When you’re starting out, you can do just the interesting bits, and/or make time (word count) with everything you do.

The further you get the more focused you must be to meet your goal.

One of the “scaredest” things I imagined as I contemplated this move was packing the kitchen.

How does one pare-down the most-used room in the house?

Turns out, the same way I use it: intuitively.  Make-do, think ahead and stop-gap the rest.

I saved everything I turn to first in my weekly cooking (a dozen herbs and spices, oils and all my frying & sauce pans). If I’m constantly washing it, or (not) putting it away, odds are I will miss it. So I leave it available.

I’ve cleaned 8 years worth of greasy dust off the top of my cupboards and moved my many-tentacled plant up there. I’ve emptied half the drawers and cupboards, and again *delighted* in the simple pleasure of cupboards that clean well.

As things stand now it looks like we’ll finish our room and the kitchen this weekend, then we’ll move the computers out of the living room, finish the master bedroom, move the kids in there to re-paint the small bedroom (apparently yellow is an un-marketable color) and we’ll be left with the top-to-bottom scrub of the walls.

Yeah. Still lots of work, but at least we have a progression.  And progress.