A while back, I posted about bankruptcy, entitling it “Dave Ramsey Doesn’t Want You to Read This.”  The guru of self-sufficiency is pretty black and white about what you can and can’t do to get out of debt and pretty much states that bankruptcy filing is a cop-out.

Well, folks, that man is full of shit sometimes.  (Pardon me for not mentioning it earlier, but I might cuss just a little here).

Here’s what I will tell you about financial hardship:

1.  Don’t count on your tax return for money.  If you are expecting money back, don’t think about it until you have the actual check.  We were expecting a sizable refund from 2010′s filing and then were audited, and then they disallowed a big tax credit, and then penalized us TWENTY PERCENT, so that our refund dwindled away to nothing and is now a tax bill of over $1,800.

Even if we had been given the refund, the fallacy in this is that people plan their finances around the tax return all the time.  And then a lot of people spend it on recreational or luxury items (I consider something like a TV or a video game or a vacation a luxury item).  Personally, we were going to spend ours on bills, on filing our bankruptcy, on groceries, badly needed clothes, and car repairs.  Now we are starting from ground zero and figuring out a way to get through this mess without the tax money.  It is, as they say, what it is.

2.  Do NOT keep your burdens to yourself.  I’m not saying to write it all out on a blog, but if there’s someone with the power to help you or even to encourage you, talk to them.  I called our mortgage company today and talked to a very nice woman who is helping us to apply for a mortgage modification or loan assistance to lower our monthly payments.   We are filling out a hardship document for the hospital bills still owed for PC’s surgery of over 14 months ago, to see if they will forgive part or all of the bill.  The bankruptcy attorney said he will work with us to pay for his fees in installments, and will talk to the creditors to get them off our backs before our official filing.

DO NOT BE PROUD.  Pride does not buy groceries.  Explore the options available to you and if you think you have no options, talk to someone for a second opinion.   You will be surprised.

3.  Make a plan to change what you can.   I have applied for a second job, and am doing some contract work for a friend to help make ends meet.  We are living as frugally as we possibly can and are second-guessing every penny we spend to make sure it is for something we really need.  Again, don’t be proud.  Some friends were talking about getting together for dinner at “someplace inexpensive, like Applebees…”  Instead of going along and spending money we couldn’t afford, I straight up said “That’s not something I’ve budgeted for, so I’ll have to pass.”   Every penny counts.

4.  Turn to a higher power.  This actually should have been my first point.  But there it is.  Whether you believe in God or not, whether you pray or not, it should go without saying that if you have done all you humanly can, and you are still in a leaky boat, then turn to something or someone greater than yourself for peace, for inspiration, for healing and for hope.  Your higher power may be nature.  It may be the sun.  It may be Buddha, or Mohammed, or Jesus Christ.  Whatever you turn to in thanks for the good things, you should turn to for mercy in the bad times.

I have found in my life that things go VERY VERY badly when I think I can do everything myself.  I am brought to my knees and humbled when I realize the wreckage I look at is a result of my own negligence, or pride or overestimation of abilities.  Personally, I cannot live my life properly without  God’s help: I know this because I have tried and failed numerous times.

When you release your pain and your fear and your sufferings (whether your suffering is relatively lighter than another person’s is not a consideration here), but when you release those things to a power greater than yourself and say “I can’t deal with this so I am turning it over to you with trust that you will show me the way and not let me fall,” – when you do that, the peace and release of stress you experience is enough to get you through the next five minutes, five hours, day or week.

YOU CANNOT FUNCTION PROPERLY WHEN YOU ARE PARALYZED BY FEAR OR CRIPPLED BY ANXIETY.

The Bible says “He did not give us the spirit of fear, but of power and understanding.”

5.  Finally. No matter how dark it seems, no matter how out of control things feel, no matter how hopeless the situation looks, DO NOT GIVE UP.  How you got to this point is important to understand, but don’t dwell on it if it won’t let you move forward.  Look around and focus on something positive.

Never, ever, ever think to yourself that the situation you are in today is so dire that you can’t get through it.  History is littered with stories of people who overcame unimaginable hardships.  What if they had given up?

