Today I am thankful - errands, fresh and wedding!

(I was thankful yesterday, I just forgot to tell you!)

- for an errand day, where I got lots ticked off my list - hairdresser, doctor, chemist ... even remembered to take my Angel perfume bottle to be refilled!

- for beautiful, fresh produce quickly turned into dinner - the most amazingly clean, white mushrooms from the market, perfect avocado from the vegie box, fetticine, cream and butter.

- for that wedding! I love this stuff - watching all the docos over the past few days makes you realise this is really a moment in history. Even though it seems only yesterday Price William was born just a year or so before my firstborn and I watched them all growing up.

Today I am thankful - Royals, memories and real!!

- for Royal watching: yep, in the lead-up to the Royal wedding, I am indulging my interest in Royal history :) and reflecting on how it can't really be 30 years in July since Charles and Di married on my 18th birthday!!

- for memories: still enjoying all the looking-back on my old school group on Facebook - and I am not the only one who still has my treads!!!

- for the news a friend won a replica of The Engagement Ring - not the $49.95 one we saw advertised on telly this week (in two easy payments) but a real one from the jewelers!!!!!

Today I am thankful - productive, reading and sunshine

- for a productive day in the kitchen, prepping food for the next few days - so much easier for me to eat well on my work days if I put in a little effort on my non-work days. A batch of Olive Oil Granola and Roasted Pumpkin Brown Rice Salad.

-for reading time: realising I am ten books behind in my 52 books in 52 weeks challenge on Good Reads, I set about knocking off the half-read books clustered on my bedside table and in my Kobo! One down ...

- for a glorious day - walking to the chemist with Molly, we took the long way home as she basked in the joy of it all.

52 Weeks of decluttering - #16 Getting those drawers under control

I lucked out again - the area I had planned to attack is the one featured in this week's prompt @ organizing junkie!

There is very little in the way of drawer space in our 70s kitchen, just five tiny drawers. I really hadn't organised them for quite some time and had come to realise my previous system was no longer working as effectively. So time to do over! I only remembered to take one before photo, so you'll need to use your imagination! I my sights were the cutlery and utensil drawers.

Half-way through emptying the plastics drawer

The system I had in place was two utensils drawers - one labelled Metal Only, the other Plastic Only. While this was, in fact, working with our cleaner and the family, the result was too easy for everyone to just dump and run, which meant there was stuff in there we didn't need.

Such as half a dozen swirly straws my 23yo married daughter who has lived out of home almost two years admitted were hers! (She happened to be visiting when the project was tackled, so was co-opted to help!)

We had been shopping at Howard's Storage World earlier, as I wanted a new cutlery insert and other containers for the project. I found just the right cutlery insert:

Nice and simple

And was able to reuse the old one in one of the utensil drawers:

I was fed-up with sliding the top tray at every meal time.

Apart from wondering why we own so many chopsticks, I worked out that this insert was just right for some things but others needed something different. We were heading to Ikea the next day, so my mission was to find the right containers. Sadly, all the Ikea ones are designed for huge drawers and were no good to me, so we ended up at a different Howard's Storage and I was able to work out just what I needed and which sizes best fit the space, resulting in this arrangement:

Much more control

I got rid of a heap of duplicates (elder daughter is also planning on setting up her own home soon!) and got rid of the useless (6 kiwi fruit spoons???) And I am mostly happy with what is left. 

We did decide to keep the fork from the set of baby cutlery - we are sentimental like that ;)

Today I am thankful - daughters, containers and ANZACs

- for daughters, who love the same shopping destinations as I do (the biggest crime is to go to Ikea without one of them!). We wandered around Ikea, shopping and lunching and then tackled the adjacent shopping centre. A lovely, girly day.

- for containers of just the right size, to fit our kitchen utensil drawer and finishing my decluttering project for the week. Will try for photos tomorrow - as the days shorten, it is back to lack of light at the right moment!

- for defiant WW2 veterans, refusing the instruction to retire from marching and take their place in cars instead of with their units - if they drop dead, there is probably no place they would rather die. Leave them alone! Lest we forget.

Today I am thankful - sleep, rest and planning

- for a good night's sleep :) If I could only sleep like that every night, I could take on the world!

- for a doona day, blog-hopping and chilling out.

- for plans: tomorrow the girls and I are off to Ikea! 

Today I am thankful - Mornington, mittens and Molly!

- for the joy that is taking our dog Molly to one of her favourite places - the Mornington Main Street shopping precinct! It is said that King Charles II issued a Royal edict that no King Charles Spaniel can be denied entry to any public place and Molly stands by this right! However, we only allow her to enforce it in pet shops, where she "browses" amongst the food displays with her nose in overtime. We love that Mornington is dog-friendly and not only allows, but welcomes dogs. Most shops and cafes have bowls of water outside the front door and the footpath cafe tables are host to all sorts of dogs and their owners. Sadly, they are not allowed at all in the Frankston CBD, so those retailers miss out on our business and trade :(

- for rainbow winter warmth: at my favourite Himalayan shop, I found just the arm warmer/fingerless mittens I searched for last winter - rainbow stripes! And a woolly scarf to match - a total of only $25 all up :) and the profits go back to people in Tibet and Nepal :)

- for one on one time with my married daughter, as we took it in turns to browse our favourite shops, while the other stood on the footpath with the dog and her adoring crowd!