Kitchen Angst

Yes, I do seem to have some angst these days, don't I?  And believe me, I have some real angst over some real issues currently, far weightier and more important than commercials and kitchens.  But it's those kind of issues that I admit, I don't want to delve into right now, as they truly do have my spirit disturbed and my heart bruised.  Maybe someday soon, I'll divulge.  But for now, will you let me rip on my kitchen?

I had grand and lofty ideas about cooking and homemaking when I got moved into my new place.  And believe me, I still want to take part in them.  But they may need some adjustment.  I still want to make my own granola bars, bake bread, have big cooking days where I can get several meals into the freezer at a time...  I still read Pioneer Woman and Heavenly Homemakers with some longing. But two realities have hit me: a) at the moment our freezer space is too pathetic to support the kind of cooking/eating lifestyle I wanted to provide to my family (though we're working on that), and b) I don't really enjoy being in my kitchen.

Our apartment kitchen isn't the stuff of dreams.  Shucks, it's not even the stuff of anti-stuff-of-dreams which can have a romance of its own (something like Julie/Julia where she cooks an entire year of gourmet meals in a tiny pathetic kitchen?).  When it comes down to it, I don't like being there.  There's a mouse (at least coming in and out) which has spoiled it for me.  It has very little (I can't stress that enough) counter space, even with the extra counter Nick has put up.  Sadly, I'm a woman who really needs to spread when she cooks.  I seem innately unable to control the littler and clutter that makes the kitchen look as if it's never clean, and sadly, even when it is, the main counter (which is covered in appliances and dishracks, etc.) doesn't look remotely clean even when it is cleared and scrubbed.  The old, white cabinets that I seriously suspect were built by do-it-selfers have drawers hard to open and doors hard to close.  It's cold and uncomfortable in the current climate and hot and uncomfortable in warmer weather.  I've decided yellow is definitely not the kitchen color for me as it makes me feel as if everything is old and discolored.  The room feels unclean and I can't seem to make it feel clean.  I don't like to let Eliza down on the floor in there.

Maybe it's my attitude, because it is the only room that still strongly speaks to me of the prior occupant and some of the things we've found along the way have given me a bad taste in my mouth.  A friend described it as sunny and cheery.  I find it depressing.  And so I don't like to go in.  I don't do the dishes as often as I should and I cook as little as I need to because I just don't care to be in there.  And it makes me long for a kitchen that I love, a kitchen I enjoy spending time in, someplace where I enjoy cooking and working and don't mind so much the cleaning-up.  We aren't going to do too much more to the current kitchen as the plan is to, someday, rip it out and completely make it into something entirely different.  We don't want to spend money spiffing up something that will only be a kitchen for the next five or seven years.  But that does mean that I have what will likely be at least five or seven years in a kitchen I don't like. 

So, here is the perfect opportunity to learn joy in the face of distaste.  To pick myself up by my boot straps and figure out how to make the place work for me.  Nick has done some wonderful things to make the kitchen more usable, and maybe there's something more incredibly dirt cheap that I could do to make it a little more to my liking.  Because I really would like to be in a kitchen more.  And to cook more.  We shall see.  But I'm definitely set against a yellow kitchen when I renovate someday.  It would take a miracle to change my mind.