New Year, New Goals!

We all know the cliche - New Year's Resolutions, a Clean Slate, etc., etc. Well, I've been Clean Slating my life these last few weeks. Trying to chuck out the clutter & past-their-usefullness reminders of interests past.

Today I tackled cleaning my kitchen, which includes a walk-in pantry. I found boxes of bread mixes & containers of long-forgotten tea blends that got knocked to the dark corners of the shelves. Things with price tags that say "Bread & Circus", which became "Whole Foods" years ago! Into the garbage!

I grabbed all of my cookbooks that are stored in open shelves at the end of my kitchen peninsula - & when I say cookbooks, I also mean magazines & ripped-out magazine articles, pages from newspapers, notes jotted down from various now-anonymous sources, inserts that come with whatever kitchen appliance or tool they are meant to enhance. So many - & I haven't looked at them since I first placed them there. I easily rid myself of half of the pile.

Then I remembered the corner cabinet. Placed over the counter that elbows the oven & sink, it is large but awkwardly shaped. It held many more cookbooks, plus all of my old copies of Cake Decorators magazine, plus catalogs from my wholesale cake decorating supplier (from 10 years ago!) I swear the cabinet breathed a sigh of relief as I unloaded the weight. Into the recycle bin went the old flour, sugar & tea canisters I never use. Look at all of this space! My vast collection of exotic hardly used spices was next. I was merciless - if I hadn't used it in 2 years, well, it was history!

I haven't filled the space yet. I want to enjoy the feeling of purging these old cluttery things for a while. Obviously, my nature is to hold on to things even when it doesn't make a lot of sense to do so. My brain shouts, "What if you need this later? How can you just throw this away?"

I think what is important is to remember that sometimes letting go of things really means giving you the space to allow new things to enter. That doesn't necessarily mean new stuff. It can mean letting peace enter. Or new habits. Maybe by doing the purging work now, I'll have less maintenance work to do later.

At the very least, I'll have cleaner counters!