1.  Yeah, I missed 40 things last week. Let’s not dwell.

2.  IT IS A NEW DAY!

3.  Since I’ve decided to fully embrace all things coffee-ness we have a bean grinder.

4.  I guess technically we have a box that contains a bean grinder but the premise holds.

5.  Side note: I am officially collecting coffee bean recommendations, please&thankyou.

6.  It’s been a long slide but it seems I’ve become a toasty coffee with sugar, creamer, sometimes flavored syrup plus a possible caramel drizzle connoisseur.

7.  To my credit I didn’t become this level of special until I embraced making coffee myself.

8.  Which means I never mortgaged my car to support a Starbucks habit.

9.  Bully for me.

10.  So this week I’ve been thinking a lot about change.

11.  We have a lot of moving pieces right now. One’s first year of college is wrapping up, another’s high school graduation, and an upcoming launch to an out of state school.

12.  Just to name a few.

13.  But are we squirrelly? Antsy? Nutty? Absolutely not.

14.  Well, I’m not. BrightSide could be going off the rails.

15.  Pause here for riotous laughter — I know you all know better.

16.  Anyway, I’ve been brainstorming how to make our kitchen make sense again.

17.  All this coffee goodness is fine but seeing as our kitchen doesn’t exist outside the laws of time and space I’m starting to feel that counter clutter effect.

18.  What’s a girl to do? Make big life choices of course.

19.  The kitchen table overlooks our family’s war room.

20.  For my less militarized readers wikipedia sums it up as “a command center (often called a war room) is any place that is used to provide centralized command.”

21.  Truer words were never spoken about the calendar wall.

22.  Teaching gave me strong skill sets for building support structure, so when the kids were younger and everything felt like it was spinning out of control I set up my calendar system.

23.  It’s double tiered — a month sized white board on top and a one week board on bottom.

24.  Since I’m visual I also use color. Each of the four of us has a distinct color and the black marker is used for pets/household/default notes.

25.  Sometimes people would ask by the time I loaded everything in was it really worth it? I couldn’t say yes fast enough. One look at that wall tells me everything I need to know.

26.  The board lays out who has appointments, sports, or travel.

27.  It shows if there’s any overlap in commitments.

28.  The bottom board gives guidance on our current week but the month board lets me see an overview.

29.  It’s a system that served us well for over a decade and one I’d recommend to any family trying to get a handle on life.

30.  But yesterday I realized I’m ready to move on.

31.  Is life still hectic? Sure. We still have appointments and deadlines and activities and such. That’s just reality.

32.  But dynamics are shifting and I’m ready to release the system that kept my head above water all those years.

33.  It’s a whole honor the past while reclaiming my kitchen movement and I’m here for it.

34.  You know what would be nice? If sitting at my kitchen table felt less like a war room and more like…well, like almost anything else.

35.  It would be especially sweet if I could take that wonky command center energy and convert it into a great coffee area.

36.  Let there be coffee!

37.  And cake.

38.  And maybe some really nice danish.

39.  And biscotti for those days when dipping crunchy Italian biscuits into delightful beverages is exactly what the proverbial doctor ordered.

40.  Happy Friday and a happy weekend to you all.