Sunday, March 12, 2017

It's Still Good...

I had most of February vacation off with the kids, including the big one, who's aspirations for his vacation week amounted to basically nothing.  It started off productive enough... bought a dryer, installed a light in the downstairs stairway, the basics.  By Tuesday night I found myself eating just the colorful marshmallows from the rest of the box of Lucky Charms and realized this might be the least productive stay cation we've ever had.  Even Mr. Chewey got lazy with us...


So we moved onto March and the onset of the Lent season.  As we all know, I am not much of the religious sort, but I do try to better myself in some way during lent in the hopes that I can grow as a person and learn some discipline.  Some years it works, some years it doesn't. One year I gave up carbs.  I lost 40 pounds. Two years ago I gave up my enjoyment of snow... we got seven feet of the white stuff and I can safely say I hate it now.  Last year I gave up all things Donald Trump.  That didn't work out so well since we will now all be inundated with him for the next 4 years.

This year I decided to de-clutter my life. Now, as a general rule I am not much of a consumer.  After spending 17 years in some form of retail the last thing I want to do is wonder the mall.  Combine that with a tiny house with one closet, and there's not much room for things we don't need. And yet, somehow, it accumulates.  So I set out on making a list...

Clean out the kitchen utensils.
Clean under the bed.
Purge the DVDs.
Purge old emails and the FB friends list.

The list goes on to include the fridge and freezer, the attic and garage are broken over two days, you get the idea.  I can't say that I'm getting to something everyday, but I am about 15 through the list, so I've got that going for me.

I started with the smaller ones and am working my way to the larger ones.  On the first day I cleaned out the antique secretary and found 6 rolls of scotch tape and enough light bulbs to last until my grandchildren have grandchildren.  Exhausted from that day's clean out, I opted for a quick and easy dinner and grabbed some steam fresh veggies from the freezer.  Staring mindlessly into the microwave as they cooked, I grabbed a bowl and got ready to eat the delicious array of veggies featured on the bag.  Honestly, all I remember is that once I finished, they tasted... weird.

I dug the bag out of the trash.  July of 2015.

*gag*  

Later that night I was convinced that I'd be the first person to ever encounter death by vegetables.  Asparagus is tough when it's fresh... it's unimaginable when it's 2 years expired, take my word for it.  We all had a good laugh about it though, as I made a mental note to move "clean the fridge", and "Purge the freezers" closer to the top of the list.  Which of course, I didn't actually get to until today.

It started innocently enough, tossing expired stuff, boxing up the things we will never eat for the food pantry at the church. The freezer was a quick purge, as nearly everything was either unidentifiable, or from 2013.  I found a pack of hot dogs from 2012.  Yummy.

The fridge is quite simple as it gets rotated quite frequently.  Condiments all checked out as good except for the plastic lime from 2012. I found some questionable carrots in the back, and some sketchy apples that the squirrels outside were happy to take off my hands.  And then I saw them,  WAY in the back, four cans of beer.

Tony: "Um, WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH MY BEER???"
Me: "I'm throwing it out."
Tony: "That's still good!!!"
Me: *flips can over* "Sept 4th 2015..."

Apparently, alcohol poisoning has an entirely different meaning in this house.


7 comments:

  1. I've been slowly going through things. Very slowly. Depression is fun.

    I have found several expired medications lately, I swear I don't know how that happens.
    And about a month ago, I decided to make some teriyaki sauce for the chicken. I pulled a can of pineapple out of the cupboard, opened it and went, "Huh, that looks weird."

    So did I throw it away? NO I did not throw it away. I got a spoon and TASTED it. What a dumbass. Then, I looked at the date on the can. Exp 4/2012.

    It's nice to know I'm not the only one who lets things expire. :)

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  2. Yeah I think many people forget that things like beer and soft drink have a use by date and just expect it to be good for like forever,I of course do not drink beer, I think it is horrible stuff

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  3. When we were kids we bought someone's beer can collection and one can (which by the brand being extinct we knew was at least ten years old) was still unopened. We moved the tab over poked a couple of holes in it, and had a lovely time trying to drink semi-alcoholic rusty water.

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  4. My husband should probably go through the freezer. Occasionally, he'll go through the pantry and write the expiration dates on the top of the can in Sharpie, which is all well and good but he continues to buy more than we will ever need and eventually he's having to toss out a bunch of stuff because he refuses to let us run out of anything.

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  5. Some things are worth the risk!!

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  6. Sound really productive with the purging of things! LOL about the 2 year old expired food. When cleaning out hubby's parents home and their stand alone freezer in the garage, we found food 10 years old, including frozen salmon 3 years old. I periodically go through our stuff in the fridge and freezer and make sure we use up things before the expiration date, but a few things catch me by surprise at times :)

    betty

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  7. Even when you think you have everything cleaned out, a random "expired in 2002" will show up out of the blue. I think it is the leprechauns!

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