52 OHC: Week 4

I'm a little behind in the weekly check-off.  I blame it on a) year-end bookwork/taxes and b) weather too nice not to go outside.  I have been working on things in chunks, though.  The Week 4 challenge was refrigerators and freezers.  I actually cleaned out the fridge--including scrubbing down all the walls and shelves--right after Christmas when the fridge was emptier than it had been or would be for a long time.  I purged a few expired items, but should probably do some more.  I cringe when I read the food storage guidelines.  I have some pretty old jars of pickles in the back, too. ;o)  This is a picture of the finished fridge.  Note: I really hope this is the last time I ever have to do a deep cleaning of this fridge considering the fact that all the door shelves are being held together or on by packing and/or duct tape. :op

The freezers needed a lot more help as far as organization.  We have a freezer above the fridge upstairs and a small chest freezer downstairs.  Both are usually pretty full.  Between baked goods and repackaged meats that I buy in bulk, they sometimes become the land of Ziploc bags.  I knew there was some pretty old stuff in the bottom/back, too.  I've been trying to eat out of the freezer a lot in the last couple weeks to make the sorting process easier.  Here's how the upstairs freezer looked before I started.

One of my goals for this freezer was to get it organized enough to be able to use the ice maker (i.e. have room for a container to catch the ice.  I also bought a few more freezer baskets to help in the organizing since the one I already had for vegetables was working pretty well.  Unfortunately, in order for the freezer baskets to fit I had to raise the shelf, which didn't leave room for the original ice container (which I found in the cupboards a couple weeks ago).  I modified by using a Ziploc container instead.

Since I had new freezer baskets, I wanted to make some fun labels for them.  I came up with this idea after being inspired by Pinterest and some organizing blogs.  I made labels on the computer on an address label sheet and stuck them on cut up pieces of scrapbook paper.  Then I laminated them with clear contact paper that I found in the attic upstairs and punched holes in the top.  They can either be taped on to containers or I can use a white twist-tie to attach them to a wire freezer basket.  I made a few extras as well as some blank ones if I decided to do things differently at any time.

Here's the newly organized upstairs freezer and door.

The chest freezer in the basement needed even more help.  Not only did it need to be defrosted, but there were some long-lost things in the bottom.  I ended throwing out two grocery bags of old stuff, including some loaves of quick breads and some stuffed pork chops that were over two years old. :op

These are the before pictures:

I got some more freezer baskets to try and do a better job of stacking things up.  I used the labels here, too.  These were all the containers before stacking them in the freezer.

Everything stacked up in the freezer (including several freezer meals in pans and the frozen pizzas).

I started using this white board to track inventory the last time I cleaned out the freezer.  I kept up pretty well for 6-9 months.  After sorting everything I started over with a new list.  This time I did it according to the different baskets as a "map" from bottom to top.  This was one of the suggestions from the organizing challenge.  I learned I have a LOT of chicken, peas and mozzarella cheese. :o)

These were my helpers.  Lincoln actually didn't help one bit, but he couldn't pass up a photo op.

Emily helped sort and find all the labels.