When we recently renovated our kitchen, we added a pantry. I must admit it’s nice having a large place to hide kitchen clutter away.
It’s also a mess most of the time.
Yep, there’s stuff in there that probably shouldn’t be in there, and all the shelves could honestly use a good purging and rearranging.
I was just considering that I should try and sort my pantry out while the weather is still cold and yucky here. I like to spring clean in February and March because honestly, who wants to spend time inside organizing when the weather is lovely? So, I was easy clickbait when this HGTV article about how to organize one’s pantry appeared yesterday on my Instagram feed.
The article had some valuable tips for organizing a pantry. It recommended using clear containers, clearing out old items and putting like things together.
These are all things I can do.
But then I read that I also needed to ‘get my family on board’ with helping to keep my pantry organized.
And I laughed.
And then I laughed some more.
I laughed so long that my husband looked up from his phone to see what was so funny.
I showed him the picture on the magazine site.
He snorted. “Don’t people have better things to do with their time?” he asked.
I pouted. “But it looks so nice.”
My husband shrugged and went back to reading something on his phone.
I poked his arm. “I’m not only supposed to do this, but I’m also supposed to try and get the kids and you on board with helping to keep our pantry looking all tidy and organized like this, too,” I told him.
My husband sighed, put down his phone and looked at me for a long moment, and I knew he was picturing how our children often stand in the doorway of the pantry and just chuck whatever kitchen item they happen to be holding in the general direction of a shelf. But, since taking out the recycling in our household now includes me going through the pantry every Thursday night and gathering up multiple empty cereal boxes. I liked the idea of doing away with them. “What do you think the kids would do if I emptied the cereal boxes into neat containers like these?” I asked.
My husband removed his reading glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Our son eats an entire box of cereal most nights before he goes to bed,” he reminded me. “You’d be doing it three times a week. Don’t waste your time.”
I sighed.
He’s right.
So, I took a long last look at the picture, decided I wasn’t going to feel guilty about the lack of organization in my pantry, closed the HGTV site and returned to texting my girlfriends.
But I still might purge my pantry this week. It’s just probably not going to look all pretty and color-coordinated when I’m done like this HGTV picture.
But it will be less cluttered. And that’s going to be good enough for me.
I hope. I mean, this HGTV pantry looks beautiful, doesn’t it?
Sigh.
