If you’ve been reading the last few days, you have noticed that I have been quite proud of myself that I got “most” of my house clean for this weekend of birthday celebrations. I think that’s one of my problems. When I clean, I expect a parade in my honor. I expect everyone to notice how great things look even though I don’t have them over when it’s in its normal state, so they really have no comparison.
My mother did notice that the house looked good. But with the in laws last night, no one noticed. A few of them have seen the house in it’s scary state, but they really don’t get why it gets that way. My mother knows what a struggle it is for me, but they just think there’s something wrong with me. Which, of course, there is.
Anyway, I was so proud of myself that I wasn’t running around crazy yesterday. The house was done and I just had to go through and do little things here and there. I had even cleaned out my fridge, somewhat, on Friday morning before my husband took out the trash.
This is one of my biggest fears, that someone will eat something out of my fridge not knowing that it is poisonous. I know that those pickles have been there for years, so I know not to eat them. I know that that yogurt is from the sale last spring, so I’m not going to eat it. But the average person who looks for a snack in my kitchen might have too much trust in me.
I don’t know why I don’t throw things away as soon as I know they’re not good.
Anyway, I had cleared out a lot of things from the fridge. But I didn’t check the side doors.
We had fish, and although I made an exhaustive list of things to get from the store, neither my husband nor I ever thought of Tartar Sauce, since we don’t eat it.
So someone asked for Tartar Sauce . . . of course. And I thought, “I just MIGHT have some. I know I got some free one time.” So I looked and found a beautiful looking jar right there in my side door. But then I thought to look at the expiration date. IT EXPIRED IN 2006! 2006??!!??
And of course by that point, everyone was waiting expectantly for their tartar sauce. My father in law, who has no use for expiration dates, ATE SOME! I begged him not to, but he wouldn’t hear of it. I immediately threw it in the trash so no one else would eat it. I laughed on the outside, but inside I wanted to cry.
I want to have this clutter/messiness/chaos thing under control. This is going to be a long process.
For today, the center of my home is clean. But the edges are full of clutter. I don’t want to just push things to the edges, I want it gone.
A few months ago I threw out some stuff that had expired sometime in the mid-90s… Mind you we moved 7 years ago (2003) and PAID to move that junk. The only way I got through my kitchen cleaning was to have a friend help me de-clutter. Then I did the same with one of my sisters. She had about 12 containers of cinnamon (ya know, cause it was on sale or something)…
we moved into my sh's grandpas house a couple of years ago to take of it while he was in assisted living. We found stuff that expired in the 1980's!!!
"For today, the center of my home is clean. But the edges are full of clutter. I don't want to just push things to the edges, I want it gone."
That is poetry.
I can beat all of this. My father passed away in Fall of 2008. We've been (slowly) cleaning out his house. When we cleaned out his deep freezer we found a container of beans marked 1960-something! Ewwww. Icck. Yes. I come by my slobbish seriously-disorganized ways honestly – genetics.
Tartar sauce is just mayonaise and chopped up pickles – even pickle relish works. With some dill if you have it. And unless pickles have turned soft or smell bad, they are still good – I don’t care what the expiration date says. You can also mix jalapeno peppers instead of pickles – just use less 🙂 I bet your Father in Law didn’t get sick – and I’m with him on expiration dates – they are mostly a ploy to make us throw out good food.
I joke with my husband and my parents that I want to own absolutely nothing! That way it would stay clean and I could do the daily upkeep. I need to learn to own less so that my stuff stops owning me.
I just found your blog yesterday and after reading a few posts I sent the link to my best friend (who like myself, is what I like to call an LPS..Lazy Procrastinating Slob) and told her that I had just found the most important thing on the entire internet! My father in law is a neat freak and every time my inlaws are at my house I am sweating with panic. I just dont SEE the things that are messy to other people….until those people are in my house. Nothing worse than having a “NO DON’T OPEN THAT!!!” moment when your father in law is rooting around in the fridge for a snack. Ugh. So excited to read through your blog! Getting inspired to start my own non negotiable list. 🙂
I’m so glad you found me! And how lucky for you to have a best friend who completely understands!
Hi Nony–I’m reading your blog backwards and I just had to comment on this post. When we cleaned out my mom’s house after she died (2009), my sister and I found containers of frozen fruit and berries that had belonged to my GRANDMOTHER who died in 1988. My mom had actually cleaned out Grandma’s freezer, and then taken the stuff with her when my parents moved from Washington State to Oregon in 1993. I think the oldest stuff we found was dated 1977 or so.
