On Holiday - 12/26/21

Osouji, essentially "Big Cleaning", is a Japanese ritual of the household that is highly believed to cleanse the home and purify the residence in order to welcome “Toshigami,” the kami (Shinto deity) of the New Year.

There is more to it than just cleaning, but the idea that I am taking from it is to prepare for the New Year, one that certainly that will be spent at home for the most part as the pandemic lingers on. 

I got the idea from my previous dojo where we cleaned the mats at the beginning of the year. 

It isnt like me to want to clean, but the idea of having gone through every room, knowing where everything is, organizing, removing things never used, and knowing that at least for the moment it is truly deeply clean, does appeal to me. 

It wouldn't help if I had someone else do it, since there are thousands of little decisions to make as I go - what to keep? what to discard? how deep is deep cleaning? 

And it's a personal thing to do. To make the home most comfortable to me, I have to be deeply involved in the process. 

Half the time I doubt I can even get it all done before the new year. Or that I even want to do this at all. But the call of the perfectly deep cleaned home organized just the way I like it really appeals to me and my personality. 

Like any big "eat the elephant" type of task, I broke it down. I figured I would work room to room, one for each day. I would work on the most important room first - the kitchen. I would sleep as long as possible and then get started on the most needed thing in the room (Kitchen: Coffee pot first!)

Today is the kitchen day as it is day one of the Big Clean. 

It's about 245pm and I'm already exhausted. I noticed a few things about myself today. 

When I'm really involved in something, I push aside eating and drinking. This is not good for me and induced a nice headache and louder ear ringing from my tinnitus. So I'm taking a break and debriefing from the experience. And drinking lemonade. 

The dog took my break as meaning I had time to take him for a walk since everyone else is holding down couches, nappping, and watching t.v.

I also noticed that when I start getting tired it matters less that I do a good job. This is a good signal for me to take a break. 

I got the coffee pot area cleaned, decided not to have a tray of non essential spice area and cleaned it out, removed them. I didnt have any place other to store my alcohol so it stayed there, but the three tiered food storage jar thing i never used is moved to the living room while I ponder where it should go. I hate to throw anything out so it may end up in a cupboard along with all the flower vases. I could keep one and get flowers for myself now and then. Still thinking on this one. 

I cleaned the fridge outside and realized I did a clean up of inside not long ago. I may skip that for now. The microwave was gross so I got that cleaned up. The stove was a big job and thats done too. I washed the door, which is also the main entrance into the house, so that was a fairly big job as well. 

So I'm left with my spice area, where I need to make some more decisions about what to keep and how to organize it. Since this involves some heavy thinking and maybe consolidation of spices, I think I will take the dog for a walk, and some aspirin, and give it some thought while I get some fresh air. 

The dog approves. 

----

Back from the walk. It went well but I was cold for the first half. I have to remember to check the weather more than once a day! It was in the 40s earlier but I think it cooled down by the time I got out there it mustve been closer to mid thirties. Brr!

I redid my spices to group them by use - sweet spices for baking, savory for cooking, most used in the rack at the top. I tried Salts and Peppers in a container but realized I had taken too much real estate, so I moved the big box of salt (Kosher) to the baking cupboard and then put the rest along the side of the island, where it has a tiny shelf. I rehomed the lemon pepper and celery salt as savory and eventually found room for everything. I did find 3 thymes, 2 poppy seeds and 3 containers of cinnamon sticks.

Glad today is done, now I can relax and my kitchen is beautiful. 

Meanwhile I had to figure out dinner. But while I was clearing my head while walking Otis, I realized having a lot of sourdough bread turned into breadcrumbs would be good for stuffing. I already had mostly lemon rosemary sour dough crumbs so I added stock, eggs, butter, chopped up the table of herbs I still had, and put it in a bowl in the oven. 

Next I cut up the parsnips, added truffle oil (first time using!) and some of the remaining herbs. 

Put that on a cookie sheet and placed scored pork chops on top with some ripped sage. 

Its all baking while I boil some broccoli. That will get mixed in with some butter and smashed garlic. 

Cant wait for dinner!