The Really Useful Cupboard

I am going to jump to the present for this post, and go back to holiday posts later. I arrived back in Mongolia to a sudden cold snap (instead of -7 during the day it is -20 or more). My laptop died on the plane and my office flooded (and no-one noticed until last week). So for the past two days I have had no laptop and have been waiting for them to rip up the carpet and fix up my office. Confined to the apartment I decided to clean out the Really Useful Cupboard. I am convinced that most things can be used for a craft of some kind or another. Having no recycling programs here craft is also one of the only forms of recycling (upcycling?) available to us. So I have a cupboard of things that might be useful. The girls like to get into it to see what they can find. Nymaa uses it for craft after seeing an idea on Play School. The trouble is that the Really Useful Cupboard was so messy that when I opened it today half the things on the top shelf fell on me. So even though I am techinically at work today I emptied the cupboard contents on the floor and started sorting. The photo below is partially through the process (the third shelf has been started already and the bottom shelf is done).

To my embarrassment I was visited by the head accountant, a driver, the IT Officer and another driver (they came to get a big rug for my office) while I was sitting in the middle of all the mess. They had to step over three piles of assorted things - scrap paper, yogurt tubs, Pringle containers.... Anyway, I explained that I was getting tidy for the Mongolian New Year next week - I have read that this is a tradition.

Now I have a wonderful Really Usefull Cupboard, just the thing to get into the crafty mood! The bottom shelf is the girls collection of empty boxes and packets to play shopping. The next shelf is paints, pencils, wrapping paper, fabric, etc. The next shelf is playdough, crafty bits and pieces, stuff for playing post office and paper for paper mache. The top shelf is all those things that they use on Playschool to make things like elephants, houses, robots, etc. I am not sure what I am going to do with all the yoghurt tubs. I have read that you can use them as pots to raise seedlings.....

Kym - this post is for you, as you will appreciate my efforts (and also appreciate that Chris doesn't care that the cupboard is tidy!) Now I really need to do something about the bag of clothes on the floor that I have yet to unpack from our flight from Australia...