Monday, February 6, 2012

Pantry Update!

I promised after photos of my finished pantry.... so here it is!


I bought all new matching canisters and put pretty much all of my staples in them.   We also added two pull out shelves for snacks - one for me, and one for my husband.  The kids' snacks are still in a basket, but that's easier for them to get into.  It is so easy to find everything!!

Organized Home Challenge - Weeks 5 & 6: Recipes and Recycling

These two weeks of the Organized Home Challenge are really easy for me.

Week #5 is recipes.  I do have some cookbooks, but most of my recipes are on the computer already.  I use a program called Sous Chef from Acacia Tree Software.  It's a really nice, easy to use program.  One of the things I really love about it is that they now have an app for the iPod/iPhone/iPad so that you can do your cooking without having to print out a paper copy of the recipe.  I have most of my recipes in there already.  So, I am currently going through my stack of cookbooks in the basement, marking which recipes I may actually make someday, and entering them in Sous Chef.  It's not a fast process, since going through each book takes a while, but when I'm done, I can just get rid of the cookbooks.  They just take up space anyway!  I will keep a few that I can't really put in the computer - cake decorating books, canning guides, etc.  But most will go away.



Week #6 is recycling.  Every locale seems to do recycling differently.  We have a pretty good, easy system where I live.  We can recycle papers, newsprint, cardboard, glass, plastics 1,2,&5, and aluminum through our garbage collection service.  We do have to separate the paper and cardboard from the rest, but all the plastic, glass, and metal can go together.  It's curbside recycling, every 3 weeks, so it's easy to do.  We have a rolling kitchen cart that has 3 baskets in it, that we use to collect recycling.  When it gets full, we take the items to the big recycling bin in the garage.  Pretty easy.




So, this week allowed me to catch up to where Taylor and the rest already are!  Yeah!  Next week is coupons.  I haven't been too good about couponing historically, but would love to learn how, so I'm hoping to get some great tips!