Kitchen Before and After

I do enjoy my summer and fall Saturdays. The Farmers' Market downtown, my own garden yield, pulling it all together in the kitchen to feed my family nutritious and delicious and locally-grown foods... Saturdays are inspiring and motivating and very satisfying days.

Then come Sunday mornings. Last weekend I was preparing and canning dill pickles until just after ten at night. I cleaned up what had to be done immediately, and I left the rest for morning.

If you doubt me, let me assure you: my kitchen really is that small. Most of the time it's a great kitchen for cooking and baking. Once in a while, like weekends in August and September, I find it feels a little bit cramped. I'm not sure the pictures really show how much of a chore I faced when I got up Sunday morning. My three goals for the day: clean the kitchen, clean the kitchen, and then watch the Milwaukee Brewers beat the Houston Astros (I'm a positive thinker that way).

Well, I did it. I not only cleaned the kitchen, washed the large pots and pans and mixing bowls, I also reused the water from the hot water bath canner, moved the canner to the deck to dry, put away all the now-clean dishes, labeled all the pickles jars, and more.

I took inspiration from the now-visible refrigerator magnet of the racing sausages, pushed the on button for the dishwasher, and relaxed in the den with Amigo to watch some baseball.

Final scores: Daisy 1, Kitchen 0. Brewers 7, Astros 3. All in all, a good weekend.

Stumble It!