I've found my Zen!

“Usually we think of peace as the absence of conflict, change and turmoil, a state which seems impossible to attain in this ever changing world. But the truth of the matter is that turmoil and conflict are not our enemies. It is through difficulty itself that we find the road to lasting harmony. This is the essence of Zen teaching and Zen practice.

The road to lasting harmony is not a passive state. It is a lifelong practice which must be actively maintained. In scripture it states, "Seek peace and pursue it." This requires dedication, persistence and understanding of what peace truly is. It also requires and mindful attention. These days the stakes are too high not to do this.”

As deep as this sounds, I have found that all it took to find my Zen, was to organize my pantry. A messy pantry for me causes chaos, at 5am as I struggle to make lunches only to find empty boxes in the pantry with no food, therefore forcing an early morning trip to the grocery store. I know, I know I'd be less stressed if lunch was made the night before. On occasion that does happen, however sometimes I just don't get around to having time to do it. My sleep is precious to me so if my time is consumed by, showers, laying out clothes, TV shows being watched and autographs being signed, sometimes I just don't have time to make lunches before I go to bed. And seriously, who takes the last granola bar and doesn't throw away the box, anyway? I mean we just went grocery shopping, I would have bought more granola bars if I had seen the empty box and known we were out. I can answer that question with 1 word, BOY! Besides being out of food and not knowing, I also tend to have an abundance of particular items. I mean, how many boxes of Macaroni and Cheese do we really need? There are only three of us living in this house, and if you opened up our pantry you’d think we lived off of the 12 boxes of Macaroni and Cheese and the 6 boxes of Jiffy Cornbread mix. What a waste of money, because it was all buried in my pantry and I didn't even know it was there.

So I am proud to say that the crazy that was once my pantry is no more! Peace within me has been found and order has once again been restored. Yes, for it to stay this neat and organized it will take some work, at least in my household, but we will prevail.

So this mission all began with a trip to IKEA. You have to love IKEA and all of its very inexpensive wonderful items, yet when you are a shop-aholic, you have to be very careful and do what I did and purchase a large piece of furniture, even though that piece of furniture was originally was sent us on our mission to IKEA in the first place. So I guess the impulsive part was buying canisters for the pantry, but hey come one, I had good reason, did you even look at that before picture? So with our very large piece of furniture, a throw rug (Did you really think I would just pass up the $15 throw rug that would look perfect in front of the futon in our game room as it matched perfectly? No way $15 for a rug that’s, well a great deal, and did I mention it matched perfectly?) and several really cool jars in tow I made the 45 minute trek home to begin my personal cleansing.

Although it is still not the prettiest pantry in the world, hey we are real people who eat real food, and I'll never have a pantry as pristine and proper as the one in my previous blog, but I can try. This pantry is very organized and represents us, so deal with it! The top shelf is my baking shelf, where all the cake, cookies, jello and such can be found. The next shelf down is my pasta and rice shelf followed by my canned goods and all of misc pantry items. The next shelf of course is the snack shelf and finally the paper goods. So now I know exactly what I have and what I will need the next time I go shopping. Isn’t life just grand?

I'd like you to know that no actual food items were removed from the pantry, everything from teh before picture was put back in ( I think I removed 1 bag of stale chips, the other bag of chips was poored into this really cool air tigh container, no more stale chips!) The only things removed were the boxes that housed the snack food, as they were replaced with the nice cute IKEA jars. It just goes to show how a little bit of organization can give you so much more room. I was a few jars and organizers short, but hey what are you going to do? Next time I go to IKEA I will just have to pick up a few more, a great excuse to have to go back right?

So doesn't the before pictures remind you of the show, the messiest house in the country, or whatever it is called? I'm a bit embarrassed, but hey it's a crazy life, and for the record, my house is usually very clean and organized, don’t judge me by my crazy now clean pantry. LOL



BEFORE CLEANING:

AFTER CLEANING: