Nancy T's Profile

Yes.

As the other commenters have said, it's not all or nothing. Keep your favorites and figure out what criteria you have for whether a book is worth keeping. My own book collection was so large as to be unmanageable and I live in a fairly spacious house. I decided to keep books by those authors whose books make me feel happy when I see a new one, those authors where I've read the book more than once, and those books that I know are out of print or not available electronically should I ever get the urge to read them again. This was what worked for me, and I know the storage and management of my books is now very stress-free.

I think your counters and cabinets are fine, but the paint and the backsplash clash horribly with each other and the counter/backsplash combination. Imagine the paint and backsplash as something more complementary to the cabinets and counters and I think you could leave the expensive parts of the kitchen alone.

I made this for dinner tonight! It was great, but heavily dependent on a good pesto. Mine was not salty or garlicky enough (had to add both ingredients for it to taste right).

Muffins. I make fat-free banana bran cran pecan muffins a couple times a month, freeze them, and ration them for breakfast, thawing the night before.

I recently bought a couple of Kyocera ceramic knives, a paring knife and a chef's knife very much like the one in the photo above. Love. Them.

I have a crumb vent (at least I think it's a crumb vent) in my kitchen installed on the kick-plate . It's hooked up to the built-in vacuum system. Sweep crumbs over, kick rocker switch to start vacuum, sweep crumbs near enough for them to be sucked in, kick again to close and shut off vacuum. I like it a lot, particularly because I hate built-in vacuums otherwise. My next favourite feature is the kitchen stool that folds and slides in the kick-plate under another cupboard when not in use.

I have the stainless steel version of the small OXO salad spinner and I love it. It has really increased the amount of salad I make and eat because I can so easily make a salad and keep it fresh in the spinner which then is just a salad bowl.

I vote for a translucent film (like Wallpaper for Windows) for the window, maybe a window treatment that has a long bar along the top the width of the bed, and something filmy or dangly from the bar in the area beside the window, but still within the confines of the bed width.

My new favourite is Martha Stewart's button ornament project. http://www.marthastewart.com/article/button-ornaments

Simple supplies - pipe cleaners, buttons, and that's all.