I had a fleeting thought several weeks ago about life insurance.  About how my life insurance would take care of all of our debts and obligations, and how that money would fix everything.  But it’s just money.  I’m not paralyzed, I’m not disabled: I can earn money.  Would life for my family be easier if they had money instead of me?  Maybe.  But would it be better?  Absolutely not.  For as much as I fail, for as hard as I make things for them, for as difficult as I have been – I am still a blessing to someone, and they need me.

If you find yourself thinking life would be easier or better for someone without you (and believe me, I’m not the only one who has had that thought), I know it’s not a suicidal thought: sometimes it’s nothing more than a tallying of the inventory of your worth.  It’s a condemnation of your value. It’s a seemingly frank and objective assessment of what you have to offer.

And it’s wrong.

Like me, you may feel you have failed your family or yourself a thousand different ways.  Like me, you may be taking an accounting of your life and feel at times that you suck.  But I can promise you with 100% certainty that regardless of what you have done or imagined you have done, regardless of your feelings of futility, regardless of all the outside factors of debt or financial hardships or missteps: you are a blessing and value to someone.

Your checkbook may be worth nothing, but you are not your bank balance.  You are precious and priceless and a value beyond diamonds, to one or two or a dozen or a thousand people.

I know you are out there.  I know someone reading this got up this morning and thought “Everything is falling apart and I can’t do this and we will never get out from under this avalanche.”  I know that feeling.  I have that feeling.

But I’ve been through the avalanche.  I’m still digging out of the snow, in fact.  But if I see your hat sticking out of the snow, I’m going to dig for you and help you get out. People have done it for me.  I know how it feels and I’m here to promise you this:

EVERYTHING WILL GET BETTER.  Maybe not immediately, but work at it and you will get out of it.  I PROMISE YOU.

Of course, I have clients wanting to look at houses tomorrow.  Since PC has to work (he has not had a Saturday off since before Christmas), Rabbit is spending the morning with my brother at his apartment.  Robert called me just a few minutes ago at 10:00 p.m. – he had just gotten home from the grocery store after his night custodial shift downtown.  He got cookies and pudding snack cups and Sunny Delight for Rabbit – I guess he’s afraid she’ll starve to death in one morning!

“I don’t have cable or anything,” he warned me.  ”It’s pretty boring over here.”  I assured him that Rabbit makes her own fun.  She’s taking markers and paper and books and a few toys with her.

He just called me back and said “I have frozen pizza, too.”  I think he’s as excited as she is to have a morning hanging out.  His daughter is grown and on her own, 21 years old, and he hasn’t seen her in over a year.  This will be fun for him and Rabbit.

She really dislikes going with me on house showings: she has to be on her best behavior, she spends a lot of time in the car going from one place to the next, she hates going into basements, she gets car sick on the drives, and feels like she wastes a lot of valuable play time.   “Mommy,” she said earlier this week after going through a particularly bad house, “Why was that house so old?”

Tonight at dinner, we ate ham, au gratin potatoes and broccoli.  Rabbit was complaining about the ham (we think she’s a budding vegetarian) but I had brought home a Le Quartier (local bakery) cupcake I had gotten from a friend this afternoon and Rabbit had been told we would split it if she ate her dinner.  She choked down the rest of her ham and later sighed in pleasure as she sank her fork into dark moist chocolate with fluffy marshmallow-ey frosting.  ”Oh mommy,” she crooned.  ”This tastes even better than it looks!  This was worth it.”

Rabbit is working on telling time.  They’re trying to teach the kids in school, and it’s a struggle.  She doesn’t get it at all and has been tearful and frustrated.  I don’t want to ruin her treat-filled Saturday with Uncle Robert, but tomorrow we also have to work on her time-telling homework.  Anyone have a tried and true method for helping to teach this? I still remember my struggles to learn it at Rabbit’s age.

Meanwhile, I’m going to get ready for bed – tomorrow is going to be a full day.

