Week 4: Tame it Tuesday's, a summer series on taming the mess

week 1
week 2
week 3

Welcome to week 4 of of my Tame it Tuesday series, a summer series on taming the mess. Wow we are half way already. Oh please Summer-- slow down! lol! So as I stated in last week's post our home has been suffering from what I call "drop and runs" Which makes it unorganized and messy. Areas of my kitchen have not escaped this either. Lets tackle the worst part first shall we?

Yep that's right, this is the first counter top when you enter the kitchen. I really don't know how it happens... I clean it off but it ends up becoming the catch all of the whole house it seems. A lot of it is mail and paperwork that I need to deal with immediately instead of letting it pile. The rest of it is stuff that needs to be put away back where it belongs. The rectangle cupboard right above is "Dear Hubbies" so some of his stuff I put there for him to put away when he is done using it (like his drill and charger). I do not have to clean that cupboard. It is his alone and he does get to it several times a year. Once all the stuff is put back where it belongs I start in on the paperwork.

Once I start it really doesn't take long. I make several piles as I go through it. My piles are shred, garbage, current bills and to file piles. I have an area already at our desk to deal with all the paper it is just old habits coming back into play. I need to remember when I come in with mail to deal with it right away. It only takes a few minutes and really saves on the mess building up again.
Within less than 10 minutes all is well in this space again!

Next up are these two spaces. Inside they hold a lot of our supplies for homeschool and some kitchen items I don't use as often. Those will be reorganized in another post. For now I want to deal with the top of them.

We were given the hotdog buns and I just needed to use some up and then freeze the rest. The inside of our microwave is actually clean. We do use a cover to heat and I am in the habit of wiping things up as soon as the mess happens. The 2 crockpots I have out a lot because I have been using them so much lately for freezer meals. Then there is garbage to be thrown away and the top of the microwave just needs dusted and cups in the sink. I forgot to take an after picture, but it looks good again too!

This cupboard is on the other side of our table in the kitchen. This counter is only supposed to hold cookbooks and my bread machine. It was overflowing with some borrowed cookbooks, coloring/drawing stuff, counting blocks, and some antique appliances that I was given this year that I just hadn't made a home for yet. So first, above our laundry area "Dear Hubby" made a shelf when he enclosed it in so I would have a place for some of my decor. I dusted everything and made room for the new appliances (iron and waffle iron) up on this shelf.

Then I gathered the borrowed cookbooks and placed them in my car to return to my friend. Next I needed to put away the school/art stuff. I quickly realized that I was going to have to tackle one part of the cupboard after all. This drawer holds coloring, drawing, painting books and Highlights magazines that "Sunshine" owns. I cleaned out all the Christmas books and stored them away with Christmas stuff. Then Sunshine herself went through the remaining books and magazines. She was willing to throw out the ones she had completed.

Much better! The last part of the post today is my food prep area of the kitchen. The dishes for the most part have stayed caught up. But in the middle of this busy schedule I have made time to get extra food in our freezer. Which is why this area looks like this:

 You cant even see some of it. I have bottles of seasonings left out from a freezer meal workshop I attended along with wax paper and freezer bags for all the flash freezing of cherries and berries I have been doing.

So again I just needed to put everything away that I was finished with. I also pulled every appliance out and washed behind it. Then washed all appliances off. Last I put everything back in nice and neat order. And I hope to keep it this way!

Thank you for stopping by! Next week I hope to organize the pots/pan cupboard and the spice/can cupboard. Do you have specific things you do to help keep order in the kitchen? Please share in the comments.