Pantry Project

Welcome to my new pantry. Well not really new, but really neat and clean and organized.
Lets take a closer look.

But first things first. I was very proud of myself, finding only a very few items, that were past their expiration dates. Most of the trash that was created was due to unfinished chips bags, cereal boxes with 3 crumbs in them and so on..... After getting rid of all this, I cleaned all the shelf and started putting our top 10 items in jars( washed those before as well). The next pile of trash was created by filling things in those nice jars and tossing all their original packaging( It is amazing to me , coming from Germany, that only a very little amount of those get recycled over here). True, the trash cans here are huge and you hardly ever run out of space to throw things away, but really???? I made this one of my goals in 2012 to do more recycling. Back in Germany, it was part of my daily routine and the kids learn it from early on. Once we moved here, I got quickly accustomed to the convienience of just throwing things out. Kind of like, out of sight out of mind.( Note to myself: Still need to find a proper way to get rid of all the old batteries , which are filling a gallon size ziplock bag in the utility room,too). I want to change that this year and make an effort to bring more stuff to the recycling place. Do you know that you have to pay extra if you are willing to recycle over here??? Crazy right?!
Anyway back to the pantry!

After cutting shelving paper into the perfect size to line the baskets, it was time to fill them wisely.

Ha, that took a while, cause I wanted it to make sense and actually find my stuff again
I created a basket for all the liquids( oil, vinegars, soy sauce, maggi and so on).

Next I filled another basket with breakfast items such as Nutella, honey....., one was for baking stuff, one for snacks, one for spices and one for a quick grab of school drinks and snacks( which ended up way high in the pantry).

Our favorite breakfast items and other most used things (flour, brown sugar,sugar...) got placed into the jars and look sooooo petty and decorative.

I still need to go back and get a couple more jars for rice and noodles and such things but overall I am very happy with what I saw when my tired eyes opened this morning at 5.45am. I might have to make some adjustments over time according to daily use but I am confident things will run a lot smoother now .I hope I can bottle up some of the enthusiasm I had for this project for the once that are still waiting their turn.

This cow makes me smile every time I enter the pantry. Happy things come to my mind when I see it,such as the trip to L'Alpe d'Huez/France( were it got purchased) ,my man doing the mega avalanche bike race, Stella playing with a little boy named Elliott( he was such a sweetheart, I seriously considered naming Lucien Elliott) on a playground in the highest heights of the french alps and me being pregnant for Mr Lucien, who is sitting here waiting patiently( well not so patiently anymore) for me to go play with him. This is my plan of action right now.....