I had some good results from recent open houses and picked up a couple of new buyer clients, and have been showing houses almost every day for a week.  One client is close to buying a house and another couple is closing in on the right place.  A third couple is waiting for some final credit documentation before making an offer, which might end up being another month.  But I feel good that I have this level of activity after how slow things were in the second half of last year.

Meanwhile, we are still waiting for our IRS situation to get straightened out.  My advice to you is that if you are self-employed, use an accountant and not home tax software.  There’s a reason I don’t do tax preparation for a living, so I don’t know why I would continue trying to do this when there are professionals who can give us far better guidance.

I baked two loaves of bread today and they BOTH stuck to the inside of the loaf pans.  The vegetable oil spray I bought was cheaper because it was the store brand instead of Pam.  More advice: don’t try to save money by paying 75cents less for a can of vegetable oil spray if the result is a useless product that twice makes you have to throw away loaves of bread.  It costs money in the long run.

Rabbit has been struggling with a stomach bug, leg pains and headaches for over a week now.  She had a terrible time Sunday night, so sick to her stomach that she threw up.  She’s better now, but the leg pains had us worried for a while.  I think they were explained when we discovered this morning that clothes that were too big for her two weeks ago were the right size, and a shirt she wore only a week ago was too small.  I’ll have to check her height, but I think she had a massive growth spurt and it made her ache and hurt all over.

The weather here has been in the 50s and 60s for several days but they’re predicting snow (and lots of it) for the weekend.  I’m going to have to take clothes to the laundromat tomorrow and hopefully the weather holds out enough that I can put clothes on the line again.

Our company’s annual awards banquet was tonight – PC and I went, and while we were there, my cousin Mary came over and took Rabbit out for dinner and then they hung out at the house and watched American Idol and a movie.  I’m confident that Rabbit had a much better time than we did!

I am currently reading “The Cat’s Table” by Michael Ondaatje (author of “The English Patient”) and so far, it’s very good.  I think I have only read four or five books so far this year because of all the knitting!

Speaking of which, I have knitted probably ten cotton dish cloths, as well as an infinity scarf for Rabbit.  I’m currently working on a moss-green ribbed wool scarf for PC.  After I finish that, I’m going to go back online to the instructional videos to learn some new stitches and techniques, since I would like to learn cable-knit.  Regardless, it is a wonderfully relaxing hobby that I can enjoy while watching TV or while waiting in front of a house for buyers, or at an open house between clients.  I knit while at the laundromat, also, which led to a conversation with an elderly lady who was also a knitter.   When I finish the scarf, I’ll post pictures.

Tomorrow’s plan:  laundromat, then groceries, then house showings and then knitting and work on preparations for the youth retreat at the end of the month.  Friday’s plan:  baking bread and then working some part-time hours helping a friend in his business in the afternoon, taking pictures of inventory and helping write copy and reorganize inventory on their website.  Saturday, I’m doing second showings on houses from today for a set of buyers.

What do you have planned for the rest of the week?

We were upstairs eating dinner when I thought I heard the dryer buzzer going off in the basement.  But it was a longer buzz than normal – about 15 seconds.  I went downstairs and the dryer was still going, but the washer was silent.  I pushed the knob in and then pulled it back out.  Nothing.  I opened the washer.  It was full of water and clothes.

I checked the breaker box, but nothing had been tripped.  So I turned the washer off and put in a call to our home warranty company for a repair.  Later, I turned the washer on, just to check.  It ran through the full cycle and I put the clothes in the dryer.  Pushing my luck, I started another load of laundry.

After filling up and beginning to agitate, the horrible buzzing went off again, and this time I smelled hot electric ozone nastiness.  I turned off the machine and unplugged it, and took all the clothes out and piled the sodden mess in a basket, tilting it on its side to drain into the floor drain.

I felt lost – the dirty clothes piled up all over the laundry room and I was powerless to do anything about it.

