Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, When Will I Get This Right?

This morning's small project is cleaning out the refrigerator.  I thought this won't take too much time.  I'll wipe down the drawers and shelves and pitch the small amount of sour cream that has been sitting in there without a thought from me as how to use it up.  Truth be told I think I was being lazy about that one.

There are a number of things I've figured out about my food purchases and use.  I thought I finally figured out that I purchase larger quantities than I use.  That was a good start.  I figured out even if something is a great price, such as a five pound bag of carrots for 1.99, I need to pass them up. (More about the carrots in a minute.) 

What I figured out this morning is if I buy that 5 pound bag of carrots to dry - do it right away.  If not, I seem to forget the drying was on the agenda when I bought them.  Gladly, the carrots are still in great condition so another project today will be to dehydrate them.

A couple days ago I bought a few pounds of apples.  This was a conscious decision because I know the apples will keep for quite a while.  Long enough to make pies for both Thanksgiving and Christmas.  At .99 cents a pound rather than 1.89 a pound, there is a nice size savings there.  So I am comfortable with the decision.  However purchasing an entire loaf of bread for a couple sandwiches during the month is not a wise decision, even if it came from the Dollar Tree.  Instead of making bread as a special project, I need to make a loaf a week because the loaves are smaller and I can use most of it up for toast or a sandwich.  What is not used can be turned into dressing or bread crumbs.  Or maybe I'll learn how to make bread pudding.

I have little room in the freezer to pack in slices of bread.  Which brings me to another problem I seem to have.  Remember I talked about hoarding food?  Not just any food, the food I grow and freeze.  My freezer is packed with this kind of food.  I like to know I have it for 'someday'.  This has got to stop.  Today, somehow, needs to become 'someday'.

The refrigerator is cleaned, with more waste than I would ever want to admit to.  Even though I shop every other week, it's still too much.  I Know the process of change takes a while to fully accomplish, but I can't help getting irritated along the way when there is waste.  Every time this happens a vision resurfaces from Home Economics class when Mrs. Whitney was fuming at me because I put salt into egg whites instead of sugar in the recipe that was suppose to be economical.  Not a pretty sight!

The refrigerator cleaned out.  Left over chili my daughter made, eggs, milk, butter, pickles, bread, and olives are left.  ( Along with a couple of other items,)

I had to pitch 2 tomatoes, half a head of lettuce, and some celery from the veggie drawer.  Into the compost it will go.

The stalks in the background are the ones that went bad.  I also had to pitch a container of blue cheese, that - believe it or not - went bad.