For the last week or two I've had organization on the brain. I have been trying to move things, sort things, purge things - okay not much because I stink at that - and force things to make more sense in this house. I am not the best at this. Bring me to your house and I can help you, put me in my house and I am paralyzed with indecision. I always need help.
A few days ago I started pinning things about organization and about canning - but not together - and then a lightbulb went off. I needed to organize my canning stuff. It has been making me crazy since we moved back to Charlotte because I've had to shove everything in an armoire... yeah, not the canning cellar your grandma had. My friend Tracy came over the other day and I mentioned my idea of organizing the canning stuff and adding a chalkboard to the armoire. A little while later I had to put Macie down for her nap, when I came back down, Tracy had decided to take all of the stuff out of the armoire for me so off we went! She's never one to sit for too long!
I need to give Tracy all kinds of credit here, she separated out all of the empty jars and full jars and then we filled the boxes with the same size empty jars so we could nicely pack them in the top of the armoire. We sorted all the full jars so similar items were in the same boxes and then made a list of what I even had so I could keep a running inventory. This was due to an applesauce mishap - I thought I had two more jars and alas, I didn't. Sad. After making the all important inventory, we stacked all the jars and WHAM. It looked so pretty!
I know what you are asking, where's the chalkboard??? I'm getting there. I had some lovely chalkboard paint and a big blank armoire door. Time to paint. I painted three coats of the paint onto the door and then let it cure overnight.... chalkboard paint is all about waiting. After the cure, I rubbed it all down with some chalk and transferred my list of canned goods right smack onto the door.
Can I tell you how much I love this? I know it's not the most exciting post over and it's not something everyone may want to do - but for me, this is amazing. I now have a clean neat armoire and I have a list of what's left. I think it's so important because it will help me determine what and much I need to can this year. It also gives me a quick reference for what I can cook. I love it! If you can, you need to keep a list and why not make it a chalkboard - they're more fun!
