’t stand having anything on the kitchen counters that absolutely, positively doesn’t have to be there. My mission for this morning was to wash the glasses and put them away. Sounds simple. HOWEVER, that required
removing the glasses and mugs from the cabinet we had them in
deciding which mugs to keep or donate (all of the glasses would be donated)
cleaning the empty shelves
deciding to store our glasses in a different cabinet
which required removing everything from there and
relocating it to the first cabinet
deciding what should go on which shelf of the second cabinet
deciding whether I needed a wire shelf to double the space on the cabinet shelves
deciding which wire shelf to use on which cabinet shelf
deciding which mugs should go where
deciding how to store the tea, hot chocolate, honey, and sugar, then
emptying the dishwasher
reloading the dishwasher with dishes that were in the sink
removing the sticky label off the bottom of 24 glasses
putting them in the dishwasher
running it
waiting for the dishwasher to finish the cycle and finally
putting away the clean dishes and new glasses.
Whew!
Want to know how long it took me to do the cabinets? Two (2) hours. Two! A measly two hours to feel like I’m the queen of the world. Yeah!
Here are some pictures of how the cabinets look now. I didn’t take “before” pictures. I don’t even remember, nor do I want to remember, how they looked before. What matters is how they function today.
Why am I telling you this? Ah, now we get to the heart of the matter.
I wanted to share with you this wonderful feeling I have after doing something so mundane but still very important to me and which is often put off in favor of more "urgent" matters. I put aside those urgent matters, those everyday emergencies that “just-have-to-be-addressed-right-now-because-they-can-not-wait-a-second-longer” so I could concentrate on doing something that isn’t the everyday, something that would benefit my family and make living our everyday lives a little easier. In my case, it feels like I’ve made my house more cozy, loving, and inviting, just by getting some new drinkware and by putting similar items together in my kitchen cabinets. Now we have everything where we need it. Now we have empty space in the cabinets (because I consolidated things from all over the kitchen into one place). Now we can have company!
I wanted to let my clients (past, present, and future) know I can completely relate to and understand how they feel before taking the step to call a PO: overwhelmed, frustrated, not sure where to begin, too busy to think. I also wanted them to know that once the project is started, let alone completed, they will feel like they’ve conquered the world. So much more in control. So much lighter! So free from whatever has been weighing them down.
I wanted to point out that I got motivated to do this project by ordering new glasses. Glasses. Something that helps us focus and see things more clearly. Something that lets in the light. Focusing and letting in the light are two things I talk about when I help people get organized. Hmm. Interesting.
Now that I have new glasses, I can’t wait to see (!) 
what new and exciting things are going to happen. Like dinner parties. Reconnecting with old friends. Making new ones. Hosting Thanksgiving dinner. Having the kids invite their friends to sleepovers. Oh the possibilities!
To paraphrase my fellow PO, Erin Elizabeth Wells of Living Peace LLC (www.living-peace.com), I organized as a spiritual practice. I took the mundane and elevated it by giving it my full attention, taking pride in creating something that will bring more peace into my space, and imbuing it with a higher purpose: allowing our family to have more time together. I’ve taken charge of something - my life. I made space in my life to allow new and wonderful things to come in. I KNOW that something wonderful is going to happen. Very soon. I can absolutely feel it.
So, what would make you feel like a million bucks? Call me, and we'll talk about it.
