Well, I did it!

I finally cleaned out our pantry.

I wish I could say that I feel a deep sense of satisfaction in crossing this task off my of to-do list, but honestly? I think I could’ve done it better. But I most certainly don’t want to do it over. At least not right now. Maybe in another 2 years.

Wait… I take some of that back. It was satisfying to clean everything off the shelves, toss old expired food (even though I feel guilty doing this), and do a bit of re-arranging.

I made sure to shelve like with like. For instance, all grains are now together in one bin. I guess this would be the adult version of playing a matching game? And is it weird that I find this to be satisfying? Guess that’s my OCD-ness coming into play.

My OCD side is also a bit unsettled that I used a bunch of different bins to re-organize. Oh, how I wish they all matched! But alas, Target no longer sells these colors, or even some of these bins. So, I made my first-ever trip to my local Container Store. Which was equal parts amazing and overwhelming.

But, back to the pantry. Which, clearly, is impossible to photograph.

Cereals, boxed crackers and bags of chips stay on the top shelf. All of our cooking oils are now cozied up in a bin together. As well as powdered drink mixes. No, we don’t consumer a lot of Gatorade, but I do have several pouches of Pat O’Brien’s hurricane mix. Anyone wanna come over for a Mardi Gras party?

Our canned goods are now sorted into bins. I love this; Tom hates this. But I was tired of moving everything around and knocking over a bunch of cans just to find the diced tomatoes.

Our supply of paper plates and napkins, and plastic cups and utensils were in desperate need of some cleaning up. This is probably the part of our pantry that I find most satisfying.

Since some of the bins aren’t clear or their contents can’t be seen super easily (well, at least not by me since I’m barely 5’… Tom has no problem), I may add labels to the fronts. We’ll see…