Thursday, the repairman showed up and collected his $60 service fee.  It turned out that our 14 year old Amana washer (which has NEVER had a breakdown or service issue) had a frayed belt, shot bearings, and the seals on the tub were leaking, causing moisture to short out the motor, which was completely fried.  The repairman managed to run the motor long enough to spin the water out of the  machine, and then tallied up what it was going to cost (not us, the warranty company) to repair the machine.  All told, it would be just under $300.  The parts had to be ordered, so we’re looking at February 6 before the repair will be done.

And it will be a doozy – there will be two guys here, who will have to turn the machine upside down and essentially rebuild it inside.  The warranty company offered to just credit us with the $300 so we could replace the machine, but there’s no way I can get as good a washer for $300 as we have now, even if it is 14 years old.  It’s built to commercial specifications, with a huge stainless steel tub and is an absolute workhorse.  With the repairs, they say we’ll get at least 5 more years out of it.

So today, I gathered up all of our dirty clothes and towels and cloth napkins and dishtowels and wash cloths.  I stuffed clothes into pillow cases (three of them, full) and baskets (three of THEM full).  And I took out to the car the basket of  still-wet (and now nastily mildewy smelling) half-washed clothes that had been in the washer when it broke down.

Rabbit packed up markers and paper and I brought my knitting project, and we set out for a nearby LaundryLand, where I planned to use the commercial triple-load machines to get our laundry done all in one fell swoop.

First of all, I haven’t been in a laundromat in years – in fact, it’s been seventeen years since we have had to put coins in any laundry machine.  So I was appalled that it was $3.50 to $4.00 to do one load in the triple-capacity machines.  I asked the attendant how many minutes a quarter would buy in the big dryers, and she told me five minutes.  So I decided we would wash the clothes there and dry them at home.

I used four triple-load machines and one double-load machine.  I spent almost $20 just washing clothes, but they were all done in less than half an hour.  I used my homemade powdered detergent, which made absolutely no suds at all, and even the stanky clothes that had been moldering in the basket for three days came out smelling fresh and clean.

At home, I hung at least three baskets of clothes on the line, since it was about 40 degrees, windy and sunny outside.  In the basement, I put a load of clothes into the dryer and then hung jeans on the drying rack, delicates on the little round clip-hanger I use, and then hung dish towels and shirts on hangers around the downstairs shower bar (which goes to the basement shower area next to the washer, which has not been used for showering since probably the 1970s).  I did this to pre-dry the clothes, because the laundromat machines strategically don’t spin the clothes quite as well as home machines, in what I believe is an attempt to make you spend more on the dryers.

HOLY HELL, it was a long afternoon.  I’m used to doing one or two loads of laundry a day, just keeping up with what’s down the laundry chute.  This was a marathon of changing out loads in the dryer, folding, putting on hangers, running clothes upstairs, and putting away towels and linens.

I went outside and gathered the clothes from the line at dusk, and they were still slightly damp, and freezing cold.  They didn’t take as long in the dryer, fortunately.  Right now, the very last load is tumbling away.

There were families at LaundryLand doing their week’s wash, and I can’t fathom how much they must spend in a year on washers and dryers, as well as the giant jugs of name-brand detergent they were using.  One elderly Vietnamese man was washing blankets in the triple-load machine and I think he used eight ounces of liquid Tide.  No wonder a third of their machines are out of order.

If we did all of our wash at the laundromat every week the way other families have to, we’re talking about at least six loads of wash a week – even if we used the triple capacity machines, that’s $12 a week (separating the whites, the colors and the reds, which is our usual method).  Drying the clothes would be about $2.00 per 40 minute dry time, multiplied by four machines to distribute the clothes efficiently, and that’s $8.00 to dry the clothes.  So a minimum of $20.00 a week to wash and dry a standard amount of clothes.  Many times, we have even more laundry than that, since we use cloth napkins, wash our sheets and bath mats and so on.  But even conservatively estimating $20 a week means that in a year, we could spend over $1,000 at the laundromat!

Seriously, the cost of doing laundry every year on its own should convince people to buy a washer and dryer with their income tax returns instead of buying a big screen TV.  I know some of these folks live in apartments without laundry hookups, but some live in houses.

It’s no wonder the poor stay poor.  (I say this because I know – we’ve been there and occasionally go back there when times are lean).  Thank God our machine will be fixed in just over a week and we can go back to doing laundry on our own time.

