Fridge ~ Day 7 (or 16) Organizing Challenge

i havent done my pantry yet, I thought I aught to do something, the fridge needed some attention. I could see Toni assigning the fridge one of these days (AHA I WAS RIGHT!!!), if/when she does, I will do the pantry. Maybe. (I WILL WORK ON THAT, TOMORROW)

I love our fridge. Its hugemungous, it beeps at you when you leave the door open, has a water spout and ice maker. Has an awesome drawer at the bottom for pizzas, or veggie trays, (usually pizza though) Its got french doors and a drawer freezer. I used to hug it before going to bed.

We were in love at Best Buy, and yes, I had to take a picture of my favorite delivery truck:

I love how the outside looked once I decluttered it here. (and it still looks as perfect 2 months later)

The great thing about a huge fridge, is it holds a lot. The less than great thing about it holding a lot, when we dont over shop, is that im not forced to keep it organized or even cleared out of ick that often. My tiny apartment fridge was constantly needing cleared out, and organized. This one has so much space that I havent actually cleaned it since we moved in over 5 months ago. (except some creative tetris when i had to fit the wedding cupcakes in it)

See what i mean: Not even full:
dont judge me for the #10 can of nacho cheese, we just threw a football party. Problem with the left door, cant see what is in the top shelf, I will be using that to my advantage....The drawers are kinda organized, all the fruit and veggies in the left one, sandwich stuff in the right, the bottom, my pizza/veggie tray drawer is pretty cleared out, but thats only 1 of the egg cartons...

It really didnt need much organization, since its big enough, and not over stuffed, I can find what im looking for pretty easily. But when I saw raspberry pie filling left over from wedding cupcakes 3 months ago, 2 bottles of ketchup, chicken stock from Thanksgiving and 2 questionably old containers of salsa, I decided it needed cleaned out more than my "pantry" needed done.

Step One: take the garbage out, reline the can. (By take the garbage out, I mean sit the bag on the floor, because there is crazy freezing rain outside at the moment)

Step Two: take everything out, sorting as you go. Icky stuff either gets tossed, or put aside if the dish needs cleaned.

This is where I ran out of counter space: See the counter:Notice the case of cream cheese, it went on sale when we were shopping with my sister, she gets a 10% discount on Safeway brand food, making them .89 each, and we needed quite a few bricks for upcoming recipes anyway so we bought 12. For everyday use, I squish the cheese from a brick into tupperware, i get the convience of a cream cheese tub, with the price of the brick, and it lasts longer in tupperware.

I wasnt really surprised to find this many duplicate items:

margarine, miracle whip, bbq sauce, ketchup, whipped cream and syrup. I combined the margarine (not pictured) ketchup and the bbq sauces: the bbq sauce is in a cheap ziplock in a drinking glass, when all the sauce ran out, I snipped the corner of the bag and squeezed the sauce out into the other bottle, much safer than balancing one bottle on top of the other. The ketchups were different sizes and had a better spout for balancing. The extra syrup was actually the in-laws' (gotta love them living on the same property when you need a cup of sugar or a bottle of syrup, we had bought our own, but didnt return theirs, until now) Also, I had 2 jars of pickles (remember, I'm preggo) that I combined. One of the whipped creams was almost empty, so, the hard worker I am, I emptied it, in my mouth, gotta sacrifice when organizing, right?

This makes us look like lushesreally we dont drink often (I'm preggo, and he just doesnt enjoy it often), most (possibly all of it actually, I forget) of this is leftover from hubby's bachelor party. All the refridgerated alcohol is moving to the party fridge down in the shop, since we wont be drinking it, or throwing parties upstairs any time soon.

Next, I wiped down the shelves and put everything back in:

(i had forgotten a couple items on the other counter at this point, the tortillas went where the margarine was, so they wouldnt be stacked on top of, the margarine moved to the left, I still need to move the nacho cheese into a smaller container and move it to the party fridge)

I containerized / organized /sorted most of the fridge, Condiments went in a plastic shoe box. Veggies went in the left drawer, sandwich making stuff in the right. Pickles and olives next to eachother, jarred fruit next to eachother. The jug of water on the top right is only for power outages purposes(in addition to like 6 more gallons downstairs), so its fine to be buried, we use the spout for drinking water otherwise. Extra milk(current milk is in the door) and large pitcher of juice fit on the top shelf.

The doors are better utilized with the condiments in the shoebox: The top left shelf that likes to hide items (i did attempt to adjust them but for milk to fit in the door, moving them didnt make a difference) now holds dessert stuff, out of site, out of mind. The middle shelf has fruit and yogurt cups. Not long ago I tossed out a few expired cups of yogurt, when they were in the drawer I wasnt seeing them and thinking of eating them.

In the right door, has the cheese holder, full of cheese (except slices, which are in the sandwich stuff drawer) the misc drinks, and tall condiments/salad dressings (we plan to eat more salads) on the bottom.

I didnt take a picture of the bottom drawer, it holds both cartons of eggs, and the egg whites, and the case of cream cheese. The veggie tray was emptied into tupperware and moved to the veggie drawer.

It looks so empty now. We do need to go grocery shopping though.

Im linking to A Bowl Full of Lemon's 21 day organizing challenge, day 7, the pantry

ETA: so we went grocery shopping tonight (1/15/11) and it was so nice to come home to a cleared and organized fridge! I shifted just a couple things to make more room for the fresh fruit and veggies, but I am so happy. It was easy to restock from the back, so older items got used first, everything sorted, I didnt have to question where to put the applesauce jar (got a jar rather than cups, dont need the convience of cups for the rediculous price hike), the new jar of pickles, or anything else. So lovely.

The freezer on the other hand.... well lets just say Im glad Ive spent way too much time playing Tetris throughout my life.... Tomorrow is football/laundry day so I bet I can get the freezers straighted out...