Dis-organized? Who, me?

It seems everywhere you look these days, every magazine, every helpful homekeeping website has an article on organizing. "How to de-clutter your life", "Organize your_________in 30 minutes". There are even websites devoted to teaching you organizational skills (and they will gladly sell you the containers and paraphernalia required to employ them).  I certainly need to read a few of these guidelines...maybe post them on the wall as a constant reminder. While I'm not yet in the "Hoarding: Buried Alive" category, I could envision a distant future where my loved ones might have to pull my body from a mountain of books I've acquired from Goodwill, or stacks and stacks of magazines I've kept for future reference on remodeling/gardening/cooking/you-name-it. Well, at least all the cats I will have acquired by that time will keep me warm until someone finds me.

One of the main areas needing organizing are my utensil drawers in the kitchen (thank you, Bella, for the idea!). I loved the quote she shared from a 7-year-old boy, "That's the most fantastic drawer in the whole world!" My grandkids happen to find mine pretty fascinating, too. They're always borrowing items from them to use as fight weapons, or sometimes even pretend cooking. It's always fun trying to locate said items afterward.

Yes, I admit it, I have an addiction to kitchen things...cookware, pretty dishes, gadgets, widgets, tools...anything you can use to chop, dice, slice, stir, beat...It is dangerous for me to go into Williams-Sonoma, Crate and Barrel, kitchen outlet stores, or my very favorite, Homegoods. Clearance racks and aisles beckon me, calling "Lookeee, you know you neeeeeed it!" And that's not even counting the online possibilities and Goodwill.

(Actually, that's 9 turners. I forgot about the specialty ones in the drawer.)

I've even given some of the stuff away, and there's still too much, or at least it would seem so. The thing is, I use most of this stuff...well, maybe not nine spatulas all at once, but several might be in the dishwasher at any given time, and different types have different purposes.

Okay, so I'm not the most organized person in the world, but hopefully not the most dis-organized. I know I should get rid of some this stuff. I just have to figure out what. But it won't be these things:

Ten Things I Must Have in My Kitchen

1. My Santoku chefs knives and the Wüsthof paring knife that fits my hand perfectly.
2. The Cuisinart hand blender with mini-food processor attachment, which is perfect for making a cup of bread crumbs or chopping fresh herbs.
3. The electric tea kettle.
4. The huge bent-handled stirring spoon, which can also be used as a ladle.
5. The different sized ice cream scoops, which make perfectly sized cookies.
6. Microplane zesters/graters
7. The dough cutter/scooper of chopped veggies.
8. The convection toaster oven.
9. The iron skillets.
10. Whisks. A couple of large ones for mixing batters and sifting dry ingredients, and a little one for mixing slurries in a measuring cup.

I probably should have made this a list of twenty or thirty things, but then that would just be crazy.