Project Simplify, Week 2: the pantry & fridge

It's week two of Project Simplify 2012 over at Simplemom.net.  This week finds me in the kitchen.  I am pretty good about keeping my kitchen well organized and purged.  I get annoyed with overflowing cupboards so I regularly get rid of things that I don't use.  I am also a stock-piling style shopper, so my pantry is almost always full, organized and rotated.  But since it's officially kitchen week, I decided to go through my kitchen again anyway.

I read somewhere that when tackling a purging project, you should start with the drawers first.  I pulled every drawer out, one by one, and took everything out.  I cleaned the drawers, put back the keepers, and purged or tossed the rest.  After the drawers I started on the cupboards.  I only got through half of them before the kids were done with their quiet time, but it was a good start.

I did manage to find a few random things I decided to part with, but it wasn't much.  I reorganized a few areas, created some better storage options for a few things, but overall there was only one area that really needed my attention--under the kitchen sink which is an area I have avoided for a long time.  From just this one area I managed to accumulate a full bag of trash.  It sure looks a lot better under there.

Tomorrow is another day with plans to finish up the cupboards before moving onto the fridge and freezer.  I reorganized the deep freeze two weeks ago and made up a list of everything I have in there so I don't go to make hamburgers for dinner only to discover there's no ground beef in the freezer.  But my kitchen freezer is another story.  Things have a tendency to fall out on your toes if you're not careful.  I tackled the pantry last month so that won't take long.  My biggest task is to come up with a better storage system for my "hot spot." This would be the spot on my counter that accumulates anything and everything and always looks horrible.  I WILL come up with a system to get rid of this eyesore.  I hope.

Here's the Before of my "Hot Spot."  The After shot will come later.