Simply De-cluttering a very small kitchen

When Patrick and I got married a year and a half ago a great deal of our gifts were for our kitchen. Most of that was my fault, I like kitchen gadgets and there are just so many to choose from at the stores we registered at.
That being said though, we use the same things and never use the others. I still have things in my basement unopened.
Our kitchen is pretty small, so in order to fit all of our kitchen items in our small kitchen I bought a giant shelf to store all of it. In the past few months I have become more and more resentful towards that shelf. About the same time I started reading the book Loving Simple, I decided that the shelf had to go.
Well, it took all day and I moved probably half of the items that I don't use very often down to the basement, but I'm thrilled! And I feel like I have a new kitchen!!

BEFORE

AFTER

this is the stairway going down to our basement that's right off of our kitchen. I'm now going to use it as a pantry and storage for the larger things.

BEFORE

AFTER

Simply detatching.....Isn't so easy

Today was a great day! I got a great deal done on my "small" projects. I was able to tackle our china cabinet, our dresser, Patrick's closet (with his help), and my closet! And we even slept in till 10!!
Patrick got the day off because it was too cold for him to be working outside so we slept in with Autumn till about 10 and around 11 I started going around my house collecting things that we didn't need and started going thought the china cabinet.
After all the work I did today I think the common theme is inordinate attachments. I decided to throw a lot of things away that a lot of people just wouldn't. And I also held on to things that other people would not have trouble throwing away.
My two examples are my wedding bouquet and underwear. I bet you can't guess which one I had a harder time letting go of!?
I easily threw away the dry mess that once was my wedding bouquet. Underwear though ,I was inordinately attached to because I put a lot of money into them and my best friend and I used to decorate underwear so I had a harder time just chucking every other pair.
My closet was easier than I imagined it would be. I was able to part with a lot more than I thought I would be able to.
I still hope to get rid of even more but this is a really good start and Im really happy with it. I think in attempting my ultimate goal of simplifying my life, I'm about half way there. I will probably go through my house one more time before our garage sale this spring and after the sale everything unsold is going into our car and taken to Salvation Army. Once it leaves, I won't let anything back in. 

here are some pictures of the projects that I tackled today! 

                                                  BEFORE

           
                        

    AFTER

This is the pile of garage sale clothes that came out of my closet.

I forgot to take a before picture, but i promise you it was a mess

All the stuff that I was able to get rid of in one day of purging.

Tomorrow I'm going to attempt to do my kitchen which will probably take all day. I'll be sure to post about that and ill make sure I have before and after pictures!

Simple Eating

I had a lazy day today, in all honesty, I didn't get any simplifying done today. I was hoping to start with our dresser and move on to Autumn's, but time got away from me.
I did move in the right direction with my new diet though, with the exception of the doughnut for breakfast (Patrick had an early morning fire call, so after, he went and filled up my car and brought me home coffee and a doughnut.....i couldn't just not eat it, that would have just been rude.)  I had a light salad for lunch and a meatless stirfry for dinner.
I'm trying to cut back on animal and animal byproducts. I don't intend on cutting them out entirely, that would be far too difficult, but I do want to cut back substantially.
my reason being, that I've done some reading and animal products are not all that great for you, they aren't bad, but if i can do without, why not?
Patrick will not be participating in this experiment, while I ate stir-fry with tofu, yellow squash, zucchini and noodles, he ate steak....and I made it for him too! aren't I such a kind wife!?!
Making him a separate meal didn't clutter me up at all either, I put his meal in the crock pot this afternoon, when I was making my dinner all I had to do was pull it out and plate it. easy!
most nights we will eat the same thing and I'll just omit meat from mine, I'll eventually want him to hop on the bandwagon with me, but he's just not there yet.
all that being said, I'm not committing to an indefinite no red meat diet. :)
I do plan on eating the occasional chicken and turkey, and very rare appearance of pork.
Another motivation is that half of my family is already vegetarian, they have so many good ideas and creative dishes that they make, so why not!? I want my family to live out the healthiest diet/ lifestyle that we can so if it's not going to kill me or make me unhappy, why not?

Simple Living

I'm reading a book called Living Simple and it has been a very interesting read for me. I have always had a lot of stuff and wanted more. But because we live in a small home I've wanted to get more creative with our space. In order to do that though I need to get rid of a lot of the things we don't use and don't need (which is most of it). I'm the main instigator of this "collecting" problem in our home (although Patrick does have 5 guitars). Why would I need two of more of anything? I understand I should have at LEAST 10 pairs of underwear, socks, maybe 2 pairs of jeans. But lets get practical, I don't need half of the things that I have in my house. My kitchen is the worst, I have a small kitchen with very little counter space and all I want is to have the space that is available but that's another days post because I'm guessing that will take a while. Anyway, I'm hoping for a day when I'm thrilled to come home to my simple home, with comfortable furniture and very little "stuff".