Project Simplify: Pantry and Refrigerator

This week's Project Simplify was to tackle your pantry and refrigerator.  Not, just to clean them out, but to examine the food that we have in our homes and to determine if that food is working for our families or against them.  I know I've said this every week, but its true, I swear they organizer of this project has somehow stolen my thoughts and picked this spot just for me.  

My family knows this, most specifically, my husband, but our pantry closet is our catch all.  Not only is it a fair size, but I use it to house items that have no real home or when guests are coming over and I have to quick clean up.  I simply just throw everything in there and shut the door.  Problem solved.  Here's what I had to start with:

I'll tell you this, the pantry is probably 1 of the major things that really bugs my husband.  Whenever something goes missing, he immediately assumes that I had picked it up and relocated it to the great abyss of that closet.  Its hard to see in the those pictures, so here's what came out of that closet.  

Oh yea, baby!  That table seats 8-10 people.  The kids and I ran out of room and had to stack the stuff on the floor.  It was then that I realized that this was not going to be a 1 day project.  It truly is scary, the items that came out of that closet.

Then, when I peered inside, I realized that the walls had never been painted.  Luckily, I had pulled a can of primer out of the pantry, so I put 3 coats on the walls before restocking.

Here's where the fun starts.  

1. All food items were inspected for expiration dates and old food was discarded.  What a bummer!  I didn't realize that my favorite salad dressing was expired.

2. All the food that I did not want to keep for my family was put in bags.  The unopened items were donated to the food drive at our local YMCA.  The opened items were given to a friend so that they didn't go to waste.

3. The pantry was restocked and the food items were organized.  Its beautiful, really.

4. My kitchen appliances were added to the closet, along with my non-food kitchen items, i.e. extra foil, paper products

5. All of the remaining items were reorganized on the dining room table and found their permanent homes.  Okay, not all of them.  I have a lot of photos that need hung and I need P's opinion, so they will just have to stay where they are, awaiting his return.  I'm sure he'll be thrilled to learn that that is how he will be spending his weekend.

Here's the final product:

Seriously, it was so pretty that I didn't want to shut the closet door.  I can actually see the floor, and I know what items are in there.  I also found a lot of great things I had thought I'd lost.  Woo hoo!

The refrigerator was easy though, since I just cleaned the shelves and what not the other day.  I'm also in need of a trip to the grocery store, so it didn't take long at all.

Before:

Essentially, I ended up throwing out some condiments that were purchased 2 Christmases ago by my in-laws and some salad dressings.  That cleared out my doors and made room for the peanut butter and jelly that were on my shelves.  My pet peeve?  Having condiments in the refrigerator and not in the door. Can not stand it!  Really, it gets my goat.

Anyway, here's my after:

Feeling so accomplished right now.  The best thing about it?  Now I know exactly what I have in my fridge.  I was able to throw together a really wonderful dinner with my leftovers.  I used some of the blue hake, put it on whole wheat tortillas with broccoli slaw and an Asian Goddess dressing for dinner.  Less than 5 minutes and the kids were eating a healthy meal that otherwise would likely to have gone to waste due to oversight.

I should probably do this once a month.  Doubtful, but a good idea.  Even harder? To keep the junk out of my fridge and pantry.  I'll give it my best shot, though!

Simplification: Kid's toys and clothes

What to do on a snowy 3rd day of Spring?  Why not tackle this week's Project Simplify hot spot: Kids' toys and clothes.  I did take care of most of the toys and the girls' clothes a week or two ago, so this was supposed to be a breeze.  Besides doing my big boy's room/clothes, and taking care of some hand-me-downs the girls had received, I decided to finally let go of the stuffed animals.

Stuffed animals were a huge problem in our house (until about 7 hours ago) because of my inability to get rid of them.  The kids wanted to keep some, but not the ones I wanted them to keep.  You know, the ones they got on the days they were born and the ones that had some kind of meaning to me, like the Sandra Boynton inspired ones that I got for L because we used to love to read them together when he was a baby.  Here's what we started with:

All of this was shoved in my kids' stuffed animal box.  Scary!  Here are the steps we took to manage this mess in less than 30 minutes:

1. Put all non-stuffed toys where they belong.

2. Take all of L's stuffed animals out.

 3.  Allow L to choose his top 5. This was hard for him, he even cried because he knew who got him what and didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings.  Such a sensitive boy.  But, he did it!

Chicken Little did not make original cut, but since P said, "oh, I like Chicken Little," L decided to keep him after all.

