My Dilemma

I have a little dilemma when it comes to eating right.  I’ve learned to deal with it, and figure that if I can eat right with this predicament, anyone can.

First of all, I need to mention that I love cooking new recipes.  It is so much fun to have a conversation with my family members about cooking:

Me:  What are you guys having for dinner?

Family: Pancakes.  How about you?

Me: Oh, Curry Chicken with Mangoes and Red Peppers.

My dilemma is my kitchen – or lack thereof.

Counter Space

I loved the kitchen in mine and Josh’s first place.  Our apartment had counters/cupboards on two of the four walls – plenty of room for food, appliances, and most important, food preparation.  The table had to stay in the front room, but I felt we set everything up quite nicely.  Some different things caused us to move elsewhere, and we found the duplex that we currently live in.  Our current home is pretty decent except for one thing: counter space.

Here is what I get to use when I am cooking:

Yep – that’s it.  I have that little counter to chop, slice, mince, mix, or whatever else I need to do with many ingredients.  That counter is the only place I have to put my mixer, blender, slow cooker, food processor, or any other appliances that I may need.

But Jayni, surely you have more space in your kitchen!

Not really!  Here is the other side of my “kitchen”.

I use the microwave stand and the pantry to house my other appliances, baking supplies, and other random food that I don’t have stored in my outside shed.

Dishes

If there is one chore that I have a hard time with, it is dishes.  There are always more and more dishes in the sink.  And since I’ve started eating better, I have had more and more dishes to do.  The blender, slow cooker, cups, plates, etc. just keep piling up (especially after dinner).

Why not just use the dishwasher?

Here is my dishwasher:

Yep, that’s it!  Every little dish has to be washed, and sometimes dried, by hand.  There are three meals that I have to wash dishes for every day.  I think you can see why this is not my favorite part of being a mom – unless I have PJ standing next to me on a chair helping.  Then it becomes some good mom/son time.

Food Storage

My last issue with the kitchen is the lack of space to store food.  I think my refrigerator is from the 1970s – and I’m not kidding!  I have three shelves and one drawer to store food, and then there are some small shelves in the door right below the egg slots.  If you are wondering what that is, they are spots in the fridge door to put eggs.  It takes up about half of the what space there could be in the fridge.

And then there is my freezer – or ice box.  It really is just a box in the top of the fridge designed to keep some things frozen for awhile (kind of like the ones in small office fridges).  We’ve tried putting some kind of shelves in there, but there isn’t a solid bottom so they just slip out.  Sometimes taking one thing out results in the whole ice box emptying itself.

Oh Well!

What I had to finally say when it comes to my kitchen is “Oh well!  Do what you can!”.  There are some things I can change, and others I can’t.  For the counter space, I just plan on taking a little longer to cook or move the slicing and dicing to the table.  For the dishes, it’s not as bad if I do it throughout the day instead of all at once.  I also sometimes use paper plates when I’m feeling overwhelmed (which is many days).  And I still dream of the day that I will have a dishwasher (Josh doesn’t count).

As for the food storage, I’ve tackled that in a variety of ways.  My mom helped me organize our outdoor shed with some shelves so I could stock up food.  (I burn an extra calorie or two running out there everyday to get my ingredients!).  I sometimes have to make weekly trips to the grocery store since there isn’t enough room to store all the ingredients I want.  And at some point, I plan on buying a chest freezer.

“If you dream it, you can do it”.  If I dream about a healthy lifestyle, I can overcome any obstacle to fulfill that dream – even if that obstacle is as simple as a small kitchen.