Day One Complete!

I feel empowered.

So where did I start on this journey of organizing and purging and moving (and generally getting my life in order).  Food.  Yes, that is right.  Food.

You see, I am a bit of a food hoarder.  I have come to realize this in the past few months and have serviously changed how I buy food and have been cutting back.  For some reason, I always feel like I  need thirty or more days of food readily available at all times.  Sure, the preppers will say that isn't nearly enough, but honestly, I am not sure I want to go there yet.  Especially with a move coming.

Why start at food, other than the fact that I realized I am a bit of a hoarder?  Two things last week prompted the food to go first.  One was I was making supper for a family in church that recently had surgery.  I went to make my (famous) cherry cobbler and realized I was out of milk.  No problem, I would just use a can of evaporated milk as substitute.  I opened the can and, wow, it just didn't look like evaparated milk.  It looked more like sweetened condensed milk that smelled funny.  I check the can to make sure I picked up the right one and it was, so then I checked the can again.  It expired in 2009!  That means I have drug that can from my apartment to my house and then to this house.  Seriously, what is wrong with me.  So no cherry cobbler :(

Then, over the weekend, I was having a couple people for dinner and since it was a last minute thing had not really plannned for it.  No problem, and I went to pulled some chicken from freezer.  The date - 2011.  Icky.  Now, I am not one who pours out the milk the date after it expires and I view "best by" dates as just that - "best" and as only suggestions.  But 4 year old meat and 8 year old milk.  No thank you!

So I went thorough the cabinets and the small freezer (leaving the deep freezer for another day) and took out quite a haul.  It half filled up my large trash container and I am wishing trash pick up was today.  Luckily, it is cold enough outside that it won't be rotted by the time they come on Friday.

While I feel guilty for throwing food away, and hating that I wasted money on it, I feel liberated that I will not be taking approximately two large box loads of food to my new house that we will never eat.
Now, to eat what we do have over the next 24 days so there is even less to move :)

These pictures don't really show well just how much there was.  The jello box had got kind of gross so I threw it in even though it wasn't expired and the loaf of bread is pretty typical of normal food waste, but the other things were all pretty much stored in my cabinets and freezer.

Today, I plan to tackle the bathrooms.  I noticed some face cream that I know I got in a gift basket when my daughter was in 2nd grade.  She is in 10th grade now.  Surely it too is expired, and even it not, obviously, I am not using it.  So...onto the bathroom and another successful purging day I hope.