The picture above is my pantry shelf. It is embarrassing.
My excuse is that we moved into our house when our daughter was 3 weeks old. Anyone who has been through those sleepless nights and blurry days knows that pantry organization is not high on the priority list. Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months and so on and some areas of our home, including the pantry, remained a cluttered, chaotic mess.
Recently I have been realizing how much clutter and disorganization cause me anxiety. Household chaos clouds my mind and leaves no room for reflection and creativity. The pockets of disaster in my home distract me from focusing on the important things like my relationships with my family and my spiritual life. As manager of my home, I want our house to be full of peace and a shelter from a harsh world. But when I become overwhelmed with chores left undone and daunting disorganization, I am more likely to be irritated and frazzled and not creating an atmosphere of peace in my home.
So, I set a goal to be more organized. And it all started with my pantry shelves.
I thought it would be great to go out and get some nice, bpa-free plastic organizing containers for all of my dry goods. I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond and found some nice containers and was shocked when I saw the price of the set: $99.99. A hundred bucks for containers to store my legumes??? This made me question why I was there in the first place. If I am trying to organize, pare down and simplify, aren't I complicating the process by bringing more random (and expensive) junk into my house? Absolutely. So, I decided to organize my pantry using stuff I already had on hand. Old mason jars, plastic chinese take-out containers and used glass juice jars all make pretty great storage containers. And, as you can see, my recycled stuff made a pretty big difference:
And here is another view of the before mess...
...and after!
One disaster conquered....moving on to the next.....
