My First Week of Organizing

The test starts now.  The girls are home in Beaufort, SC waiting for DSIL’s return from Afghanistan.  I decided to start with kitchen organization since I was all ready to go get more Lipton Decaf Iced Tea at Walgreens since it is 2/$5.00.  I drink at least a pint a day so it seems like I go through a package quickly.  I went out to the garage where our “pantry” is and found this:

Each box has 2 more boxes behind the, for a total of 6 boxes of Lipton Decaf tea!  I started with this cupboard:

This actually includes the space above the cabinet, since it is an eyesore!  DH asked me the other day what I was going to do with all the cereal.  Eat it I said!!  He does not eat cereal and since the girls are gone, it’s just me… unless I give Landon some!  I am sure he is going to miss standing under Ally’s chair waiting for any and all tidbits to fly off the highchair tray!  I sure hope I got a picture of that before they left.

Borrowing from Peter Walsh (http://www.oprah.com/own-enough-already-peter-walsh/enough-already-peter-walsh.html) I emptied the cabinet.  What is that random empty Coke bottle doing in there? 

Well if I was really with it, I would paint and repaper, but I’m not.  A good wipedown with a rag and Clorox Green Works is going to have to do the job.  Here is what was in the cabinet:

We don’t eat grits, but have 2 boxes leftover from our granddaughter’s first birthday party we threw for about 50 people. 

 Since she was born in the south, DH had a great time smoking brisket and making grits along with some other wonderful food.  Two weeks later he did it again with a slightly different menu for my mother’s 80th birthday party… what a guy!  I gotta remember to make some of that Jack Daniel’s lemonade again some time!  Ooops getting sidetracked, back to the job!

I threw away 2 open boxes of Special K red berries cereal that probably had one bowl out of each, the rest of a box of Chex Rice Cereal, gorganzola crackers (who bought those, yuck!) and some Vivant vegetable crackers (another yuck!).  Did I mention DH has done virtually all the grocery shopping and cooking before I quit my job??   I also threw away some very dubious looking dried tomatoes (what were we thinking? and where did those tomatoes come from since we certainly didn’t grow them here in Northern Coastal California).  I also gave away the rest of a box of Kix to our neighbors, combined two open boxes of instant garlic potatoes and moved a few other things, taking the rest of the MuliGrain Cherrios out of the box since I may eat the rest as a snack today (must count points first since this is my second day of Weight Watchers). 

Then I decided to get really smart and write the date so it is more readable when looking in the cabinet with a sharpie on the sides of the products:

The potatoes and brownie mix are getting moved to other cabinets…. brownie mixes, I have a bunch… did I mention I just started Weight Watchers??

Finally thanks to perseverence and the 70s channel 804 on Direct TV that kept me going:

Nothing like music from my teenage years to make me feel young and energetic!  The Quaker oatmeal box is empty, but I buy in bulk and put the bulk oats in the box.  The steel cut box is filled with bulk too!  I wonder how many WW points a tablespoon of Nutella has?  It is delicious on sliced apples and fruit is free now!

Whew I did it.  Hopefull I will get lots more done before next Friday now that I am home alone and not working anymore.  I think I will go check out the other posts at http://orgjunkie.com/ and get inspired!