Organizing: Day 1 ~ My Pantry

I started my first cleaning challenge with my pantry. In fact, my whole idea for this challenge started from my pantry. Once I got going it started a sequence of events and by the end, though I didn't do anything I needed to that day, I had a list of challenges for 2012.

Around the holidays I use all those pretty serving dishes and baking dishes that I never use any other time. This year I had to run around several place to even find what I needed. All of this got started because of deviled eggs I never ended up making.

I have this deviled egg plate. I only use it a couple times a year, so of course last year I thought I would store it somewhere other than my pantry. That way it wouldn't be taking up space with things I use much more regularly. Here's the flaw in that: I didn't remember I did that.

I look in my pantry...no egg plate. Then I look in other cupboards in my kitchen...no egg plate. I look on top of my fridge...no egg plate. I look in my hutch...and you guessed it...no egg plate. OH NO...did I donate that on my one of my "purging the clutter" benders? Where could I have put an egg plate? Then it hits me it is in the garage on my pantry shelves.

So I dig it out, wash it off and have it sitting with my stack of pretty plates then continue to make three thousand appetizers for our Annual Christmas Eve Open House. Then, hours later I run out of steam and scrap the deviled eggs, but of course only after I've already boiled the eggs. Whatever, my family likes boiled eggs.

Then after our party I start to clean up a little. We commence with our family tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve (which is always PJs). We get kids off to bed and then go, go, go for several days on end. Next thing I know it's just after the New Year and I have a stack of my pretty plates to put away. I open one cupboard in my pantry and stare. How on earth did this happen? My pantry looks like a Jenga tower that fell over. I'm actually going to have to take everything out of this cupboard to put anything away. Then I notice the shelves need to be wiped out.

Emptying the pantry...trash can on hand.

All the things that will need to go back into the cupboard.

So I just do it. I take everything out. I wipe everything down and I start to reorganize, purge items I've never used and probably never will and put everything else back nicely. Then I look at my counter full of new products that arrived after Christmas from a Tastefully Simple party I hosted. I open that side of the pantry and what do I discover...another toppled Jenga tower. OK, I'm all in. The kitchen needs to be attacked.

Back in...stacked, organized and wiped off!

Look at all that Tastefully Simple stuff nicely put away!

I take care of a couple cupboards and start to do the dishes. Then what happens? I open the dishwasher and there are all the new plastic food storage pieces I got for Christmas. I open the drawers to put them away and decide I'm probably going to need to get rid of all the mismatched pieces if any of the new stuff is going to fit and so I pull everything out. I match all the pieces and actually mark them with letters with a Sharpie marker: "A" lid with "A" bottom & "B" lid with "B" bottom and so on.

The lid & bottom sorting begins

All matched up!

So there you have it...I was going to make deviled eggs and instead a week later I cleaned my pantry and organized my plastic food storage pieces. That's how things get done around here...and actually nothing much else got done that I had planned for the day. So now I still have a "To Do" list but I put away my egg plate and hopefully I'll remember where it is next year.