Sometimes when Brett has a business trip coming up, I give my sister, Kristen, a call and beg her to come and have some girl time. She has been blessed with jobs with a crazy amount of vacation days, so she is usually willing and able to come soak up some Texas sunshine.

I love the company, and she loves the warmer weather (and hanging out with the pigtailed one), but we have mutually beneficial ulterior motives. I usually have a major project I need help with, and she has this strange desire to rescue me from my life of chaos, clutter and disorganization. She knows I have good intentions but lack motivation to follow through. Kristen = motivation.

We tackled several projects in our most recent weekend together, most involving the kitchen. We pulled several items to donate and rearranged some cabinets to better use the extra space. The cabinets with my plastic storage and baking dishes were probably the worst.

before

after

That felt good. Clutter makes me panicky.

There was also pantry clean-out, recipe organization and matching things with lids (or not). For all our hard work, we rewarded ourselves with good food. Check out this Superfood Bowl we made.

Seriously good – amazing textures and pops of flavor. And if you’ve never had quinoa – try it! It’s just as easy as making rice and is crazy good for you.

So Brett came back from his trip to a cleaner kitchen and a happier wife. And Kristen went back home to start her awesome new job. So I call this a WIN, except for Kristen teaching Hannah lines from “Mitt Romney – Bad Lip Reading.” Cleaning, jalapeño margaritas, good sister talks and one exciting Target trip – good times.