organizing my recipes

I never bother with New Year’s resolutions, but I do have sort of a general life goal: to get organized.  This is a hard thing to do, by the way, at least if you are a slovenly packrat like myself (side note: I tried to type packrat twice and both times ended up with pat rack, which looks like it could be a word but isn’t. brains are so weird, aren’t they?)

One area that needs a particularly large amount of help with this…OK, stop for a sec, who am I kidding?  EVERY area of my life needs a lot of help with this, I just happen to be dedicated to this one at the moment…is my recipe collection.  I have several recipe books, quite a few Taste of Home magazines, and many loose recipes on 3×5 index cards and sheets of paper.  They are all crammed haphazardly on one little bookshelf, along with cake-decorating supplies, kitchen gadgets, and who knows what else.

If I think of a particular recipe I’d like to make, I have no clue where to start looking for it unless it’s something I have made (and therefore searched for) time and time again.  And if I’m just looking for inspiration, I usually have to flip through a million pages until I find something I actually want.  This is not exactly an efficient use of time, not to mention space.

My plan to conquer this catastrophe centers around the computer.  All of the time I spend staring at Excel charts and PDFs at work must be making quite an impression on my brain, since they were my natural first choice in tools to get organized.  If I can actually see this project through (cross your fingers!), I plan to have a gigantic chart that lists the title of every single recipe in my collection, plus where it is currently located, what sort of a dish it is, where I got it in the first place, and anything else that I think is relevant.  Here’s a little screen shot so you get a better idea of what I mean:

I am also in the process of scanning all of my recipes that are not in book form and printing them as 3x5s so they will all fit neatly in the box.  I’d like to eventually scan all of my recipes so I can link them to the chart and have back-ups in case I somehow lose the originals.  This is a low priority, though, since it could potentially add hundreds if not thousands of pages for me to process.

I know this chart seems like it would be an awful lot of typing, but I have figured out how to scan my documents so that they are OCR-friendly.  This means I can scan the index from a book or magazine and just copy and paste the electronic version into my chart.  I do still have to double-check everything and make sure the computer “read” it properly, but it’s really not a terribly difficult task.  I have read a few “lost-in-translation” lines that even made me laugh:

• 1/2 lap sea ash = 1/2 tsp. sea salt
• tat tree = fat free

In the end I know the monotony will be worth it when I can locate any recipe my little heart desires in the blink of an eye.  As an added bonus, I think this will help me to make better use of my cookbooks, instead of immediately turning to the internet for a recipe that may already be sitting in my kitchen, unbeknownst to me.

Wish me luck!

becoming reacquainted with the backyard

I wasn’t too thrilled last Saturday when I walked into our laundry room to move clothes from the washer into the dryer and discovered water all over the floor.  However, me being miffed about our drain that wouldn’t drain properly (and still doesn’t, for that matter) is not what this post is all about. 

You see, what happened was that the water prompted me to actually open our back door to get the place cleaned up, at which point I realized I hadn’t been in our backyard for like a month.  I guess I haven’t really had any reason to since it’s been colder, but it was odd to realize I had been neglecting it.  And, I was strangely shocked to see our backyard covered in beautiful fall foliage.

Yes, I do realize it is late October, and I have noticed other people’s trees changing colors and losing leaves, but somehow I turned a blind eye to my own backyard!

 I felt inspired by all that orangeness, so after I finished mopping, rearranging, and complaining to my landlord, I headed to the store.  Target had a lot of cool Halloween stuff, but not the item I wanted (I was tempted to pick up a super cute snowman welcome mat, but I exercised self-control and decided to wait for after-Christmas clearance).  Then I tried Hy-Vee, and – Score! – they did indeed have jack o’lantern leaf bags. 

I understand that this may not have been the kind of purchase that makes the average person giddy, but I was thrilled, because raking the yard is the one household chore that I have never minded doing.  I don’t like laundry, dishes, dusting, making the bed, scrubbing the bathroom, or mopping, but I love to rake.  It’s weird, I know.  But there’s just something about the feel of autumn air, the earthy smell of the leaves, and the simple efficiency of the rake that makes me happy.  Combine that with happy childhood memories of decorating for Halloween, and my day was made.  Check out my very own self-timed photo (yep, I was that excited about it) taken with my new best bud:

I actually only managed to clean up about 1/6th or less of the yard, but since it was enough to fill my bag, I deemed it a good day’s work!

I admit that, as far as Halloween decorations go, our home is looking a bit barren. Pitiful, some might say. I have a measly four decorative items up, including the leaf bag. (Those four do look pretty good, though, right?)

But, hey, like I said, I’m a clearance shopper! November 1st, the stores better be ready to be taken by storm!  Just imagine the possibilities for next year.

it’s where i hang my hat

It has been somewhat of a slow process but I think our house is finally in decent enough shape to have people over. This will really only work if said people do not peep into packed-to-the-brim closets, or take a look under the spare bed, or judge the impossible-to-ignore pile under the card table in the office. In other words, stick to the living room, kitchen and yard!

I am working on these other sections but I know it is likely to take a while. A loooong while. Mostly because I have to go through a multitude of boxes filled with a variety of things that I haven’t wanted to throw out for years. But I figure it will be good for me to let go of some of these material possessions.

I bought some really sweet curtains for the living room and bedroom. They should be helpful with saving some energy, as well as keeping the room dark enough to suit Andy’s stringent sleep requirements. I’ve never before been interested in window treatments, but I am now that I have some to call my own. I even made some cute little tiebacks out of beaded ribbon – attractive and economical!

My only slight regret is that I forgot to consider the color of the walls when I ordered these, because the khaki colored ones in the bedroom blend right in.

I have a plan to spruce them up with some contrasting brown fabric, but that would involve me actually going to the store and buying brown fabric, and, well, it probably could be considered a “back burner” sort of project. My other color woe is that the rust shade of the living room curtains clashes with the true red of my little storage ottoman thing, so it might end up in a different room altogether.

Piecemeal decorating is not the easiest of chores. But still, I’m proud of how it’s all turning out.

And I love our pot rack!