The Other Woman

I think about her a lot. Some times, it's almost like she's here with me. Here. In this very kitchen where I spend so much of my day. She gives me the heebie jeebies. Or is the heevie jeebies?

No, Don didn't have an affair (though when I was traveling Monday through Friday, he did refer to me as his weekend wife). I'm talking about the woman who owned this home before we did. I can feel her presence so often because the kitchen in this house was built especially for her by her husband, a carpenter.  Apparently, she led a cooking class from this house and her husband built the kitchen with special nooks and crannies and secret cupboards (yes, really) just for her.

At first, I loved all of the details in the kitchen. Concealed storage over the fridge to hide our food saver and extra platters? Holla! Pull out drawers in every cabinet? I felt like a Food Network star when we first moved in. But now?

Now it's just too much. Case in point: the dang pantry.

What happened here? I cannot keep this thing organized, and I have tried every possible container and labeling system in my repertoire of knowledge as a type A minus woman (A minus because I am OCD in some ways and completely disorganized in others). This morning as I rocked William before his nap, I realized it's because of HER.

Our food containers do not fit on these rounded shelves. I'm sure she had specialty baskets with rounded corners labelled "oats" and "dried beans" that fit snugly on the shelves, but those didn't come with the house. It just occurred to me that I need to tear out this weird shelving system and clean this pantry up. Once and for all.

See that gap in the center of the shelves? Her husband built that so that she would have a place to keep the vacuum. Well, we don't keep the vacuum in the pantry, thankyouverymuch. We keep it in the last room it was used in, so there!

Don, if you're reading this at work, I need you to help me tear out this shelving system. And build new shelves. Kiss kiss!