I read an article a while back about how expensive it is to be poor:  how you might only be able to afford a crappy cheap item when you buy something big, and then it breaks down so you have to  replace it.   I see the laundry situation fitting right into that.  Someone lives in an apartment and they do their laundry in coin-0p machines….how many budget experts think to factor in the cost of keeping clothing clean?  I’m willing to bet not many.

One of our ongoing expenditures is our home warranty.  It is $40 a month, but covers appliance breakdowns and our furnace and central air, some plumbing and electrical malfunctions.  It has paid for itself almost every year, just in repairs to our fridge, our dryer twice, our dishwasher, etc.   Since our income fluctuates so wildly, we consider the warranty to be a form of insurance against the inevitable:  something breaks down when we can least afford to have it fixed.  In another year or two, we’ll be able to get rid of the warranty after we’ve replaced our furnace and our water heater and our kitchen range.  Until then, we are holding onto it.  It sure helped us out this past week.  Meanwhile, our plan is to start socking away the equivalent of the warranty payments into savings to build up an emergency fund for these kinds of repairs.

Of course, we had an emergency fund in 2011: we just had to use it for living expenses.  Let’s hope 2012 shapes up to be better than 2011.

Now, go hug your washing machine.  And if you don’t have one?  You really should think about changing that.

I will be back soon.  Thanks for hanging in there with me while I stress and fret.

There’s something about that grey slush that just sends me over the edge.  The inability to control my environment, the irritation of stepping into a cold puddle in my stocking-feet? Either way, I hate it.

I’m sick of eating casseroles, soups and leftovers.  I’m sick of ground beef.  I’m sick of waking up in the morning in a dark house, with bare trees outside the windows.  I’m sick of the white residue of salt water crusting the car from the water thrown by other drivers’ tires on melting city streets.

Staticky hair from wearing a hat.  Chapped fingertips, chapped lips, dry skin.  Cracked heels catching on socks, cold drafts next to the door, my  engagement ring turning to the side inside my winter gloves, my eyes watering in the cold, my glasses fogging when I come inside.

My daughter is having growing pains and in the evenings after school, every day this week, she has whimpered while rubbing her thigh, unable to concentrate on homework.  The nurse line at the doctor’s office has cut me off mid-recording each time I’ve tried to leave a message.  It took three tries to ask them to call and let me know if we need to bring her in for an exam.

A thousand things are on the list of what I could complain about, but really what it boils down to is restlessness, the feeling I get every year between the new year and the start of spring.  I’m unable to focus, I can’t take on new DIY projects or crafts, and I just want to curl up in a ball and sleep.

So instead, I’m going to take a hot shower.  I’m going to start a loaf of bread and get ready for a client meeting this afternoon.  I’ll make supper for my family and after PC gets home and we eat, Rabbit and I will sit down and watch “American Idol.”

Spring will be here before long, but it can’t come soon enough for me.

Instead of learning more, I’ve spent the past week knitting dish cloths.  The same pattern, with crooked edges, which I found a fix for today online.  This is a sample of the second or third one I did (before addressing the uneven edges):

So far I’ve completed SIX of these puppies, using cotton yarn. The sixth one I finished this evening, and it turned out so much better, but I didn’t take a picture because I had already put the dishcloth in the closet with the others.

The nice thing about knitting is that I can be in the same room with the TV going and my husband and/or daughter watching TV, and I can be with them without being glued to the tube.

The bad thing is it is seriously cutting into my reading time, and my fingertips are a little sore.

I received the knitting needles and four skeins of cotton yarn from a dear friend, along with a pattern for the dish cloths.  I had to learn to knit first, which I did by watching videos on YouTube.

I was so frustrated trying to learn, but now that I can do some basics, it is such a zen sort of activity.  I feel good knowing that I can make some things to stockpile for gifts throughout the year so there isn’t such a mad scramble next Christmas.

