I Hope To Find Some Roasted Red Peppers In There Because They Get Really Gross.

Did you know that cucumbers practically liquify if you leave them in the fridge too long?  As disgusting as it is, every time I pull a Zip-Loc of cucumber remains out of the fridge I get a tiny thrill.  I have a soft spot (pardon the pun) for rotten, moldy things.  I can't watch horror movies and I'll never jump out of a plane, but the disgusted terror triggered by discovering a really moldy or disintegrating foodstuff in my fridge or pantry is my kind of living on the edge.

This makes my task over the next few days one of mixed emotions.  I need to clean out the pantry and the refrigerator and as much as I love to stumble upon things past their prime, I really find the whole process annoying.  I always start out with the best of intentions.  I begin promising myself that I'll empty all containers of old stuff, rinse them thoroughly and dispose of them properly in the recycling bin.  Numerous cartons of sour cream dotted with blue spots, fuzzy loaves of whole wheat bread and berries that look like dustbunnies are all eliminated.  But after a while, even a mold-loving girl like me just doesn't have the stomach or the time for it.  If the lid to the crusty salsa jar puts up too much of a fight, I chuck it straight in the trash.  Same goes for unidentifiable frozen things and cereals that have formed single bricks in the box.  I feel bad about it at the time, but eventually the overwhelming desire to speed purge wins out.

When I'm dragging the overstuffed trash bags to the garage I'm struck by how much of our stuff never gets finished.  I like to use fresh food and try to avoid things that are prepared, preserved or overly-processed as much as possible, so typically our bread starts to go funky on the drive home from the grocery store.  I think another factor is that our kids are a couple of streakers.  They'll fall in love with a particular product - like the Whole Foods cocoa flavored crisped rice (we cannot call them Cocoa Puffs) and eat them 24/7.  I literally can't keep the stuff in the house.  So I buy even more each time I go to the store just to feed their habit.  Then about the time I take advantage of a 4 for $7 deal on their FAVORITE cereal, they can't swallow another bite of it and I'm left with at least one half-eaten box that no one can bear to choke down.

Either way, by the end of the day today weekend we should have a pantry and fridge that includes nothing fuzzy, furry or grey.  And hopefully that container of hummus I've secretly been pushing to the very back of the refrigerator will have started to do some pretty disgusting things by now.

I'm wearing this today - fridge cleaning be damned.

The top is a hand-me down from Eliza.  I  think the look was a little too hippy for her.  I love it and think white skinnies, gladiator sandals and a breezy top are the perfect welcome to a warm, spring weekend.  Of course, this being Colorado, temps could drop in an instant and the springy look can still be maintained by adding an oversized charcoal v-neck.  See?

gratitude:  peanut butter and bananas on toast, pedicured feet, The Skimm, the possibility of success on one's own terms


thanks and love.