My pantry was empty. We had 6 jars of tomato sauce, 4 jars of Apple Pie Filling, 12 1/2 pints of chicken, and 5 jars of applesauce when I started canning this year. It felt SO good to be that efficient! There was nothing that was more than 2 years old, nothing that was going bad, or I had to throw out.... it was awesome. I was actually enjoying an EMPTY pantry. lol!

I need to do this with my other pantry items. I miss where they were all in the same place.

When you spend lots of time fighting clutter, finding a place in your house that is truely efficient over time is exciting! lol...

Anyone else get a thrill this time of year from their empty spaces?

Val

i am dropping off kid stuff at a big biannual consignment sale, so ds's closet has lots more space than usual at the moment. it's really fun!

when are y'all dropping off? I wonder if I'll see you there :) Mine's Sunday sometime.. 3 maybe?

amazingly enough, I don't *need* much of anything - so what I do need we'll probably just buy at Target so I'm not tempted to buy a ton that I don't need.. I've got a drop off for one sale tomorrow, pick up Saturday, retag and drop off again Sunday. I'm finally making some progress around here :)

The consignment sale I'm doing this year isn't until late Sept. Blech. But I already started sorting stuff into piles for friends and piles to consign. I want even more empty spaces than usual so the house looks enormous to potential buyers in a few months.

(we also really want the teeny house to work out, and I'm trying to downsize our crap accordingly. Even if it doesn't, 1950's ranches aren't exactly huge, and that's likely going to be what we end up with, otherwise)

Because we're moving in less than three months everything in the house is emptying out. :) I like the space but I don't like having an empty kitchen, it makes me feel as if I need to go grocery shopping. :shake:

xt, I need to sign up for a sept one or two as well. I'm trying to keep in mind that we'll be going into an apt - and have to rent a storage unit for everything else.. less crap, smaller storage unit.

Jenni, I'm the same way. Not much in the kitchen stresses me out.

when are y'all dropping off? I wonder if I'll see you there :) Mine's Sunday sometime.. 3 maybe?

amazingly enough, I don't *need* much of anything - so what I do need we'll probably just buy at Target so I'm not tempted to buy a ton that I don't need.. I've got a drop off for one sale tomorrow, pick up Saturday, retag and drop off again Sunday. I'm finally making some progress around here :)

my drop off is at 6:15 on sat. won't see you...darn! i will be at the preview sale though.

i really love to eat what i have in the kitchen...but then i, too, feel like we need more food/something's wrong when there's empty spaces. empty spaces in the dishes would be great though!

Val, that must feel good. :)

Right now I'm enjoying the lightly furnished, decluttered spaces all over my house. I love that the under-loft-bed spaces in my kids' room are open and have plenty of space for toys and books. I love that I have three empty bookshelves in my living room that I am going to fill very slowly from the "storage" bookcase in the basement, with the books I keep going down to the basement for.

I have to ask though - canned chicken? Why? How? :D Tell me more. What is the advantage over freezing it? (We have 8 chickens we got on sale for $1.39 each frozen in our downstairs upright freezer.)

My mom found chicken on sale about three years ago and decided that I needed to be taught how to de-bone and can chicken. So she bought me a pressure canner, a bunch of small 1/2 pint jars and came over with that and 3whole chickens. lol... Besides the fact that you boil them first and you pressure canner them for 60 minutes, I didn't pay any attention, and basically this will be something that I throw away.

I will make a disclaimer here... I don't can meat. I don't can green beans. I don't can carrots. For two reasons. #1, my family doesn't eat any of them that much, and #2, if you do it wrong, it can kill you. So I will always buy canned tuna, chicken and the like and I have used ONE of those jars, and that was a year ago.

So I guess my pantry isn't quite as efficiant as I thought. lol...

I must go pick up three boxes of peaches now. ;)

Val