Sitting on the sofa in the very early morning with my coffee on a table nearby, knitting in silence while the cats sleep on the floor beside me…it’s wonderful.  Knitting in my easy chair while my daughter watches cartoons and pauses the TV to tell me stories and jokes is also a wonderful thing.  Hearing her say to me “Mommy, you’re doing a good job!” is priceless.

That’s right.  It’s time to clean my home office again.

This room has become the house’s junk drawer. The clearinghouse of miscellaneous crap we need or think we need or just have no other place for.

This year, my goal for the room is to take out the glass topped computer desk and move it downstairs for my husband’s computer. I want to find two nice sturdy wooden sawhorses and paint them white and use them for the base of the desk I am going to make out of the old door from my parents’ house.  I thought about using file cabinets for the base, but the very idea of that was so disheartening I couldn’t think straight.

I need to empty out the closet, which is packed to the gills with boxes of old files and documents and school papers and youth retreat souvenirs and old clothes and books and an old dresser (for real) and God only knows what else.

I would love to take the closet doors off and make the closet into a work nook for my sewing machine or my drawing table and supplies.

The office organization system I put together from itso brand storage stuff I got at Target a couple of years ago has been turned on its head after I took half of the system out of the office and put it in the kitchen to organize our things by the back door.  So I would like to get that back into the office by getting something else in the kitchen.

I will have pictures of some of this stuff eventually but honestly, the office is such a train wreck right now that I don’t have the stomach for it.  For now, here is a quick diagram of the room:

(Sorry, I just drew it and snapped a picture with my phone).

The window situation is that we have those 1950s ranch high privacy windows; they are about five feet from the floor, so I can put things below them and get lots of light in the room.  As you walk in the door, to the right is the only full wall in the room.  That’s where I have the big postal sorting cabinet I got on Craigslist last fall.

My desk is currently in the middle of the west wall, below the window, but that means I have my back to the door while I’m working, and I’m not a fan of that.  The drawing table is in the corner by the closet.  There is stuff EVERYWHERE.

If I make the desk out of a door, it’s going to be huge.  I’ll put tempered glass on top of it and it will be standard height, but that sucker is going to be enormous.  I’m thinking that if I put it on the big wall by the door, I could put some filing stuff to the left of it, in the northwest corner of the office.  Then I could move the postal cabinet to the west wall.

Any feng shui suggestions? Any regular suggestions? I’m not looking to spend a bunch of money and I don’t think I’m going to paint the room, even though it is aqua with a deep purple ceiling.

I am once again having difficulty with the piles of papers, receipts, letters, mail, bills, postcards….just piling up.  I have to start being merciless with this stuff.  So enough about that.

Yesterday, PC’s parents stopped in and spent a few hours with us on their way through town. They’d been in a nearby town picking up some furniture for PC’s mom, who is moving into her own place in a town not far from here.

PC’s folks have been divorced for more than 20 years and are currently both staying with PC’s brother and his wife.  My mother in law, Judy, just retired and moved from her community across the state to be closer to us all.  She’s only going to be an hour and a half away and we’re pretty excited.  It’s nice that PC’s parents get along so well and for Rabbit to have an afternoon with both Grandpa Bob and Grandma Judy was such a treat.

While talking to PC’s mom, we were talking about friends and family members who are going through some terrible struggles:  cancer, deaths in their family, sickness, marital troubles…

I started thinking that other than our current financial straits (which are only temporary), our life is pretty great.  I have a husband I love, and who loves me.  We laugh together and get along (most of the time) very well.  Our daughter is a delight.  We have a modest but comfortable home.  Our families are a great support and we have amazing friends.  We live in a city we love, PC is working full time, we have health insurance and my hall closet is organized.

Plus, I made two loaves of gorgeous potato bread this evening.  I’ve knitted three dish cloths after only learning to knit in the last week.  We have groceries, the laundry is all done and we have a down comforter, two great cats and lots of books to read.

To complain about any of this would be blasphemy, at least tonight.

Now let’s establish something here.  If you have ever been to my house you will know I’m not a clean freak.  The sorry state of my windows, the leaves gathered in the car port, the piles of paper everywhere in my office, and the fine layer of dust on most of the furniture (until recently) show that I’m human, and slightly grubby.

