Being Open to New Ideas

While in California, I learned some new things.

First, I spent a lot of time in Jonna's new kitchen and I particularly liked the way she organized her spices.  They were in a drawer in tiered rows.  It was really efficient.  Mine are spread out in two shelves in two upper cabinets with three tiered rows on each shelf.  If I need a spice I have to pick the right shelf.  Then if I have to get a spice in the back row, I have to move the two spices that are in front of it or they all fall over like bowling pins.  So as soon as I got home I did a little online research.

Jonna's spice drawer organizers were made to fit her drawers when they built her new kitchen.  I needed to find a way to do something similar in an already finished kitchen.  So I cleaned out two drawers and bought spice drawer liners online.  I do not have a tiered system like Jonna but I was not sure my drawers were deep enough for that.  Here is what my spice organization system looks like now.

That is the good news.  The bad news is I was only able to reduce my cabinet spice shelf space by one shelf.  Seems I have a lot of duplicate spices.  Who knew?  So the duplicates are still in the cabinets.  I wonder how long it will take me to use them up? 

Andy also taught me something.  He said his best shopping discovery was buying bulk precooked bacon at CostCo.  I know all about precooked bacon.  We use it all the time.  What I had never considered was checking out Sam's for a bulk purchase.  (We do not belong to Costco).  Mike and I did a Sam's run yesterday and conducted a bacon search.  We found it.  Normally we buy our precooked bacon at our local grocery store for about $10 for 12 pieces.  Sam's sells it for approximately $10 for 72 pieces.  What an incredible bargain.  Never would have even thought to look for this product at Sam's if Andy had not mentioned it. 

I may have to return to California soon to acquire some more new ideas to improve my life.