Cleaning Out The Fridge For Dummies

I couldn't sleep Friday night/Saturday morning. Sometimes I get bouts of insomnia, where I JUST. CAN'T. SLEEP. Very frustrating. Luckily, this past week was one of the laziest of my life, so there was plenty of housework to keep me occupied in the wee hours of the morning. I decided to get a jump start on everything, and at about 7, after doing two loads of laundry, cleaning the guest bathroom, and eating some candy, I decided the fridge needed to be cleaned out. Below are the steps for cleaning out a fridge. If you are a dummy. Like me.

1) This first step is very important. Do not, under any circumstances, keep your fridge clean. Do not wipe off sticky bottles before putting them in the fridge. Do not use your leftovers, let them sit sadly in the back of the fridge for a few months. When they are growing new food, you know it has almost been long enough. This is important because if your fridge does not get dirty, you cannot clean it, and you might as well stop reading now.

2) Sit on the floor in front of your open fridge, and take everything out. Try not to throw up when you open containers of three month old alfredo sauce or corn that seems to be growing a new life form. Cleaning your fridge during allergy season is especially helpful due to the stuffy nose. I even recommend waiting to clean out the fridge until you have a very bad head cold, if it helps.

3) Realize that sitting with the fridge door open for that long is a waste of electricity. Turn the fridge off.

4) Separate all the food into good and bad. Throw the bad away. Keep the good in a pile. If you fridge looks like mine, you will now have half a gallon of milk and some butter left in the good pile, and half of bag of very stinky trash…

5) Fill a bowl with warm soapy water. Wash off all the shelves. Bonus points if you take out the drawers and clean them too! Extra bonus points if you can identify the sticky goo under the vegetable drawer.

6) Put all the good food back. Give yourself a huge pat on the back.

7) Make a grocery list, now that you realize your fridge is completely empty (man cannot live on butter alone).

8) Go throughout your day feeling accomplished and thinking of how bright and shiny the inside of the fridge is.

9) The next morning, have a bowl of cereal for breakfast. Realize the milk is warm, even though you just got it out of the fridge… Remember that you forgot to turn the fridge BACK ON.

10) Be thankful there wasn’t actually food in there.

11) Vow to never clean the fridge again.

Right Now

I've been looking for a new job ever since the wedding. Praying for a new job. Dreaming of a new job. It's not that I was in a bad place, it's just that I got everything out of that job I could. I was bored, and tired of the same thing day in day out.

And now I have a new job!!! I put in my two weeks on Friday!! I had daydreams of putting in my two weeks, and the song Take This Job and Shove It was always in the background, along with me shocking my coworkers, venting my frustrations to my director, and running out of the building in a blaze of glory. So the actual putting in of the two weeks was pretty anticlimactic. See, I forgot how much I like everyone at work, and how much I respect my manager, and in real life I would never want her to be blindsided. I also forgot that two weeks notice means just that- you have to be at work for two more weeks! I could have left in a blaze of glory, but it just would have been awkward to come in on Monday morning, ya know??

Now that it's done, and I know I am moving on, the sentimental part of me is taking over. I have a really hard time with lasts! (I saw a bumper sticker once that said "Why are we sentimental about things that sucked the first time?" It made me stop and think) My last staff meeting, my last team meeting, my last student yelling at me (ok, I wasn't sentimental at all about that!) the last halloween (my office goes ALL OUT).

I have also been surprised at the number of people who have stopped by my desk to tell me how nice it was to work with me. Our director even welled up when he announced I was leaving. It is all really nice, and I appreciate people doing it, but I just keep thinking- the last two years of my life would have been so much better if people would have told me nice things while I was working there. So many days I rushed to my car at the end of the day so I could cry all the way home because of what a bad day I had. Just one person saying a nice thing would have totally changed that.

It made me think- do I wait to tell people how much they mean to me or how they have helped me? Do I hold back on complements? It made me remember to focus more on RIGHT NOW and be aware of the people around me. It is so easy to lift someone's day, why not do it more?

Things I Do That I Know I Shouldn't

1) Clean my ears out with a Q-tip. I've heard countless doctors tell me not to do this. But sometimes, I just feel the need!!

2) Climb into bed after taking a shower. This is 100% guarenteed to make me late, and yet, I do it at least 3 times a week. The world is so cold, and my bed is so warm!

3) Eat half of the cookie dough before I make cookies. I know it will make my stomach hurt. I know later I will wish I had more cookies to eat. But when it's sitting there in the bowl in all it's uncooked glory, it just has to go in my mouth!!

4) Put things off. I know I will feel better when I make that annoying phone call/fold the load of laundry/clean out the fridge, but for some reason, I just keep putting it off!

Links I Love Today

I'm half happy/half sad I didn't find this site before my wedding. I love love love the bouquets SO much, but the cost of a small one is more than I spent on centerpiece and bouquet flowers!

I'm making these rolls right now. My favorite part is where they "jump out of the bowl and helps itself to a gin and tonic". LOL!! But seriously, they rise FAST!

I love Kendi. She talks about living in Texas a lot, if I ever find out where, I might go visit and try to convince her to be my new BFF.

I need to buy some boots. But once again, my expensive taste is not meeting my budget. I'll have to start eBay-ing. You know, for the one week every year it's cold enough to wear boots...

I couldn't have said it better myself!

I sent Steve to the store for ice cream two nights ago (I had gone to the gym, so of course I needed to replenish the calories I burned as quickly as possible!). He came home with ice cream AND Oreos.

Love him!

Design Your Life... Or at Least Your Cubicle

Work has been a bit blah as of late. Except for the power outage yesterday, that was exciting. So I have been thinking of ways to make my day more exciting. So far the best thing I can think of is to decorate my cubicle (it turns out starting a fight club at lunch is frowned upon, who knew?). I've been trying to find ideas, so far the coolest things I have found are here and here.

I think these might all be a little far out, even if I would love to feel like I was in the jungle all day. I might have to invest in some cubicle wallpaper though.