A new Aldi's just opened not far from us. There is another one on the other end of town but I had never shopped there. DH and I went in a few days after the madness of the grand opening wore off. It was ok but I would not buy meat there, mainly because I am very picky about where I do buy any meat when I do buy it. I had been told their chocolate is very good. My friend was right. They sell, for $1.99, large bars of very good Austrian and German chocolate. I would go back just for that. But not for much else. Maybe some fruit, and the breads and bakery items looked ok. We typically make only 1-2 grocery stops a week at our favorite regional store (Publix) and occasionally go to Fresh Market or Whole Foods. No Trader Joe's here, sadly.

Lynn we are in a very similar place about our house - it's too big for us at this stage of our lives. We use most of the square footage in some way - because it's there - but could easily manage with half ! Our youngest will be graduating from college next May and HOPEFULLY will be employed and able to support himself but who knows? Our older son works for the forest service but those gov't jobs are shakey, to say the least, so we always want to have a place where they can land if needed. So.... we keep the big old house - for now. Stuff? I reached a saturation point many years ago and continually work to pare down. But it's back to that big house thing again - I'm not going to live in empty rooms so there's still far more STUFF than I actually need. When my mom died and I helped my dad move into an apartment, tons of family stuff came my way. Eleven years later when my dad died, the rest of it came to me. We've all talked about this before - the pull of family items and how hard it is to get rid of some things. But it has to be done so over the years I've pared down to the things that have the most meaning and passed the rest on in one way or another. I have dreams (nightmares?) about moving into a small home and having boxes and furniture stacked everywhere because I didn't sort and get rid of enough before moving!! Gifts? I could write a book. Christmas at my in-laws used to make me physically ill with the insane buying and giving of cr@p. It doesn't matter to me a bit how much time is put into the shopping and wrapping, or what the item is. When someone (namely my MIL) is purchasing *stuff* because of a date on a calendar and is obsessed with getting the same # of packages for each person, because that's "just what you do for Xmas" I want no part of it. We'd been married only a short time when I told my DH that I was opting out. He was totally on board. It was a sore spot with everyone in his family for many years but we held firm. We just stopped buying. Our kids would get everything they needed and some of what they wanted all through the year at a time when it made sense to get the item, not an enormous pile o' stuff, all on one day, much of it to be returned, exchanged or donated. And that returning/exchanging all fell to me, of course. A few years of that and we started just donating everything, in the boxes, tags still on. Give me a quiet day, with my family cooking together, laughing and going for a long walk...... THAT'S the gift I want.

I'm looking at that island with the large plant on it and wondering what you do with that surface. I would use it for prep on one end, although the rangetop takes up the middle half of the space. And I'd put foods ready for the table on the other end of the island. I'd have a rule that NOTHING extraneous can be plunked on that island, that it was only to be used for meal prep and subsequent aftermeal cleanup. Because I'm a sitter not a stander when I do prep, I look for a place to sit. A built-in cutting board that you pull out + a stool would render that island much more useful to me. And the plant can go sit on the floor in the living room. In my life, the prep flow goes this way... 1) bring meat/veg from refrig/freezer or produce from garden or onions and spuds from pantry closet to the prep sink. 2) decide what I'm going to do with them and gather recipe book, prep equipment and pans, casseroles, etc. 3) wash what needs washing and lay it out to air dry--in old kitchen before I had a second sink, I used a separate small basin for this if the sink had items in it or was full of dishwater. Even my big pans got used for veg washing sometimes. 4) chop on pull-out chopping board, send refuse into temp compost container (veg matter) or trash (meat scraps, wrappers) or recycle container (cans, plastic); put chopped material into a holding container or begin throwing it into casserole or cooking pan. If there is no trash bin at hand, you need to have a temp trash container also. Nothing more irritating than having to get up to go a distance to throw away chicken fat or meat wrappings or ____ (fill in blank). 5) boil it / fry it / bake it / send it out for grilling / or assemble it if it's a salad. The range should be close by the chopping area and finished foods should be set out on area designated for transport 6) check over finished foods so they're ready haul to table--garnish, salt, remove covers, find hotpad, locate dressing, get serving spoon, etc. In your kitchen, the flow would go from one end of island to the other along the aisle, with short turns toward the sink side for certain steps. The closer these activities can be conducted the more useful the prep zone is to me. Because you have a second walkpath, no one else will dare walk into your prep zone, right? If they do, you need a rule here to keep them out. You need a different zone for after-meal cleanup, even if it's an overlap with the prep. And one for baking and use of oven. And one for food preservation if you're into that. And so forth. Rethink your zones and you'll rethink your flow. If you can add to your chopping area, you can improve your chopping zone. Could you have a pull-up addition to one end of your island so that you can stand/sit with legs under the working surface? ___ I can't tell what you are showing us in the photo of the blue wall with the white open cabs. It's nice display space but if you need storage, reclaim that space by putting the doors back on and get yourself some cabinet organizers if necessary, such as the one that allows stacks of plates. Decide how you're going to use the counterspace--perhaps turn it into a baking zone, with a pull-out surface for rolling dough? You have plenty of space there for food processor & mixer to sit out, ready to play. Put custom fabric bags over their heads if you think they'll get dusty when not in use. Add canisters of flour &c if you need them. ___ Have you rethought your cabinet contents? Looked into roll-outs and repositioning the interior shelves of your lower cabs? We did this as an experiment before we tore out our old kitchen. One roll-out unit made all the difference on the bottom shelf of a nasty deep cabinet with unused items at back. We put the unit into our redone kitchen later. Why didn't we buy these things years ago, we asked ourselves. About $35-50 at Menards, I think. Same with roll-out units under the sink--duplex ones can relieve the clutter under the sink.

"Just wait until you have to pack up all that crap and move it." My SIL just bought a retirement home so they are decluttering their current house as a preparation for selling it--she keeps telling me she can't believe how much STUFF she's got to get rid of. When I go to their house I always admire how it looks nicely organized and without extraneous things all over. However, I also admire her tons of closets and storage space which she says leads to keeping, you guessed it, all that stuff LOL. I've decided I will play a mental game this summer and pretend we have to move; maybe that will be my motivation to get rid of much unnecessary and unused stuff in our house! I use the holidays and shopping for gifts to satisfy any yen I may have to be a retail hunter/gatherer. The past few years I increasingly feel as if I am gorging myself after staying on a careful and healthy diet; by the time January comes I feel so psychically bloated from all the shopping /buying that I need another year to rest up and recover! It's interesting to me to watch my young adult daughter who is setting up her first home. She loveslovesloves Home Goods, Marshalls, Pier 1 etc. And when I go with her I usually find stuff I could easily buy. I have a rule that I can't take anything from those places home the day I see it. That usually short circuits the purchase, I'm rarely motivated enough to fight the traffic and crowds to go back a second time!