This burst of energy started when Jack and I decided to purchase a new heavy duty chrome-plated wire shelf for our kitchen as an anniversary present to ourselves. We celebrated 22 years yesterday and have endured the inconvenience of not enough storage space in our tiny kitchen for more than 20 of them. Storage solutions for small spaces are hard to come by, but the shelf we found on Amazon is perfect at 24 inches wide, 18 inches deep, and 72 inches tall with five shelves and high quality casters.
Wheels are a requirement, because for the space we have, the shelf has to roll to allow the dishwasher door to open. No, it's not convenient or pretty, but we make do.
The initial delivery estimate was for Thursday, but it came on my birthday, and I was so excited, I couldn't wait to get home from eating cake on the farm to put it together and start filling it up. Yes, you heard that right. I rushed cake and a visit with my parents to assemble a shelf and throw myself into revamping our kitchen.
In addition to the new shelf, I also have new cleaning products. With paper towels being in short supply, Jack and I decided to investigate ways to decrease our consumption, which was obscenely high in the months before Diva died. In dealing with her incontinence, we relied mainly on paper towels, because they were easy and convenient. Managing urine-soaked cotton rags wasn't logistically manageable with our laundry location in the basement and no interior stairs to get there, and who really wants to fill their washing machine with pee towels every day or two anyway?
I'd read about Swedish dish cloths online somewhere but not given them much thought until last week when I was shopping to see just how hard finding the next big block of paper towels was going to be when Amazon recommended something called Skoy cloths and Skoy scrubs to help us decrease our paper towel use. They have thousands of 5-star ratings, and the glowing reviews convinced me to spend $12.99 for a set of four cloths and 2 scrubbies, which about the price of a dozen rolls of paper towels.
I also ordered something called a Lunatech dish cloth, which is a less-aggressive texture than the Skoy scrubbie and, according to the Amazon reviews, almost indestructible.
Both were delivered a week ago today, and I have honestly never been more excited about cleaning my house. Cleaning jobs and little projects I've procrastinated for an embarrassingly long time have been checked off the flip chart list taped to the wall of my skull and new ideas have come to life.
After Jack pointed out how horrible the sconce shades in our great room looked, we pulled the old material off the bulb-clip wire frames, and minutes later, a watercolor exercise I'd done months ago and put in my recycle stack had been repurposed into colorful new shades. The others came with the house and had been here since it was built in 1975, so they were horrible shape but had been nothing special when they were new. The material was heavy brown kraft paper with leather-look texturing, so these bright blue and green new ones, painted to celebrate the earth and the sky, are a welcome change.
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| I used a hole punch and laced faux suede cord to create a cool new shade from a watercolor in the recycle pile. |
Another little project involved moving the ashes of beloved pets to a safe place of reverence, so Dudley, Moose, Venus, Fuzz, and Carlton have been moved to our ski shelf, Jack's old slalom ski that we hung over the entrance to our hall. I plan to add framed photos of each sweetie above the railing, and there are already photos of Tess and Cynthia's sweet Bonnie on the shelf below that daisy painting. No, Bonnie wasn't our dog, but she was my first dog niece. She and Tess grew up as puppies together, and she absolutely belongs on the memory wall.
COVID aside, each new day seems to bring some progress, and that's not bad at all.
