Demented mom: Label it...ALL OF IT

I don't know what is wrong with me; I have 90 things going on and yet I keep starting other projects. My search for some rice I knew I had but couldn't find resulted in an OCD episode of magnamimous proportions. 9 trips to Bed and Bath later...all my cabinets are reorganized and labeled with new oxo containers that set me back way more than I care to admit. I even measured my cabinets dimensions before I went. I realized my label machine was broken last week and had to make an emergency trip to get a new one (with my $5 staples coupon and rewards printed of course). I must say I don't like the new one but my daughter has discovered the joy of ~~obsessive organizing~~ labeling; she loves it and hey - its good spelling practice. The good news is that when ditalini comes up on the spelling list my daughter will be way ahead of the game.

Labelling assistant

Can't you just picture her 40 years from now telling her friends how her ~~crazy bitch~~ super organized mother used to ~~demand~~ ask that she help organize the kitchen? One of my memories of my father who died when I was 13 was us sleeping while he vacuumed around us. This probably explains a lot.

I ripped everything out of all the cabinets and organized everything based on how I use it. Pasta (as you can see), condiments, baking stuff, Cereal, etc. I tried to buy the containers that made the best use of the space I had; as you can see the pasta containers are tall and skinny. We have many pastas!

I put the cereal in bags near the bottom of the cabinet so the kids can get at it and I don't have 90 boxes full of half empty cereal. I just wrote with a sharpie what kind of cereal it is. I put all my baking stuff on a high shelf together.

I have a giant pantry but there's so much space to the left and right of the opening that i can't get to. We won't go into the random stuff I found there. I bought these lazy susan thingies for the corners so at least I can get at them.

I am a little horrified at how much food I had to throw out. Seems kind of foolish to have been spending all this time cutting coupons only to throw food away because its buried in my pantry. Must move on from labeling to using what I have; if you are hip and cool you know this is called upcycling.

I'm hoping that with these small change the kids will let me sleep until 11 9 every morning. No more kids rifling through the closet looking for school snacks; they are all labelled!