4.  Put the remaining stuffed animals out for the girls to pick their top 5 and 2 baby dolls each.

5. I selected some learning toys/baby toys for Q and C, since they weren't going to be picked otherwise.

6. J picked her favorites.

7. The gross ones got trashed, including the white and pink lion because his hair was previously singed in the dryer.

8. C picked her favorites.

9. Our top picks found their less crowded home back in the box.

10. Our rejects were shoved in 2 garbage bags for donation.

I must admit.  This was easier than I thought it would be because I finally came to the realization that my kids are not babies anymore, and as a result, there is no need to save the gifts they received as newborns and with which they never played.  I even got rid of my teddy bear from 4th grade, my collection of pandas, and a Gund bear that I received in college as a gift from my big sis.  

Then, on to L's room for some much needed TLC. Here's what I had to start with, along with 2 bags of hand-me-downs, and the clean laundry I needed to put away:

This was such a pain in the derrière.  I thought that I had previously organized the clothes, but when I got into it, I realized that my organization turned into clutter when I started to add the clothes that were now too small for my big boy to the mix.  There were also Christmas lights in L's closet, toys and shoes.  Goodness.  This took me 3 hours between moving things, sorting and refereeing the kids.

Step 1. Sort into size piles.  All of the clothes from the closet and dressers got invited to this party.

Just a sample

Step 2.  Had L try on some socks and clothes who's sizes were a mystery to me.

Step 3.  Put all the clothes away.

The future clothes are out of reach in size piles and his spring/summer line is in easy reach.  Very happy.

Step 4. Bag the clothes we are handing down to friends.

Notice the additional stuffed animals which joined their friends in the garbage bags downstairs.

I could not believe the shear amount of clothing I was hoarding that didn't even fit L anymore, including the tuxedo he wore to my brother's wedding and for Christmas last year.  If I had known, I would've gotten rid of it sooner. Actually, now that I've typed that, I realize that I was hesitant to do anything until I knew if we were having a baby boy or girl.  So, goodbye to you, small clothes.  Now, I'll just need to go buy L some new undies since I noticed that most of the ones he was wearing were 1 to 2 sizes too small.  Oops!  Sorry, dude!

Then, I simply repeated the process in the girls' room.  This time, it was quicker, easier, and involved putting the small items in the attic.  All pictured out by that time ~ lucky dogs, you.

Sense of accomplishment!  WooHoo!  

All of that work made us hungry, and what better than to fight Mother Nature and have a spring time dessert: lemon bars.  Yummy, especially when you pair that with veggie burgers, sauteed spinach, and fresh veggies. It makes for a fantastic end to a less than beautiful Spring day.

Project Simplify: Paper Clutter

Last week's problem area to work on was paper clutter.  Just the idea nearly put me into premature labor, but that just means that I was really in need of focus in that area.  When I began this project, I put all my random stacks of paper into one large stack which measured almost 2 feet high.  Eeeek!  Of course, I was too embarrassed to take a photo of that.  I began by simply making stacks: garbage, to look at more closely, bills to be paid, books, recipes, and other.

It is unbelievable how many pieces of paper I had that really could just be junked.  This may make me sound like a bad mom, but there were so many papers the kids had drawn and colored on that found their home in the circular file.  Not to mention some advertisements, magazines, flyers, old newsletters, expired coupons and whatever else my husband or cleaning lady would add to the stack in the corner of my counter.  I even had this clutter of stuff on my counter that I thought I needed.  Turned out, it was mostly junk.

What did I save?  Pictures and my tax information.  That's about it.  There were 4 pieces of mail that required my response.  Blah!  How did I set those aside and forget about them?  3 of them were health insurance related and it made me realize something: our health insurance industry really needs an overhaul.  One form was from our new carrier, trying to figure out if we had any additional insurance or Medicare.  Ummm...we are paying our premium, so don't your worry about it.  Pay the darn bills!  Another form requested information as to the nature of a visit my husband had to the emergency department, just so they could see if they could sue or get money from another party.  I get it. Really, I do.  But, let's be honest.  If someone else were responsible, do they really thing that we would have paid our deductible ourselves?!  We would have reported the issue at the ED, not waited forever to let someone know.  The last one was just a "how'd we do" survey.  Really, P would never take time to fill that out, so I did for him.  I highly question the accuracy, but, oh well ;)

Here is what remains of my stack:

What's in it now?  A couple of coupons, a form I need to complete which requires research and phone calls, and my documents to complete our 2010 taxes.  Hopefully, this stack will disappear this week.  Fingers are crossed!

The next Project Simplify hotspot? Kids clothes and toys. Perfect!  I've started that and the weather looks like its going to change from winter next week, so this could work.  I'll just have to save 2 or 3 wintery outfits for each kid since, well, northeastern PA is cold until about June.  Yep, you better believe it.