The Fridge

Once, I was reading about a woman and her forays into provident living and home storage. Her husband had been a real estate agent in Las Vegas, and when the housing market went south, Vegas was hit the hardest. So she was doing everything in her power to feed her family under their current circumstances.

I quite liked reading her tips and stories. She was full of optimism and can-do spirit. I wish I could find her site to link back for you, because it is very good. I read and read and read. But one little point of advice stands out. She said that when you don't have any food in the house, super-clean your fridge. It will help you evaluate what you actually have, and you will feel better every time you open the door because it's clean, as opposed to depressed because it's not bursting with yummy, easy-to-prepare food.

I am not out of food. But I am out of oomph. And every meal preparation has become a battle for motivation. I would love to just take some time off and regroup (or order Chinese takeout three times a day for the next fortnight), but my family keeps getting hungry. Like, every four hours. Seriously. What's with that? How can a gal get a rest with that sort of a schedule?

The day did not start with me planning to deep clean the fridge. It started this afternoon, as I was clearing up after lunch (what? another meal? geez louise.) That's when I decided I was just going to drop everything else and combine the three partial ketchup bottles, the four mustard bottles, the two dill relish jars and whatever duplicate items there were hogging space and thwarting order in my fridge.

It is a slippery slope, I am telling you. One thing lead to another, and soon I was pulling off shelves and washing out drawers. My two-year-old opened the fridge while I was washing shelves, and got mad. "Fix it, Mommy! A bad!" I guess it really messed with his head that the state of the refrigerator was not the solid anchor in the world he thought it was.

It took a lot of stop-and-go (and a break to feed people dinner. Again.), but I stand before you as a woman with a clean fridge. A really, really, really clean fridge. If you walk into my kitchen, you can't tell I've done anything significant. But I can. I can feel the aura of shiny cleanliness radiating from the fridge.

So, I am thankful for the fridge. I am thankful it's clean, and that I have food in it (but no duplicates!), and that after over a year, the spilled green Jell-O is finally all gone. I am grateful for good advice, and for a few hours to commit to an unscheduled but overdue task. I am grateful that my husband is steadily employed, and that oomph is the only thing missing from the pantry. And I think I am going to go open the fridge door and look at it again.

What are you blessed with today?