Another Day

How do they just disappear so rapidly? Seems like I just woke up.

Today was full of fun stuff though. This morning I went to a friend at church's house and took pictures of her not quite three week old baby. I asked her on Sunday if she would let me do it for practice because I haven't gotten to do any that little yet, and she was totally fine with it (YAY!!). It was fun...he is sooo tiny and adorable. And I got a few shots that I was happy with (and hopefully she'll like them, too). A few of my favorite edits are posted on the photography blog.

After I did that, I had to run some errands in town and picked up groceries for the rest of this week's menu and then came back home to do the picture edits. Then of course, it was time to pick up the kids from school and while they were playing this afternoon, I worked on another project.

I just have to tell ya...I'm REALLY good at taking "before" pictures.....only I get to it sometime in the "middle" of the project.

That being said, here's the "before" shots of today's project:
Then another little sidenote that this project was actually started last night... and this actually WAS the TRUE "before" shot when I started today. LOL.

In case you can't tell by the pictures, this project was cleaning out my spice cabinet. That little round thing that is empty, is a revolving spice rack and all those white canisters sitting on the stove snap into it. This was a wedding gift to us seven (YES, SEVEN) years ago. When we were in our first house, I filled the jars with what I figured were "standard" spices and stuck it on the counter. Only one problem. I never cooked back in those days. For one, it was just the two of us, and two, those were the days when I was still capable of burning water...microwave dinners were my specialty (and really, who uses oregano on a microwave dinner?).

SOOO. Several years passed. We moved. Spice rack moved to that shelf where you see it now. Same spices in it. I finally started cooking occasional REAL food but nothin' fancy and still rarely used spices. Then we had kids and I started staying home and cooking much more regularly. But when I tried to use the spices in it, it was like trying to chip rocks out of those jars. I thought. Hum. Maybe the spice jars are just not airtight and moisture got in there somehow. So I went and bought the spice I needed and stuffed it in the cabinet as best I could fit it.

That scenario happened several times (as evidenced by the above picture of all the fresh spices sitting in front of the empty and freshly washed containers...).

Finally I decided to clean out the cabinet. But when I got in there and found some jars and seasonings in the very back of the cabinet that were still in the bottles and had expiration dates of 2005, I put it all together and realized that the problem with those spices in the rack were that they were OLD. There were two canisters that were frequently used and refilled a couple times but all the rest had been in there since the original filling (in 2002). Yikes.

I'm sure there could be some kind of marriage application here...like don't let the spice in your marriage get old, or don't think that the spice you put in your marriage at the beginning doesn't need to be freshened up every now and then....or SOMETHING, but I'm not up for wading that deep right now. LOL!!!

Anyhow, so in my grocery shopping today, I went and picked up the spices that I didn't already have to refill the empty canisters and then set to work filling them. I had another reason for completing this project this afternoon (I needed the stovetop to cook supper). LOL!

So anyways, there is the "after" picture and I have to tell ya, this is MUCH better than the (true) "before" picture. You'll just have to take my word for it.

Let's see, there was one more thing....OH YES.

Supper. Tonight was potato soup. I actually remembered to take a picture before I ate it. KC (an avid soup HATER...and I DO mean hater) actually had seconds, and while I'm pretty sure it won't hit his favorite meal list, he said it was good. Actually, he said it tasted like mashed potatoes, but whatever.

K-man wasn't a fan (he might be tomorrow though...ya just never know with him) but Munchkin had seconds.

Personally, I thought it was every bit as good as Fatz loaded potato soup. And yes, those are bacon bits on top. It was awesome. I have to say though, I followed the linked recipe VERY loosely. Mostly because I was trying to use up some potatoes in the pantry that were beginning to look like they should be planted in the ground because their root system was outgrowing the bag. But anyways, I ended up with 8 good sized potatoes instead of 5. Which isn't quite doubling the recipe...so I just kinda guessed at the amounts for the other ingredients since it wasn't quite double. And I didn't have any steak seasoning, so I used worchestershire sauce, and I also left out the carrots and celery because I was running out of time. I'm not sure if that was quite the right thing to do, but ooooh well. It turned out yummy and that was the main thing. I also have enough leftovers for lunch the next couple of days. Wahoo!

Well....again...it is VERY late. So I'm off. I might actually be off in time to go to bed with (meaning "at the same time as") my husband tonight. *GRIN*

Night!