Refrigerator Clean Out

Well, the last few days, I've been daydreaming (while I'm at work) about what it would be like to have a clean, organized refrigerator.  That is one of those things that just gets neglected so easily when one is busy working full-time.  But, finally, this weekend, I have conquered the disaster that was the inside of my refrigerator.  Unfortunately, I don't have "Before" pictures, because I just suddenly decided to dive in and try to conquer the mess.  Besides, had I taken  the time to take "Before" photos, I would have been too embarrassed to show you how packed, disorganized and dirty my refrigerator had become.  After taking EVERYTHING out, I reassessed what I really needed and discarded the junk.   Then I scrubbed every single inch of space in the fridge.  Next, I tried to group like things together.  I had several different type of bread products, so I made a box to corral them all together and place them on the top shelf.  I always keep my bread in the fridge, because we don't eat it up fast enough before it starts to grow green stuff on it.

 

Although I don't use it often, I do sometimes still make Thai curry.  So, I corralled them inside  a bread pan.

 

So, they went in the back corner on the top shelf, next to the bread.  In front of that, I placed the various jars of pickles that had previously been all shoved to the back in various locations inside the fridge.  They usually were forgotten.  Now, we'll know where to find them, as I even labeled my fridge shelves.

 

On the next shelf down, I labeled it for "Leftovers".  Hopefully, now we'll know exactly where the leftovers are, so they won't get shoved to the back and forgotten, too.  I kept a box of open Baking Soda on the top shelf to help absorb odors.   Below it I just labeled the drawer that I always put things like lunch meat and cheese inside.

Below that I designated a shelf for shorter items, like eggs and apple sauces. However, my larger tub of plain yogurt had to be laid over on it's side.  We don't have a very large fridge.  So, sometimes things just don't fit on every shelf. 

 

Below that I place things like drinks and some taller condiment jars that wouldn't fit in the door shelves.  When cleaning out those door shelves I found several little bottles of liquid yogurt drink shoved in wherever they would fit.  I decided to take them out of their plastic wrap and place them all together in a plastic container (left over from a used lunch meat container) and label it.  I placed this in front of the container I had placed all of the apple sauces, which I also bunched together in a plastic tub.

 

On the bottom I switched my fruits and vegetables to opposite drawers, because when I took them out to clean them, I really discovered just how much larger the top drawer was.  It didn't make sense that I had been using it for my fruits, when my fruits took up less space than the vegetables I had bought.

 

And here's what my door shelves look like...

 

 

I have not conquered the freezer, yet, because I've also been busy starting on my latest painting project.  That will be a future blog entry.  Hope your weekend is great and you might find pleasure in the simple things in life!