Mission: Pantry Organization

I’m not known for being the most organized person ever.  This is actually that is changing a little as I get older and have more kids.  I’m realizing that organization is essential to my mental sanity!  In some areas I’ve gotten much more organized…like toys and kid’s clothes and even the mail and school stuff.  I do still make a lot of piles and have what my family lovingly refers to as “Megan Droppings” which actually sounds kind of gross when I type it out like that…no, I don’t go to the bathroom in the living room, but it is nearly impossible for me to take a trip to Arlington and not leave at least one thing at my mom’s house.  Sometimes I like to think that I’m organized in my own way, meaning I usually know where I put things, phone and shoes excluded.  I joke all the time that I married Derek for the simple fact that he keeps up with my phone and flip flops.  Somehow he always knows where I last had them.  It’s a talent, really.

When I was at Juli Beth’s house last weekend, I couldn’t help but notice how nice and neat she kept her pantry.  A neat pantry?  Is that even possible?!  Turns out her secret is…wait for it…actually eat the food as she buys it.   I don’t know about you, but I am bad about buying things, sticking them in the pantry, and then never eating them.  This also goes for my freezer, too.  My freezer (and it’s a big freezer) is full to the brim with food!  Yet week after week, I go to the store, buy more things.  So I’ve decided that my mission for August is going to be to eat the food in the pantry and freezer.  I’ve taken some notes about what’s in there and planned meals accordingly.  On Monday night I made breakfast burritos using bacon and hash brown potatoes I found in the freezer.  Last night, I made fettuccine from a box I found in the pantry and I served it with fajita steak, also found in the freezer.  When I planned that meal, I actually thought the leftover fajita meat was chicken and was going to make chicken fettuccine, but it was steak.  I can’t even identify the frozen leftovers!   Take my word for it, my freezer and pantry are completely out of control.

There is one other reason I’m inspired to get my pantry in order.

When we got back from Hawaii (after being gone for 10 days), I found something really weird in the pantry.  I had a package of English muffins and it the plastic had been chewed through and I could see part of a muffin had been eaten.  I sort of freaked out, but my ever calm husband talked me down.  He said there was no way we have a mouse because our cat would catch it.  He sure has high expectations for what might be the world’s fattest and laziest cat.  But I was able to just throw the muffins out and forget about it because I didn’t see anything else suspicious in the pantry.  It’s been one of those out of sight, out of mind things.  Honestly, if the thought of taking everything out of my pantry isn’t daunting enough, I’m terrified that I’ll find a creepy-crawly (or something worse.)  So I just pushed it out of my mind and blissfully went about my business.

Then this morning, after being on a bit of an English muffin hiatus, I decided that’s what I wanted for breakfast.  I remembered what had happened to our last package of muffins, so I cautiously pulled the bag from the pantry.  I slowly turned it in my hands and this is what I saw:

I do not want to deal with this.  But it is obvious there is something in there that has a penchant for high fiber english muffins.

This is really one of my worst nightmares.   Do you think it’s a mouse?  Should I just get some mouse traps and see if I catch anything?  Or maybe I should call our exterminator.  Now that it’s happened twice (and with the same food…I think that’s really weird), I just can’t ignore it anymore.

If only my pantry were as organized and fabulous as Juli Beth’s.  I’m sure she has never had a problem like this.