What is Lurking in the Back of The Cupboard

About five years ago, I installed new flooring in my kitchen. At the time, my plumbing for the dishwasher was about 4 inches below the floor level so when I installed the dishwasher a few years before that, it was a nightmare.

When installing the floor, I had an installer help me with the edges while I did the main part of the kitchen. He told me that he didn't feel good about leaving the shut off below the floor level. He helped me bring the plumbing for the dishwasher up above the floor but that meant that I had to drill through the back of the cupboards to get the drain to the sink. 

It was the only way to do it above level. I have very deep cabinets and now with the pipes going through them, it is hard to get to the back. I used to be very good at rotating the cans in the back but as you know, the last few years with everything, I just grabbed stuff from the front of the cabinets and use it and try to keep up with the crazy life. 

Every day in the past two weeks or so, I have been trying to go through one drawer, shelf, or cupboard to get rid of stuff I am not using and now that all the girls will be gone, I don't need as much stuff. 

I am also trying to use up all the food in the cupboards that I can't eat and use them while Princess Five is still home. I have been doing well at cleaning out the freezer and kitchen cupboards but those deep lower ones have been very neglected.

Today, I had a very long and frustrating day so I just needed to sit. I still wanted to get something done so I decided to do those lower cupboards while I sat watching a show, I had been working on editing my mom's book digitally for over five hours only to have my computer fry. 

I spent hours trying to fix it and I wasn't able to at all so at that point, sitting watching a movie cleaning out a cupboard was all I could deal with. Having lost all that work and using an ancient computer that won't allow me to get on most websites kept me super upset.

Climbing to the back of the cupboards and pulling out stuff from years ago horrified me. There was a jar of plums that I canned years ago that were scary. I tried to process meat years ago and never dared eat it and thought I had thrown them all out. I found one of those jars there. Lots of fat but it was still sealed and smelled good but I just didn't dare eat it.

The weirdest thing I found was a jar of hot peppers that had somehow had the juice dry up. I have never seen that and hope I never do again. There was hot sauce that instead of red was a orange brown color. There was salad dressing that was cracked at the lid area but was covered with plastic and had dehydrated and was so thick it wouldn't pour.

There were a few bulging cans. There were two cans of pate that were in boxes and when I opened the boxes, the cans were bulging as well as peppers and pineapple. I have seen tomatoes and string beans bulge before along with pineapple but I seriously am so disgusted that these things were in the house. 

If someone had asked me when I last cleaned out that cupboard, I probably would have said a year but I couldn't believe the stuff in there. I have a few bottles of stuff I processed in the basement I probably need to throw out but I have so much on my list that I know I won't be getting to that anytime soon.

Moral of the story, set an alarm for daylight savings every year and clean out the back of the cupboards and get rid of anything old! I have to be happy with cleaning out one drawer at a time as I am still working on my moms stuff and had a huge setback when the publisher decided to have me edit the digital copy of her book. I spent five hours working on 15 pages and then lost it all and now don't have a decent computer.

It is sad that at this point with all that going on and my health problems and Princess Five doing so much for graduation, sterling scholar, musical theater, solo ensemble, and tour etc I am trying to keep positive doing one small thing a day. 

It was so cute when Princess five was saying our family prayer tonight when she gave gratitude for my Panasonic computer and all the things from Panasonic that have helped our family over the years. I won the computer about ten years ago and my cameras as well. They have been such a blessing and I use them daily. Click here to see a post about that. I am so blessed to have such a great computer and it has lasted long and well. I was thrilled with Princess's prayer and that she could see to be grateful over upset about it. 


The night ended on a good note as I have a back up drive and I pray I can find someone to look at the computer but don't think there is much hope for it.  I am grateful that I only lost a few days of work rather than all my pictures and histories etc. 

Life will continue and will be great and I am grateful that I have knowledge of how gratitude works and that I have cupboards full of food, freezers full of food, running water, flushing toilets, cars, healthy kids, education, a phone, home, etc. Truly, I am VERY BLESSED!