Waste Not, Want Not

I think that's how the saying goes. I'm not really sure what it means exactly, but I am feeling real guilty about my wastefulness.

Last night, for the first time in I don't know how long, (which may explain why I haven't been great at updating the blog) I had nothing going on after work. Work ended at 5:30 and I had nothing I had to do until I had to be back at 7:30 this morning. So I got home from work, went for a run (which has been even more neglected than the blog) and made dinner for Derek and myself (another thing that hasn't probably happened in a couple of weeks - life has been a little ridiculous). After dinner we took Moose for a walk, and when we got home it was about 8:30 and there was nothing to do. A glorious feeling if you ask me. Now I don't know about you, but I spend much of my life doing what absolutely needs to be done and scheduling myself into oblivion. So I when I do get a few hours where there is nothing that NEEDS to be done and nothing on the schedule, I'm not quite sure what to do. There are lots of things I would like to do, like work on my scrapbook, organize our office, clean out various closets, go through stuff and get rid of what we don't need. But I find myself in the position of actually having time to do these things so infrequently, that when I get it, I am not sure what to do with myself. Last night was such a night. So what did I do?

I CLEANED OUT THE FRIDGE AND THE PANTRY!!!!!!

I know what you are thinking, if you had a free hour with nothing to do that would be on the top of your list of fun ways to occupy your time. But it is something that I have been meaning to do for a while and always put it off. (Don't worry, this isn't the only thing I did with my free time. I spent some quality time with my husband and with Jesus, but I figured I should do one non-fun thing, so this is what I picked.)

While I felt really happy this morning and at lunch today when I went to make myself food and could actually find what I was looking for without having to take a bunch of stuff out and search and wonder what was in various tupperware containers, I also feel really bad about how much food I threw away. A whole large trash bag full of food, just chucked. I know that it wasn't good anymore anyways, but when I think about how much of the world has no food, and how we just don't feel like eating leftovers or eating what we already have, so we go to the grocery and buy more food, and let stuff just go bad, it makes me sick. I have wasted so much food just because I couldn't find it in the back of the fridge or the pantry. It's really ridiculous how much we have and how much we waste without even giving it a second thought.

So my new goal is now that my pantry and fridge are clean and organized and I can actually see what is in there, I am going to plan meals based on using what we have and not letting food go to waste. I am only going to buy what we need. Hopefully I will save some money on groceries and be able to buy extra things to give to people who really need it, and aren't fortunate enough to go pick out whatever they want, and be picky about what they eat.