Pantry Syndome

  

Ecclesiastes 3:3 “…there is a time to break down, and a time to build up.”

 

I have a little problem I call pantry syndrome. The symptoms are excessive purchasing and storing of items to the point that my pantry is unmanageable. In the 45 years I’ve been keeping house I can only remember one home where I conquered that problem. Until now.

This past week my husband redesigned my pantry for me. For 10 years I’ve been working with the 24-inch wire shelving that the builder placed in the panty. Everything was double or tripled stacked, and to reach one thing I had to move four or more items. Boxes and cans got buried in the depths of the closet. Reaching anything on the topmost shelf required a multitude of ups and downs on the stepstool to empty the shelf and locate what I was searching for. Everything was a mess!

As soon as my husband drove the last nail in the new pantry and the paint had dried, I reloaded the shelves, checking the expiration dates of every item. I trashed expired items, tossed foods we no longer eat due to dietary changes, and sorted everything by food types. All the beans on one shelf, the other veggies on another. Soups have their own corner. Plastic wraps and baggies, foil and wax paper are neatly stacked so they won’t fall over if you remove a box. My massive tea collection is now lined up on the side shelves, one box deep, so I can readily see what I have. I discarded two trash bags of food and not once did I worry about some starving child in Africa.   After the purging and redesign, I can see every item in the pantry. No more digging to find what I have, and hopefully, no more wasteful spending because I can’t see what I have, so I buy another one.

Even though it took me four hours to restock the pantry, and my feet hurt from standing that long, the organization feels good. I open the door every time I pass and peek in at the magnificent display

A good redesign is helpful, whether it’s your kitchen pantry, your office clutter, or your bad habits. As humans, who are not perfect, we have to toss out the old and reset things in our lives all the time. Thankfully, God knew that about us when he created us and offers us forgiveness when we let things go to the point that our lives are a mess, like my pantry was.

I know the pantry will not remain perfect. I’ll buy things I don’t need. Add groceries to the shopping list without checking the shelves. Get lax about where I place items. But for now, it’s one-hundred percent better than it was before. And I plan to rejoice in that.

 

What about you? Are you rejoicing in some part of your life you’ve had to redesign?

 

 

Catherine Castle is a multi award-winning author. Her inspirational romantic suspense, The Nun and the Narc, published by Soul Mate Publishing is available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.