Organized Chaos

Erik accuses me of being a piler. When we're preparing for a trip, I start making piles throughout the house. That way I can see what I've already got in the pile and what I still need to add to the pile. If it was all in a bag or a box, I'd have to go digging through everything to make sure I remembered the bathing suits or the wet wipes or the camera cord.

Moving is like the ultimate pile. There are towers of boxes overtaking our house.

We got some great boxes from the liquor store with handy-dandy organizers for all the breakable stuff. Genius.

I don't mind packing. Erik and I both find pleasure in purging old/unused stuff and simplifying our household (Erik LOVES bringing things to the MCC thrift store - like, seriously, I think he loves it a little more than he should). Maybe it feels good to control something when other things feel very chaotic and out of control. I think that's why I really like having things organized. But finding the time to do it is the challenge. Writing this post brought to mind a couple of organizing projects that I did in the last little while - y' know, just to make my un-organized life a wee bit simpler.

First of all, we had a puzzle problem. Maybe you know the one. It starts with multiple puzzle boxes in various states of dilapidation. Add to that a toddler who finds immense joy in dumping each and every puzzle so that his loving and patient Mama has the pleasure of sorting through all the mixed-up pieces and putting them back into the bits of disintegrating cardboard...

I'm not sure why I didn't find a better home for those puzzles - one that was out of the reach of toddler-hands... In the end I designated each puzzle to it's own ziploc bag. I cut out the picture on the front of the puzzle box and fastened it to the bag with packing tape. The box was no longer needed and with the toddler unable to open a ziploc, the worst mess that Mommy had to deal with was a few bags scattered on the floor. Much better :)

And I mentioned my spice cabinet problem awhile back too - just the annoyance of digging through everything every time I was looking for a spice. Shortly after, I found these spice jars at Ikea plus a few other random containers around the house that I wasn't using. I dug up some envelope labels that I had in the house and voila. Spice finding made easier.

It didn't make my cabinet less crowded but it did ease the searching process somewhat.

OK, not sure why I'm sitting here blogging. Time to go make some more piles.

Cola-Braised Pulled Pork Carnitas

Speaking of new things, I finally started menu planning a few weeks ago rather than just "winging" my supper plan on a daily basis. On Sunday night I try to take a few minutes to make a plan for my week and then write out a shopping list. The time spent has totally been worth it! At the suggestion of a friend, I've started creating a "master list" on my laptop of all the meals that we eat, divided into categories. So, instead of paging through all my cookbooks at 9 pm, I've got a concise little list to refer to.

Our BIG grocery shop usually happens early in the week after dropping Micah off at school. Superstore is our grocery store of choice and I like it for several reasons:

1) I can shop for really cute kids clothing at the same time (and for some reason, discreetly adding an item or 2 to my grocery bill seems like it "hurts' less :)

2) After Silas was born, Superstore was the only grocery store with carts that could fit all three of my children (including infant car seat) and all my groceries. I consider pushing said cart up and down from the parkade my weekly work-out.

3) We get free chocolate chip cookies at the bakery. This keeps the kids quiet for most of the shopping trip, even though there is chocolate everywhere by the time we hit the check-out lines.

4) Superstore really is just the cheapest place for groceries. Period.

This week, at Erik's suggestion, we had one of our favourite slow-cooker meals. I found the recipe in my Canadian Family magazine last year (see it here) and it quickly became a staple meal at our house.

INGREDIENTS:

1 tbsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

6 garlic cloves, minced

1 onion, chopped

2 cups cola (the recipe says not to use diet, but I do anyway and it still tastes great)

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 cinnamon sticks (I usually just do about 1 tsp of ground cinnamon)

1 tsp cumin

2 tsp chili powder

2 tsp dried oregano leaves (I do about 1 tsp of ground oregano)

2 bay leaves

3 lbs boneless pork shoulder

STEP 1: Combine all ingredients in the slow cooker except the pork.

Of course, the recipe calls for 2 cups of cola which is just a little more than one can. Which, to my horror, leaves some extra pop that needs to be consumed :oP The kids are more than happy to help me deal with this "problem"...

STEP 2: Cut pork in half horizontally to lie flat. I try to trim off some of the really fatty parts of the meat in this stage. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to slow cooker and set it to low for 8 hours or high for 5 hours. I try to baste the pork and/or rotate it in between.

STEP 3/4: According the recipe you are supposed to remove the pork from the slow cooker and separate the grease from the cooking liquid. Totally not sure how this is even possible. It says to reduce some of the cooking liquid over high heat until thickened, about 10 minutes. This part of the process has never really worked well for me, so I just take the liquid straight out of the slow cooker for some extra "sauce". (And I take heart in the fact that I tried to trim off some of the fat so then it can't be quite as greasy, right?)

STEP 5: Using two forks, pull the meat apart into shreds and mix in some of the "sauce".

STEP 6: Serve on a soft, warm taco with avocado slices and a squirt of lime.

Lately we've included our favourite homemade salsa inside the tortilla as well. SO yummy!!

Muffin Morning

Today dawned dark, gloomy and rainy. I decided to make a batch of our favourite banana chocolate chip muffins, but only had 2 over-ripe bananas in my freezer instead of the necessary 3... So I found a can of pumpkin in my cupboard that I bought back in the fall when I was inspired to make all things pumpkin-y (but never followed through), googled a muffin recipe that called for canned pumpkin and we were in business.

I was nervous about opening this can of pumpkin after my run-in with an evil can of tomatoes last week. My (inferior) can opener has a hard time opening these larger cans - leaving me to pry them open with a knife. Ugh. My stomach is turning just remembering how my hand slipped and blood was everywhere... blah.

I debated going to a clinic. They may not have given me stitches, but at the very least, some of that fancy glue stuff they use these days. But I decided to just brave it out at home.

I feel like such a baby, but this little cut has totally affected my quality of life.

Thankfully, I opened the pumpkin without incident.

Silas was being his usual, helpful self.

Keziah did the mixing.

Meanwhile, I stared into my spice cupboard and wondered if there was any way to make it more organized so I don't have to take every single thing out when I'm trying to find the nutmeg.

Waiting for the muffin-y goodness.

Mmmm. Pumpkin muffins for a rainy day.

But, then there's the aftermath.

From the muffin-making, and from dinner with company last night that I didn't feel like cleaning up at 9 pm...

If you're like me, you procrastinate cleaning your kitchen. Also, if you're like me, a dirty kitchen makes you irritable and impatient (a.k.a cranky mommy), unable to focus on small tasks because of the disaster looming on the countertops.

And if you're like me, a clean kitchen makes you feel like you can do... anything! You feel like you can conquer any other cleaning task in the entire house, or like you actually want to do crafts and games and puzzles with the kids on that nice big expanse of free tabletop.

A clean kitchen is... empowering.

Now, if I could only figure out a way to make it stay that way.