Danielle Blog

kitchen

I think that the kitchen is finally done! I unpacked one last box of kitchen stuff and found locations for all of it.

Did you notice the lazy susan holding all of the tea!!?

I don’t know if you remember the post where I was packing and all of my tea was spread out on the kitchen counter. Here is a photo from that post that should look familiar.

Remember that not all of that is mine! My half is on the left. HB’s half is on the right.

Anyway, in that post, I had also joked about how I needed a way to get to the tea that was in the back more easily.

I guess I will have to find a poor man’s version of a nice pull out rack. Maybe some sort of desk organizer…
… well, I’ll have to think about that.
That or I’ll have to make that one of my arts and crafts projects for the summer. Now, there is a thought!

Well, on our drive from MN to TX, Mom and I needed to eat lunch and we were having trouble finding much in southern Iowa off of I-35.
We looked at the map and realized this little town called Lamoni was in a bigger font (i.e. larger town) than any of the others we had been passing lately.

You can see it waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down at the border on I-35. The (A) marks it.

Well, when we got off of the road, Subway was the only thing marked on the food sign and it was 3-4 miles down the road toward the center of town. As we drove down the road, we saw a road sign to watch for horses and buggies! Thus, we realized we were in Amish territory.

Photo from someone’s blog post about Lancaster County.

On the way down the road we saw a collection of buggies and Amish folk at what appeared to be some sort of market; it was a Saturday after all.

THEN, and this was the BEST part, we saw a woman selling beautifully made baskets by the side of the road right next to the Subway! My eye was immediately drawn to the colors of the weaves that she had worked into her baskets.

Mom and I decided that we had to check out her baskets after we ate lunch. I started trying to think of SOME place in my apartment where I could use a basket. I wasn’t coming up with much to justify purchasing one, but then I remembered that I’d wanted to have a new basket for my keys. HB and I had been using a really cheap one for years that we’d saved from one of those Hickory Farms mini gift baskets. I decided that I would look for something like that!

As I was looking at the smaller baskets, I spotted IT! The beautiful lazy susans of various sizes. I started dreaming of how I could display my tea in it on the kitchen counter, because I remembered that the counter kind of stuck out in a weird way. I assume it is meant so that you can use it as a bar, but I don’t like eating like that, so I figured I’d just leave it open for preparing food.

I hemmed and hawed to myself about the size. The size I purchased didn’t have the purple and blue weave that was used on a medium-sized one to which I was particularly drawn. However, the one I ended up buying was either the largest one she sold, or the 2nd largest. Mom was concerned it was awfully big, but I had put some of the Amish woman’s jam jars into it to get a sense of how many it might hold. I realized that I really needed the big one if I wanted to display more than just 8 canisters or so.

And, get this, it was less than $20! I think it might have been $14!!
And it spins soooooooooooooo smoothly.
Check out the video

Anyway, it took me a while to make the little pedestal and decide which teas were going to make the cut to be on it. I had to leave about 4 of them off of it. I ended up cutting the ones that I never really liked as far as flavor went even though the designs were unique.

Then I had to find and decide upon the mugs for the mug stand that I’d purchased back in college for my dorm room (I think it was (?)) but has been in storage for years and years. I wasn’t going to bring it with me, but HB convinced me to pack it. Usually when he said something like “I’ll just end up throwing it away,” I would pack it.

Anyway, back to the story. When Mom and Texas Seestor were here helping me unpack, they had commented that it was too bad I didn’t have a way to display some of my mugs. But I did!

I just had to unpack it! And there it is.

Lastly, Texas Seestor had a piece of pottery that she was willing to give up for me to put some kitchen utensils into and place next to my stove. This ended up freeing up a drawer and allowed me to make my “junk drawer” in a real drawer instead of inside a lower cabinet. Now, when I say “junk,” I don’t really mean junk. I’m talking about pens/pencils, stapler, tape, scissors, flashlight, various screwdrivers, rubber bands, chip clips, etc. etc. You know, things you actually need fast access to!

Thus, the leftover tea ended up in that cabinet.

And voila! my kitchen is done!

Oh, and yesterday morning, it was such a joy to walk into my kitchen and make my tea with the lazy susan of tea and all of my beautiful mugs. And then I turned the corner and saw the pottery with my kitchen utensils. And my lovely tea kettle. And new microwave. And then I got to use another piece of Texas Seestor’s pottery for my cheerios.

It gave me such joy; I just had to take a photo.

And note: I’m not waking up at 5 am anymore! I can actually sleep until 6:30 or later most mornings!

——–

Yesterday, I did a bunch of rearranging and repacking which is less photo-worthy. But I have managed to hook up my wireless internet after much technical assistance, hook up my Wii (and do a tiny bit of Wii fit), and tie down the cords. All of that felt like an accomplishment too.

Today, I will attempt to finish dealing with the 2nd bedroom, which became sort of a dumping ground. And maybe I can do a tiny bit of decorating of things that have to hang. We’ll see how far I get. It is hard to put aside the Endless Forest to work on my apartment!