{"id":55959,"date":"2015-07-18T00:09:49","date_gmt":"2015-07-18T07:09:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/?p=55959"},"modified":"2015-07-18T00:09:49","modified_gmt":"2015-07-18T07:09:49","slug":"get-it-together-merit-badge-intermediate-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/55959","title":{"rendered":"Get It Together Merit Badge, Intermediate Level"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<span style=\"color: #800080;\">The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.farmgirlsisterhood.org\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Sisterhood Merit Badge program<\/span><\/span><\/a>,<span style=\"color: #800080;\"> now with\u00a06,487 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far\u20149,234 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #339966;\">Wondering who I am? I\u2019m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/10477\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">former life<\/span><\/span><\/a> \u2026<b>\u00a0<\/b><b>\u00a0<\/b><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>For this week\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.farmgirlsisterhood.org\/badges-fk-get-it-together.asp\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Farm Kitchen\/Get It Together Intermediate Level Merit Badge<\/span><\/a>, I got to start with one of my favorite things to do:<\/p>\n<p>Making a list.<\/p>\n<p>I heart lists. Sometimes I make lists about making lists. Or about how much I love lists, numerically or alphabetically.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_57246\" style=\"width: 370px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-57246\" class=\"wp-image-57246\" src=\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/To_do_list_blank.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"360\" height=\"480\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-57246\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">photo by Adam Diaz via Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I sense your confusion and raised eyebrows from here. Let me explain:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Make a list for DIY rainy-day projects<\/li>\n<li>Make a list for veggie shopping<\/li>\n<li>Make a list for camping destinations<\/li>\n<li>Make a list for prioritizing your lists<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Etc, etc. You get the drift.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, I love lists because I love order and peace and the sense of accomplishing something, and also because I really have a thing for bullet points. They rock my world, chickadees.<\/p>\n<p>So, my list today was how to have a working kitchen. At first glance, when I read that title, I pictured some sort of robotic, maid-and-butler-occupied, steampunk kinda thing, but I was making things more complicated than they needed to be (control your surprise). A working kitchen, my girls, is \u2026<\/p>\n<p>Well, I suppose it\u2019s a bit different for every woman, isn\u2019t it? For example, my friend, Midge, has triplets. Her working kitchen is likely going to include easy-to-clean, wipe-down-able, child-height, types of things. My gramma, Barbie? Her working kitchen would include a high-quality blender for Daiquiri Night when her girlfriends come over for Bunco, and the oven is only for decoration (she has a crush on the pizza delivery man).<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_57247\" style=\"width: 509px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-57247\" class=\"wp-image-57247\" src=\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/The_first_three_versions_of_the_famous_Easy-Bake_oven.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"499\" height=\"234\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-57247\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">photo by Bradross63 via Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n<p>For myself, now, a working kitchen is going to include some real key items, and they aren\u2019t necessarily the same key items I would have included a mere few years ago. I am a changed woman, you see \u2026 and I no longer have a need for a microwaveable egg cooker, a touchless paper-towel dispenser, a hot-dog scorer, an automatic pancake maker, a corn kerneler, and a few other things that make ya go, <em>whaaa?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Oh, and possibly three different makes of salad spinners.<\/p>\n<p>Ahem. How embarrassing.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, I sent all my <span style=\"text-decoration: line-through;\">priceless artifacts <\/span>weird inventions to my local thrift shop and got busy making my Dream Working Kitchen List.<\/p>\n<p><strong>MBA Jane\u2019s Must-haves for a Working Kitchen:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B0018DYWFM\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B0018DYWFM&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=isfr34az34-20\">multi-level baking rack<\/a>. How neato is this for my Annual Home-baked Pizza Cook Off?<\/li>\n<li>A good quality mixer (pizza dough doesn\u2019t make itself, peeps). Maybe a royal blue KitchenAid &#8230;\u00a0or a bright red &#8230;\u00a0or a lime green &#8230; or a pumpkin-orange &#8230; so many choices, so little counter space &#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"attachment_57248\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-57248\" class=\"wp-image-57248\" src=\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/397px-Blue_KitchenAid.jpg\" alt=\"397px-Blue_KitchenAid\" width=\"300\" height=\"453\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-57248\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">photo by g2boojum via Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>My apron collection and a lovely place to hang\/display them.<\/li>\n<li>Good-quality kitchen shears for slicing me some chives (mmm, baked potatoes \u2026).<\/li>\n<li>A French press and a tea kettle.<\/li>\n<li>A crockpot for long winter days (or conversely, long summer nights; I like to plug mine in on the porch when it\u2019s just too darn hot to have anything warm in the house).<\/li>\n<li>Good knives. I only need two really: a butcher knife and a bread knife. I keep them outside of a drawer to avoid nicks and cuts when searching, and instead keep them in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Design-Ideas-Brocade-Letter-Holder\/dp\/B003VRPVE4\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1429825506&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=letter+holder\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">a cute letter holder. <\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li>And the most important, I gotta have it, no holds barred, I will not be budged from ordering <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/luc-OT821-Nessie-Ladle\/dp\/B00SRGPELO\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1429825632&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=nessie+soup+ladle\">this <\/a>right now this very second.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I\u2019m sure the foodies out there agree with me. It\u2019s just the bare necessities, really!\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with\u00a06,487 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far\u20149,234 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ\u00a0 Wondering who &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/55959\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/55959\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gladsome_sisters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55959\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}