De-Cluttering the Oats

One of my March goals was to do a weekly de-clutter project, and I’ve been doing that…plus I’ve actually found myself just doing little things here and there. Once you get started de-cluttering, it’s hard to stop! But for this week’s project, I decided to de-clutter a section of the kitchen that was really making me crazy.

You guys know that I generally make some version of pimped-out oatmeal nearly every day for lunch. And when I break to eat lunch, I’m usually both starving and impatient, because I really like to be at my desk for, oh, 98 percent of my day. Oatmeal is a pretty fast lunch, but dragging out all the supplies always puts me in a bad mood. I keep everything in our Lazy Susan, which, despite a major de-clutter effort on my part last fall, is once again what is commonly known as a “clusterfuck.”

Because my family won’t just suck it up and get a goddamn spice rack, this whole device is just overflowing with years worth of ingredients. And as you can see, among the spices and essentials like baking powder and baking soda, there is also a pile of my oatmeal-pimping supplies. Since nuts, dried fruit, and butterscotch chips normally come in non-resealable bags, once I open them, I store them in bags…which cannot be stacked nicely. (And because I like variety, I have accumulated four types of nuts, four types of fruit, and three types of chips in all that mess.) And I hate how wasteful plastic bags are and I am actively trying to use less, so this is doubly annoying.

Each day I have to drag it all out, plus milk, almond butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, measuring cups and spoons, and a banana. By the time the oatmeal is ready, I’m generally really irritated and I just toss it all back in there.

I had done this every day for several months and it was starting to get to me.

I decided I wanted the oatmeal supplies on the counter (not all of them, just the ones I used most often), and I wanted them to look nice. So on Sunday I got a bunch of clear containers from Wal-Mart and made it a little project.

First, a refillable recyclable plastic container for the oats.

Next, glass jars for butterscotch and almonds.

Then smaller jars for the dried dates and brown sugar.

And finally a little shaker for my cinnamon!

Ahhh….so nice. I also added measuring spoons to the oatmeal jar and the almond jar so I’m just ready to go and don’t have to deal with that hassle. Seriously, finding the 1/4 cup in the Lazy Susan was about as enjoyable as a gynecological exam.

I couldn’t put everything on the counter — that would require a system like California Closets — but this helped a ton! Today I was so happy as I whipped up my banana-walnut oatmeal orgy.

As I scooped my oats into a jar due to a lack of a clean bowl I realized that I could have done this entire project using old salsa and almond butter jars! I was bummed I didn’t think of it sooner but I am still going to separate all my additional supplies into the other jars to get rid of the gross bags and take care of the way the bags are always falling over because they won’t stack properly in the Lazy Susan. It will be cheaper and I mean…how green is that!?