So, normally I think resolutions are stupid. The typical “lose weight and eat better” always loses steam around Feb. 21 or so. I don’t even bother.

But I know I’ve commented on this site before about how disorganized Neal and I are. We can never find anything, and our house IS NOT BIG. It’s ridiculous, and I’m tired of it. I hate being unorganized, but yet I’ve let this house got to hell. It’s mostly due to laziness.

So my New Year’s resolution? GET ORGANIZED. I visit this blog, The Hyper Homemaker, and she’s going to be starting a series on how to organize your house, room by room. I’m looking forward to reading what she has to say. But I decided to get a head start. New Year’s Day, I ran to Bed, Bath and Beyond to get some organization stuff. The cashier said that’s what was selling most, HAHA, so my resolution is not unique.

I started on the kitchen, since that’s where I spend a lot of my time and I’m tired of not being able to find stuff when I’m cooking. Plus, our pantry is A MESS. I’m sick of thinking I have something and then not being able to find it.

LOL, yes, Simone was trying to help. Beside her is the roll-out wire basket that I had Neal install for me (and no swearing was involved! Amazing!). I bought a plastic thing to hold soda cans beside that. And below you can see my little wire rack that doubles up the room I have for cans. I’m not sure if this looks organized to you, but trust me, it is. I LOVE IT. I cleaned up all the crap we had on the floor, and Neal commented on how nice it is to be able to actually walk into the pantry.

So amazing. I have shelves behind me when I was taking this picture, too. I organized those better as well.

I bought a wire rack to hold my cutting boards/sheet pans and set that up in my cabinets for easy access. I also bought small wire baskets that were on sale to organize some of my drawers. We have a kitchen cart with two drawers that ended up being junk drawers. Do I really need two large junk drawers?

Yes, Simone is also in these pictures. She’s always in my business. The first drawer pictured has pens/pencils, scissors, tape and my coupon organizer. Second drawer is batters and other odds and ends.

Whew. It took me over two hours to do all of this, and it really wore me out. I feel so much better now. I can actually find stuff in my kitchen, and it feels great. Once we take our tree down, my next project will be organizing our office and downstairs bathroom. Both have a lot of storage space, but it’s underutilized because it’s not really organized.

OK, sorry if I’m boring you, but I’m pretty excited about this resolution. My second resolution? Finish our attic. Neal’s parents bought us drywall and supplies to finish our attic last Christmas (it was already wired and insulated). We have been slack on actually completing it. Neal and I would like to make that our bedroom. So come hell or high water, we are finishing it this year, HAHA. I can’t wait!

To celebrate our clean kitchen, I broke out my new food processor Neal’s parents got us to make dinner. I wanted to make au gratin potatoes. Last time I made these, I sliced the potatoes using my box grater, and almost lost 2.5 fingers. My processor has a slicer attachment, so I decided to give it a try. And wow. My first though is that I’m sad I didn’t have this sooner.

I love it! I love, love, love it! I also used the shredder blade to shred up cheese. What took my 5 minutes on the box grater now takes 2 seconds (seriously) with the food processor.

Funny thing. It came with a video to watch on how to use the food processor. It was a VHS. I don’t think I’ve held a VHS tape in my hand for like 2 years.

LOL! Seriously? I had to take a picture. I was shocked Cuisinart would have a VHS rather than a DVD. Doesn’t matter, because I don’t watch these instructional videos anyway, and we do have a VHS player, it just made me giggle. Am I the only one that thinks that’s weird?

The au gratin potatoes came out perfectly.

I served them with garlic and basil broccoli and some Italian panko-crusted chicken. Very good dinner!

So anyway, get on my case about organizing, because I really need it! I added an Organizing category to the blog as well. Happy ‘09 and I hope you stick to any resolutions you have made!