Kitchen Mercy Dump

On Tuesday I posted a craigslist ad to get rid of a porch-load of demanding and thirsty houseplants and a wooden glider. I was tired of repotting, sweeping under, and watering them, and sitting in the glider made me feel sea sick. My post brought me a new friend, a 30ish sweet girl named Jamie, who reminded me a lot of my two nieces. In our conversation I learned that she and her husband have 4 elementary aged children and she recently lost her job. Jamie was thrilled to get the plants, and she asked me if there was anything she could do to repay me. Funny she should ask, as I was wishing to find someone that would help me organize and take away about half the food I had in my pantry and freezers. Jamie hit the jackpot!

Today we got to work, emptying and cleaning out the pantry - a double-sized closet with bi-fold doors, that was loaded to the gills. We arranged the items I wanted to keep into a more convenient order. Crock pot, mixer, and electronics went on the bottom shelf (off the floor), with canisters. Less used items like the Christmas cookie shooter and the fondue set went on the top shelf with lunch boxes and paper napkins. The middle two shelves hold the groceries. Besides tons of canned food, doubles of syrup, mayo, ketsup, and everything else I duplicated because the pantry was such a wreck that I didn't know what I had, I gave Jamie everything boxed and instant. She also went home with a spare crock pot (she didn't have one), and some other kitchen electronics I no longer use. We filled her trunk!

The fridge was easy to clean, just reorganizing. We threw away a lot of outdated food and things like funny-colored olives. The freezer was scary. We took two coolers, one for her and one for me, and sorted, sorted, sorted. I am extremely pleased to tell everyone that the only thing in my garage chest freezer is bird seed (the squirrels get into the bags in the garage) and two big bags of fridge/freezer trash that will be thrown out on Monday. Jamie went home with her cooler filled, plus a garbage bag full of fridge/freezer items. It was a great day for both of us!