Have I told you about Mission: Organized? I am working hard to get our cozy house organized and functional, which often means a bigger mess is created as sorting and purging and moving of stuff take place. Our upstairs office space is a constant work in progress, as is the kitchen. Last week, I took everything out of the “pantry” cabinet (yes, cabinet; no, not a closet) and threw away the stale crackers and out-of-date baking supplies. Then I reorganized the items by type and put them in nifty baskets. Sweet Birdie’s Nest purchased a laminator, so I’m going to make and laminate labels for those baskets, too! This week, I tackled the refrigerator and freezer. I did NOT take pictures before or during the task, because, well…I just didn’t want to expose myself that much. Believe me when I say it was not pretty.
I felt like we had SO much in the fridge and freezer, yet we could never use the items while we were cooking. The first thing I did was take everything out of the fridge (well, almost everything – there is one drawer that doesn’t come out without the help of a sumo wrestler, so it stayed), wipe off the shelves, wall, and the door and the purge the out-of-date food and restock the fridge with what was left. Then, I did the same with the freezer.
I may have found the following items in my fridge or freezer while completing this project:
-frozen french fries that expired in January of 2010
-a frozen pie crust that should have been used in January of 2008. {Yes, that’s an 8}
-1 box of Girl Scout cookies, unopened; 2 sleeve of Girl Scout cookies, unopened; and 1 sleeve of Girl Scout cookies, opened
-peanut butter pie filling from ??? {I can’t remember when I made it last, but it was for someone’s birthday}
-6 bags of frozen berries, 4 of them opened
-4 bags of frozen corn
-2 bottles of open vodka
-random frozen chicken breasts in multiple Ziploc baggies, none of which were dated
-ground turkey from 2009 {I tried, but just don’t like it unless it’s in chili}
-something in a disposable casserole dish that was dated Aug/2009
-2 opened loaves of garlic bread
-mayonnaise and multiple salad dressings that expired in 2008, 2009, and 2010
-corn dip from Jim’s birthday party {I was relatively excited about this find because it’s from just two months ago!}
Instead of being embarrassed about this confession {I know I should be, but I refuse}, I am going to move forward with the knowledge that when I see “clean out fridge” on my weekly cleaning checklist, I should really just clean out the fridge and throw out anything past its prime. I did find some beef stew that we can still eat, frozen mangoes that MJ might enjoy, and frozen garlic fries that we bought last month that I forgot we had.
{Oh, and I kept the unopened Girl Scout cookies and the vodka.}