But recently, I decided to keep my kitchen clean and organized, and to keep the dishes washed.  I also did a little relocating of kitchen items to make things simpler.

The first thing I did was clean out my refrigerator.  How frugal is it to have such a messy and disorganized fridge that you keep buying Ranch dressing because you can’t find the last bottle you bought?  And now you have four bottles of it.   Or jam.  Or Miracle Whip.

How frugal is it to buy a bunch of one thing because it is on sale and then it goes bad before you can use it because you bought too much (cheese, fresh produce, bread).

If you keep things simple in the kitchen (fridge and pantry) you will be more likely to know before you go to the store what you need, what you already have, and what you can make for dinner.

So anyway, back to the kitchen reorganization and the fridge.  I cleaned that sucker out and threw away SO MUCH FOOD.  I read somewhere that American’s throw out, on average, 40% of the food they buy.  I was sick just reading that.  But I see how it can happen.

In the fridge (and I do not have before photos because it was so gross) I found, way in the back, in a Tupperware container, leftover rice with pink mold growing on it.  I found a container of sad, sad cottage cheese that looked like a science experiment.  I found leftover soup, leftover meat, leftover mashed potatoes.

Sick and wrong.  While throwing these things away, I realized what they had in common:  they were all in Tupperware containers.  I couldn’t see inside the containers and out of sight = out of mind.

So my wish list for now is a set of clear glass pyrex containers with airtight plastic lids that I can use to store leftovers and other foods in the fridge where I can see at a glance what is inside them, reducing waste.   I love Tupperware in a sentimental way, but using them for leftovers is causing a lot of food waste.

When I finished cleaning out and organizing the fridge, it looked like this (and don’t worry – I’m going for groceries tomorrow):

At the top, we have our Fage yogurt (Greek yogurt that I LOVE), applesauce, tub margarine (it’s stick margarine that I whip with the mixer and add a little olive oil to for spreading), Rabbit’s cottage cheese (she loves it) and margarine for baking.

Below that on the left is the “snack” drawer, which is actually full of cheese.  We love cheese and it’s a great meal stretcher, snack, and generally fabulous in all ways.  That top shelf used to be lower and we lost a whole set of storage which is now open below the cheese drawer.  Instead of putting the milk on the top shelf when it was lower, we now have it in the middle, along with the omnipresent pitcher of tap water staying cold, and a carton of orange juice, and a couple of cans of PC’s soda.

The bottom shelf is reserved for eggs, some leftovers (in containers with plastic wrap on top or clear plastic lids!) and my new helpful thing:  a plastic bin where I can put defrosting meat so if something drips, it stays in the container and not all over the shelf (which is what happened last week).

The veg drawer is clean and lined at the bottom with a paper towel  and always has carrots and celery in it.  Contrary to popular belief, regardless of what some people on Pinterest do, you are not supposed to store onions or potatoes in the refrigerator.  Or bread.  Did you know that?  Bread goes stale faster in the refrigerator.  Look it up.  It’s true.

By the way, you are also not supposed to store your milk or eggs in the door of the fridge, because they don’t stay as cold there.  You’re welcome.

Moving on:  Here is the fridge door.  (You can skip this if it’s boring, which it very well might be):

We are the king and queen of condiments: this is our pared down collection.  At the bottom are all those bottles of salad dressing and two jars of Miracle Whip.  Also, my jar of yeast for bread.

Above that, more crap.  Capers, mustard, olives, jam, pickles, salsa, horseradish, more mustard, tahini, relish.  And a bottle of white wine used exclusively for cooking and I know it’s supposed to be on its side but I don’t drink it so lay off me.

The butter section has butter in it.  Also?  Papers from butter and margarine wrappings that I save to use for greasing my bread pans. I told you I was a tightwad.

Next to that is ketchup, vinegar, worcestershire sauce, steak sauce, etc.

The excitement must be killing you.  So let’s move on to the pantry.

