Semi Impulse Buys - My Kitchen Divorce

I was originally supposed to spend this weekend back in Bruce and Grey Counties celebrating my Mom and nephew's birthdays and going to a training session on value stream mapping. But when the training got cancelled (as last minute as possible), I jumped on the chance to stay home and pack - I can't believe it's only four more sleeps until Tim and I move into our own place! As much as it feels like we signed the lease ages ago (in March, actually) I can't believe how rushed the past couple of weeks have been. This weekend a ton of things have come together.

Friday night I organized the stuff Tim and I had already set aside to move. We're lucky to have a spare bedroom in our current unit that we can store stuff in. After that night, the room looked like this:

Yesterday morning I woke up early and went to town on the storage closet - almost everything in there seemed to be mine. When Angel woke up we did a Canadian Tire run, picked up packing materials and totes for all the kitchen stuff. Sorting out the kitchen was an ordeal . . . Angel and I are both avid cooks, and Angel loves to bake. We have a LOT of kitchen stuff. And figuring out what was whose would have been impossible if she hadn't been so willing to help. Between the two of us, it took us about four hours to completely sort, clean, and pack the kitchen. It's what I imagine a very amicable divorce would feel like. "If you want to take more of the plates, I'll keep the majority of the glasses. I think that garlic press is yours, plus I'd like to pick up a better one."

Once that was done, though, we got to do the fun stuff - shop for the things we were both missing!! We headed first down to HomeSense a new sieve, balloon whisk, manual can opener, miniature rubber spatulas, a big rubber spatula, measuring cups, and measuring spoons. Oh, and possibly a new scarf . . . Not that I don't already have a dozen or so. It was yellow! I couldn't resist!

Next we headed to Home Outfitters, because I had a coupon I wanted to use to get an electric kettle. Tim had mentioned before that he wanted a glass one (we'd have to be more diligent about cleaning the scaling for sure). I wasn't entirely sold on the glass one (mostly because of the scaling issue). I narrowed it down to a glass one and one I liked:

Then I texted the picture to Tim and asked him to choose. He chose the glass one - I don't know why I thought he'd possibly choose differently. But that's alright - the glass one is a Cuisinart 2-in-1 PerfecTemp Programmable Tea Steeper and Kettle. So that central metal canister can be filled with tea to brew an entire pot. Angel was worried that it would absorb odors, but it's glass. I don't think glass really absorbs odors.

I also picked up a flexible silicon flat spatula and a beautiful simplehuman dish drainer. I hate how the plastic dish drainers get little specks of food and dirt stuck in the bottom of them. Angel is really good about washing and bleaching ours periodically, but it's such a hassle. This one is a stainless steel wire rack with a rubber/plastic drip tray. The tray can be cleaned separately, which I think will make clean up so much easier. 

By the end of Day 2, the storage room looked like this:

Time to start Day 3!! I hope to get the living room, the foyer, the bathroom and the area in front of the kitchen completely packed and cleaned by the end of the day, plus clean my room and do laundry. Wish me luck!