I love to cook. And I love tools. Ergo, I have a LOT of cooking stuff. Cram-jammed drawers full. The same goes for coffee paraphenalia, tea accessories, and various things I no longer even recognise.

Not good. I have to dig through random junk every time I want something.

So today, while my husband took care of an errand, I took my freshly cleaned up self to the 1st drawer, and began divestiture. 🙂

First I dumped everything out of the first drawer, the one I use daily. It held two mesh teapot spout protectors (neither of which I’ve used in years), various mismatched sterling teaspoons, my mother’s WWII dark steel espresso spoons, coffee canister filters, a tiger-in-a-sparkle-tutu butter spreader (don’t ask), and mason jar lids, rubber bands, twist-ties, ad infinitum nauseaum.

Wow. Who knew one drawer could even HOLD that much junk??

Then I washed out the drawer, which immediately made me feel better. Cleaning does that to the women in my family (and even some of the men). After that? I washed the drawer organisers, and then began sifting/ sorting/ putting in piles. Pile A: for my sisters or nieces (stuff that’s good, but I have more than one). Pile B: stuff to keep. Pile C: otherwise known as the trash bin.

The drawer looked so good after I put pile B back in, that I started drawer 2!

And yep: there are myriad applications to beginner’s heart here. As well as 30 Days of Love. What if we regularly — at least as often as we clean out drawers, and do deep cleaning of our houses/ apartments/ studies, offices — threw out old habits? Threw out old prejudices that we are trying to outgrow?

What if we only kept what was really USEFUL? Love, compassion, kindness? Humour and intelligent action and a belief in each other? What if we gave away the things we have plenty of? Not merely $$ & ¢¢, but time, support, our individual skills and talents…?

It might well inspire us to re-examine all the places in our lives where we could lighten up.