We composted the oldest stuff, but my sister made several huge batches of jam from the newer fruit. Of which I still have several quart jars of in my pantry, lol.
I’ve found that with manual defrost freezers (which these were) stuff does stay okay for almost indefinitely. With automatic defrost, stuff can become inedible within a few months.
Three generations of slobs–can anyone beat that?
LOVE your blog by the way. Your subtitle “Reality-based cleaning and organizing” is spot on.
🙂 Mary
I know this is a very old comment, but I couldn’t resist Mary’s challenge to “beat that”.
When my grandmother passed way in 1998 and the family was working on cleaning out her house, there was a lot of talk about “The Lobster”.
Now, after my grandfather passed away in the mid ’60s, my grandma’s messiness morphed into full-blown hoarding. It took a couple years to unearth the deep-freeze that contained The Lobster. When it was finally found, there was nothing left but an empty shell. Apparently, they were saving it for a special occasion.
Grandpa had won it at an office Christmas party. In the 1950s.
Lol, thanks for the chuckle Bluebird!
I’ve taken to labeling leftovers with garage sale dot stickers, with the date and contents. I would be looking through leftovers about to heat it up to eat, do some math in my head and realize the food was a week and a half or two weeks old… It seemed like I had just made it the other day. I even lable sauces with the day i open them, it makes me understand why there is a glob of mold in the lid of the Ragu jar!!! I can totally understand your line about not wanting anyone to be poisoned eating something from your fridge, that thought has run through my mind more than once!
Brenda
my fridge/expiration dates is one place that i definitely do NOT have any issue with–i’ve been food-safety certified as part of my schooling and job training (i work in a grocery store bakery, but went to culinary school), so i am anal about only buying what we need when we need it and eating it in a timely manner. my parents are the total opposite though. they have the exact same fridge as we do, but with three fewer people in the house, and they only eat at home for one meal a week (no exaggeration)…. but their fridge is (also no exaggeration) 10x as full as ours is on any given day. I once found four open-but-nearly-empty jelly jars in their fridge, at least three of which were all the same flavor, and two of which had been expired for longer than 6 months. I constantly have to check dairy products in their house for mold. my husband refuses to even get a glass of water from the dispenser b/c he gets so disgusted by their fridge–he’d rather drink unfiltered water from the tap.
Super slob attempting to improve over here. 1st time commenter. I stopped buying tardar sauce. I just mix up a batch in like 30 seconds with a quick recipe off the internet. Voila… 1 less bottle in the fridge.
No one will ever be allowed in my bedroom.
I had to empty the basement of the house my parents built in 1942 for a foundation replacement in 1998. On one of the dump runs I had a box of black berry home canned jam from the sixties. Unmarked, but I remember when Mom switched to only making freezer jam. Person at the dump looked at it and directed me to the hazardous wasted station. Had to discuss that it wasn’t toxic material.
Food expirations aren’t a problem for me in the fridge, but the pantry is another story. I’ve been working my way through, contributing to some interesting “recipes” that I couldn’t duplicate if my soul depended on it. I’ve also donated things that are good & in-date, but I know I’ll never eat. How did they get there? Anyway, one last thing — my mother taught me that, when a guest, never ask for something that isn’t on the table or offered, except MAYBE salt or pepper. To this day, it makes me crazy when I finally sit down & someone asks for something I haven’t planned. I consider it poor manners.
Baha, love your paragraph about the fridge! Even as I type, about half of the food in my fridge is poisonous!
When cleaning out my husband’s grandparents’ small pantry, we found cans of tomatoes that were oozing black goo!
I never had trouble keeping house until I had kids, and then started homeschooling. I read your blog years ago, and have returned again now that our 4th child’s entrance into the world has me wondering if I’ll ever get the house clean again! I married a slob and have born him slob children. Is it too much to hope that they’ll help out some day? I am planning to install a TV in the laundry room. “Why, yes, you may watch TV…as long as you fold laundry the entire time you watch!”
I know this was from ages ago, but I still want to say, don’t worry!
I gave my dad a hand cleaning out his pantry a while ago and found many items that I knew to have been purchased by my mother. This would be fine, except that they divorced over 20 years ago 😏
I am reading your blog in 2021 but i think it is powerful! Day after day i can “see” the improvements in your house! Thank you from Italy! You are a mentor to me!