The Kitchen

My kitchen is often a topic I write about on this blog.  I don’t like my kitchen and I don’t make any bones about it.  I’ve done a few things to make the best of it until we can reno the main floor for the kitchen.

 

I was thinking about all the houses we’ve lived in, where the kitchens were, the state of my life when we lived there, and the state I kept our house in when living in those homes.

 

When we were first married we lived in a basement suite.  I was in school and pregnant with our first baby.  I did not keep up on things very well there.  I was very sick with Kristyn’s pregnancy.  I was learning to be a wife.

 

The next house we lived in was also small; it was unfinished and constantly in renovations (much like our current home).  Our first two babies lived there with us.  I never did dishes and I never did laundry.  I rarely cooked meals.  From there we moved to a farm where Jason worked.  We lived in a trailer there.  The kitchen was bright and in the middle of the home.  I kept up on things there pretty well, in the  kitchen; other rooms were not so great.  Our third baby, came and went in that trailer.  I cleaned to keep my sanity there I think.

 

I had great routines in place when we moved to Ontario; I kept them up as best I could while we lived with Jason’s parents (a few weeks).  From there we moved to a place a little bigger than our first basement suite.  It was a one room place.  I didn’t have a choice but to keep things tidy.  There was no room for anything; we had no furniture and most of  our stuff was in storage.  From there we moved to a duplex; I kept the main floor of that house in pretty good shape.  The kitchen was the middle of the home.  Marrissa was born while we lived there.

 

We moved from there back to Alberta and moved into a trailer.  We arrived with what would fit in the back of a pick up truck.  We didn’t collect a lot of things.  I had a system and I kept that system.  The kitchen was in the middle of the home and I got things going there very well.

 

Then we moved here.  It’s a shell basically.  The kitchen is in the basement.  The kitchen is almost always a mess.  The laundry is never caught up.  Every time I think I got something figured out, we do another reno and I have to find a new home for stuff.

 

To make the kitchen bearable for me, we installed my under the counter cd player.  The kids wrecked it.  We fixed the floor.  I still like that.  The curtains need to be washed.  I need to organize things better in there.  It’s so overwhelming.  I’m not using space to it’s best advantage and I HATE being in there.  I hate cooking there.

 

I assigned dish duty to Kristyn.  I think she hates being in there as much as I do.  The dishes are still never done, but we are doing better than we have in the past.  I spent an hour in there this morning and made a big dent in it again.  But there is so much still to do.

 

And my time spent in my kitchen is limited too.  Let me explain.  I’m downstairs while the children are UPstairs!  I try to get as much done while the baby is napping.  Most moms do I think.  Well, while I’m downstairs, those who are upstairs end up fighting, or playing loudly.  I can’t be running up and down the stairs to deal with issue after issue after issue.  I can’t keep them all busy in the kitchen with me!  I’m constantly tripping on them then.  I spent most of baby’s nap being the police.  And so the next time I choose to stay with the kids so that baby can sleep.  But then forget to go to the kitchen after he wakes up happy.

 

Even when I cook a meal do I rarely stay down there.  I try to do freezer cooking for supper.  And lunch is cold foods, so we just do that at the table and the counter we have upstairs.

 

I know I’m going to be in this kitchen for a while yet. 

 

Watch, just when I get it where I want it, we’ll do the reno upstairs.

 

It’s just a bad situation and I don’t know how to make it better.

 

So frustrated.

 

Ok, I think I’m done.

 

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,