I was pretty excited to clean and reorganize the pantry, because there wasn’t going to be any food waste.  I keep that stuff pretty regimented.  What I was struggling with was fitting everything in the way I wanted it to, especially spices.

I got the spice section figured out by moving some non-spice items to a different part of the cupboard and moving the coffee stuff out of there completely.

I know, every day I think how lucky I am to have this built into the door of this cabinet.  Below is the inside of the cabinet on that side:

What I did differently is put the oils and vinegars inside a bin, and the same with the other basket, which holds syrups and honey.  I kept finding drips and spills in the cupboard and it was driving me batty.  I like this method better.  Random stuff in the middle (including a Tupperware container of homemade cookies) and spices above that.  On the top shelf, I have a basket where I collected all our tea bags and packets of cocoa mix, as well as some jars of bulk spices like bay leaves and black pepper, and a couple of cute Tupperware shakers for flour dusting, cinnamon and sugar mixture, and the nutritional yeast I sprinkle on popcorn.  Don’t ask.

The side to the right of that is most changed:  I put the onions and garlic in one basket, and on the top shelf, the potatoes are in another. All of our envelopes of seasonings and a couple of sides, as well as envelopes of kool-aid, are in a little plastic bin.  I have pint jars of couscous and falafel mix, boxes of pasta, and a cannister of small pastas in bags.  Just a few canned goods: I find that if I buy too many, I end up in chaos and not using them up, or buying more because I can’t find that can of soup I was looking for.

The lower part of the pantry cupboard is not much changed, so let’s skip that.

Here’s the fun part:  I rearranged the kitchen counters/cupboards so that on the right side of the kitchen is now a “toast and coffee station.”  PC had his giant coffee maker on the right side of the kitchen, and the bread box was right next to it.  My coffee maker was on the opposite side.  Counter space was  cluttered.

We have two appliance “garages” with tambor doors and on the right side of the kitchen, I had been storing my cookbooks in it.  The door wouldn’t close, so the cookbooks were always visible and sometimes a mess.

Now look at the counter on the right side:

I moved the bread box into the appliance nook, and store the electric knife way at the back on top of it, and the butter dish is in front of the electric knife.  There’s enough room for the bread box door to open (it has a cutting board in the door) and leave room for the toaster, my little coffee pot and PC’s giant grind and brew machine.  Morning coffee and toast, all in one place.  Also, the cupboard below this section has cereal, and the bowls, saucers and coffee cups are right above the coffee makers, with silverware in the drawer right below.

Here’s a closeup of the bread box, just because I love it. It’s probably from the 1950s or 60s and is a lot like the one my Grandpa had in his house.

Above that is the corner cabinet where we had stuffed PC’s coffee stuff, a bunch of medicines (since you’re not supposed to store them in the bathroom where it’s damp and can ruin meds) and miscellaneous junk.

Here it is now:

At the top is a basket of empty jars, as well as PC’s jar of flaxseed (he eats them like candy, by the recommendation of his gastroenterologist).  The middle shelf has a lazy Susan for common meds like Tylenol, cough syrup, etc.  The red tin box holds other medications out of sight, like Midol, foil packs of Dairy-Ease, boxes of cold capsules, and so on.

The bottom shelf has PC’s extra coffee grinder, a second set of parts for his coffee machine, and his container of coffee beans.  At the left, my jar of tiny coffee filters, an antique blue mason jar of coffee, and behind that my jar of sweetener.

The opposite counter on the left side of the kitchen now holds my crock of kitchen utensils, the salt cellar, our food processor and the KitchenAid mixer.  I had more kitchen utensils but put them in a box to see if I use them in the next several months.  If I don’t, they’re going to Goodwill.  The drawer below this counter has some smaller utensils, like peelers, etc. And the door to the appliance garage hides the cookbooks.

Oh, and a couple of jars of treats:  cookies and crackers.

Now that things are more organized and make better sense, it’s easier for me to keep the kitchen clean and feel more motivated to cook.

If you’re not asleep by now from reading this post, what have you done to make your kitchen more organized?  Do you cook a lot, a little, not at all?  What makes it easier for you?