His wish is my command...

Okay - that's not really QUITE how it works in my marriage but I am of the philosophy that if your spouse tells you that something is irritating him/her and you have the time/power/resources to fix it... why wouldn't you?

A few weeks ago on Pinterest.com I saw a really wonderful, life-changing spice organization rack system (which I found on Amazon.com for $6.99 + shipping). Since my husband is always grumbling (okay - he's only said it about 8 times in 4.5 years) about the number of jars, canisters, and bags of spices that he has to sort through to get to the one thing he wants under the jumble, I ordered them (one set holds 20 containers).

We are tall people so our spice cabinet is above our stove... and above the microwave so it's pretty high and a tad awkward to reach into without knocking 47 things over. Last summer when someone stacked the glass jar of smoky chipotle paprika triple decker on top of the gigantic tubs of red pepper flakes and black pepper (seriously... why do I buy these things in bulk?)... it spread its lovely aroma and fine dust into every nook and crevice in our kitchen and dining room as the glass shattered on the tile floor. I found shards of glass for weeks and paprika dust for months. The upside is that the house smelled quite exotic for a while!

So the new racks arrived and sat on the counter for a few days (arriving mid-week is never good for guests or new projects - I just don't have time to attend to them!). Last night when I got home, my husband had unpacked them and inserted 20 containers of Ground Allspice, Ground Ginger, Curry, Cinnamon, Cumin, Pepper (seriously... more pepper!) etc into the clips just to see how they worked. He said, "We've got to DO something about the duplicates!" and proceeded to show me multiple jars of basil, oregano, garlic powder etc. I agreed and did a little ol' soft shoe to try and distract him from the fact that there is also an entire drawer full of spices that he hadn't pulled out. But... he was way ahead of me and said, "I don't even KNOW what's in the drawer but we should donate all of it!" (He's really not demanding, I just use "!" for emphasis.) Donate spices? Yes! His Mason's Lodge has a woefully equipped kitchen with a pitiful selection of spices - perfect!

Today I had workmen in the house finishing up some energy efficiency projects and since they took ~3 hours longer than planned, I had P-L-E-N-T-Y of time on my hands puttering about in the kitchen since most other rooms were covered in saw dust and insulation. Therefore I pulled out ALL (yes, including those in the drawer...) of the spices (and oils... apparently I have a thing for seasoned oils as well) and lined them up with like items on the counter. (Full disclosure admission: In addition to the bulk sized barrel of black pepper, I also had two black pepper tins, four five black pepper grinders [one was hiding on the island], and a Mason jar of red and black pepper corns. Should a pepper famine strike the land, come to our house.) Once I established that an expiration date of 2005 was outside of the acceptable range (unless you are my dad and that is just getting to the perfect stage of rancidness), I married like with like, tossed items like chili powder that was so old it no longer even had a scent, and filled a bag with perfectly good (non-expired) spices for the Lodge.

I peeled the backing off of the sticker on the back of the spice racks and aligned them perfectly (except for the one that I stuck on hastily and a touch crooked - I was distracted. Did I mention the chaos in my home today?) and inserted the 20 items best suited for the racks. Then I organized the multi-step shelf with the rest of the small and medium jars and the open area with the large spice vats and the non-expired oils.

I was left with several baggies of spice rub (and one jar of mystery spice blend that may or may not be Old Bay but it smelled good so it made the cut). For a split second I considered tossing them because they didn't fit neatly in my layout. But the eco-nerd in me won. I just couldn't waste them. I went to the basement and found an old Clementine box (yes, the ones that come for FREE when you buy Clementines!), a couple of screws and some washers. I mounted the box with the top facing out (a mini-shelf!) along the top of back wall inside the cabinet. It holds the assorted random items perfectly!

The organization-nerd in me then took pictures and sent them to my husband at work. He was thrilled! No. Really. He was!

Blurry but you get the idea. Don't zoom in or you'll see
how badly we need new cabinets or that my mom needs to come visit and
have nothing better to do than to wash cabinet faces...

You are welcome for the free advertising, Cape Cod Brown Bag BBQ Rub
(which is delicious, by the way!)

I was going to spare my readers (all four of you) the agony of my blurry photos but heck, if my husband (okay, aside from him I have three readers...) had to endure them at work, then you can too.

I then turned around and saw the empty drawer and knew that I had to fill it. So I rushed out and bought more spices took the multiple vitamin jars off the top of the fridge and nestled them in there neatly. I'll spare you the pictures of that but don't worry, my husband got to see them... at work.