Saturday, September 19, 2009

Messing around in the kitchen: A cry for help


An artist's rendering of my hardworking (read: cluttered) kitchen. Also please note that I am afflicted with that dread disease called "open shelving." So attractive in Country Living the magazine. Not so desirable in country-living-in-the-real-world.





Summer squash in my low-tech "food processor." That thing (called a Merry Go Round) is a bonafide triceps workout. I'm telling you, I will have earned all the pineapple zucchini bread I can eat.





Is there anything more cheerful than a zinnia?






That scented geranium taking over the landscape is called "Sweet Miriam." I didn't even make that up. Also apparent in that picture: Someone needs to wash my windows. But I'd rather have a cup of tea and scheme on how to get a master cabinetmaker on the cheap-to-free.



Beans: pinto, navy, lentil, split pea. Brown rice. Flax seed. Popcorn. Cornmeal and oatmeal. Place settings for 24. Hey, it happens.

I have a dream. I have a dream in which I have cupboard doors on my upper cabinets and my countertops are home to only a vase of zinnias. (Okay, and maybe the coffee pot.) In that fantasy life I have a walk-in pantry and a root cellar. AN APPLIANCE GARAGE. Holy Mother of all Organization, an appliance garage (with seventeen bays) would revolutionize my life. In reality, however, my countertops house the dehydrator (at the moment, two of them humming happily), a coffee pot and bean grinder, my iconic Kitchenaid stand mixer, a monster-size glass canister that holds 20 cups of homemade baking mix (too big for the shelves), a toaster. A breadbox. The blender still out from fruit leather prep. A mug full of paintbrushes from yesterday's (alright, it was three days ago) watercolor session. A radio playing oldies, mysteriously now of my high school era (when did that happen?).


So my husband told me he got all stressed out reading my last post. You know, the one about band and equitation and ballet and, oh, yeah, graduate freaking school. (Actually so named in my handbook. Well, in the handbook in my head. I have to amuse myself somehow, people.)
And while we're at it, I have to apologize for being stressful in this here blog about the beautiful life. Yar-hah-hah-harh. I promise I didn't mean it to be that way. Sometimes the stress just overflows a little. It's because, I believe, there's ever-present conflict between my love of simple living and my contradictory-I-know hectic life.
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Did I mention I own and display two handpainted "simplify" signs? I might need another that says "Embrace the irony." And while I'm ordering signs, Heather, could you make one that says "Will work for cabinet doors"?







3 comments:

Heather said...

I LOVE your kitchen. I also love Sarah pictures, zinnias and you!
Thanks friend.

Jodi Anderson (from The Women's Colony) said...

I adore your tea set.

Katie said...

Sarah is quite the artiste'! Maybe she could whip you out some cupboard doors?