Pantry, Plastic Bags, and Macaroni and Cheese Recipe

 Today's project: 

The Hall Pantry

We downsized 4 years ago and now I have a super small kitchen but that is OK. 

Because I hate to cook. 

But I love to store things! 

So we converted a hall closet into a pantry. 

To store food and hundreds of plastic bags. 

Here are the before and after pictures:

 Here are all the bags I pulled out of the bottom of my closet! 

What do I do with all of these bags???!!!

I want to write something deep and meaningful here about my organizing. How it is so important to think about what is really important in life . . . and a bunch of plastic bags are definitely NOT important! But it is time for the High School Open house and I really need to get ready to go and I still have to think of SOMETHING to fix for dinner! Ugh. How about some of my famous Macaroni and Cheese!

Instead of writing or cooking, I will paste an excerpt from one of the old Brady Christmas Classics. Included is my fine Mac N' Cheese Recipe. Enjoy!!

The Year There Was No Christmas (Card) – 2003

     Once upon a time, there was a nice lady who loved to send out Christmas Cards and long, lengthy, boring, letters to anyone she'd every met in her life (the guy who bags her groceries, the garbage man, the local librarian, even the receptionist at her doctor's office, not to mention the doctor, nurses, and custodians). 

     For twenty years, she faithfully wrote letters each Christmas, stamped and addressed 2432 envelopes, and hauled them off to the post office in her mini-van. The letters got longer and longer and sillier and sillier and then one day she thought “what can I write about this year and who wants to hear from me anyway?” 

     And truth be told, once the holidays were over only two people who sent Christmas cards even mentioned missing the letter (one was her mother and the other was actually a thank you note). Well, she decided it was for the best that she had not sent them out after all. Life seemed to go on as always; and yet, she could not shake the feeling, that something important was missing in her life.    

     Then she discovered that the writing of the annual Christmas letter was more for her than anyone that might read it or line their birdcage with it. So two full months into the New Year, she sat down and contemplated . . . what had happened to her family during 2003 that would be worth writing about in a Christmas letter?

     And then the answer came as clear as the words on this paper . . . if she held it as far from her eyes as she could because now that she was in her forties, she couldn't really read anything unless it was a full arms length away. Oh, the answer! Nothing! Really, the answer was nothing. She turned to her journal and realized that she had written nothing (substantial) for most of 2003. Seriously, there were only three entries and one of them said this:

“Tonight I ruined dinner and it was Kraft Macaroni and Cheese! How can a forty-one year old woman ruin Mac n' Cheese? I mean here it is a Sunday afternoon and I am thinking, 'Hey, it's been awhile since I cooked dinner for my family. Why don't I cook tonight? It'll be a real treat!' And, so I pulled out three boxes of Man n' Cheese. (We have a large family.) OK, I think to myself, it's ½ cup of milk per box, right? So, I boil the noodles, drain them, and add the cheese packet(s), butter, and milk. And then my husband, kindly, suggests that it looks like it's a little soupy! And then, I realize as I am throwing the boxes away and glancing at the directions that #1 it was ¼ cup of milk per box and b) one of the boxes still had noodles in it! Oops! So, I set the pan of cooked noodles aside, boiled the other noodles, and then added them to the extra large soggy milky noodles. At last our nice Sunday dinner of Mac n' Cheese soup and canned green beans was ready. We all sat down to eat our somewhat bland meal and I felt stupid. However, the kids were very nice and said things like “ummm ... this is kind of good mom. It's not that bad really!” Shortly after, when my daughter, Katrina, was cleaning up the kitchen, she noticed an unopened packet of cheese . . . and kindly pointed it out to me. So, with no further ado here is the recipe everyone has been waiting for:

Shelly's Version of Mac n' Cheese

3 Boxes of Macaroni (boil one of the boxes of noodles later – while the first two are soaking in the extra milk juices)

1 ½ cubes of butter

1 ½ cups of milk (twice the called for amount)

2 packets of cheese (throw the other one away)

Instructions: boil 2 of the boxes of noodles, drain water, add the butter and far too much milk, and only 2 of the cheese packets, let soupy mixture sit and get cold while you boil the other box of noodles, drain if you want to and add to the fat, soggy noddles, serve with a smile.

Note from the chef: It's really gross and your family probably won't care if you don't cook again for another two or three months!

     But who wants to read a Christmas letter about cooking dinner? So she thought harder and a flood of memories from so long ago in 2003 came flooding back. She thought about the time her husband, John, turned his library book in a day late. That was a rough day. Poor John, so busy working all day and serving tirelessly in the church all evening. He quietly dreams of golfing and coming home to a hot meal or at least some properly prepared macaroni and cheese. 

Well . . . there you go! 

I'd better start boiling the water for dinner!

And this about sums up how I feel:

Sugar, Hoarding, Butterfingers, and ADD

     I have started a new challenge! It isn't to get into shape, eat right, or exercise. Although, that is a constant challenge and goal of mine :/. This challenge is to work on a project for an extended period of time. The project I chose was to organize my home! We moved into our current home a little over 4 years ago and I still have boxes that I moved from the house we lived in for 7 years that may have been unopened since the house we lived in before that one for 14 years. I digress.

     So, I am going through a box or a shelf or a cupboard EVERY day. The other part of my challenge is to write/blog about my journey! I want to explore my feelings. And answer questions about myself, like: Why did I feel it was necessary at the end of every school year to sort my children's used school supplies into bins and then put them on a shelf? Did I really need 1000 partially used pencils? I am afraid I might be a hoarder, an organized hoarder though! But maybe I am not. But maybe I am. Maybe not though. 

     I also might have ADD. Probably not. But maybe. No. But, every time I start to organize something, in the past anyway, I would get sidetracked. But not now. I am staying focused! And I will get this done! 

     So, today I wanted to write about my experiences this week but I couldn't concentrate enough to write about it. Instead, I read through some of my old short stories. Here is an essay I wrote a while back that touches a bit on my sugar hoarding. Included is an excerpt from the infamous Butterfinger Brady Family Christmas Letter circa 1997. Enjoy!

     According to my mother, my sugar hoarding began when I was quite young. She used to find half eaten Snickers bars in my sock drawer, jelly beans under my bed, and months after the holiday, ear-less chocolate Easter bunnies hidden in the back of my closet. “But I want to save it for later,” I would plead with her as I followed her to the garbage can.

      Growing up, I loved the holidays. Each of them came with their own tradition to satisfy the sweet tooth. Halloween was always a favorite. I cried when I was told I was simply too old to go trick-or-treating; but my husband put his foot down when he said “Shelly, enough is enough!”

     I don't always write my newsletters in December, one year I tried a new tactic:

     

     October 1997

     Dear family and friends,

     I was so stressed out by last year's Christmas letter that I decided never to do one again. In it's place we are proud to present the Brady's First Annual Halloween Letter.

     Happy Halloween! 

     It's that warm fuzzy time of year when the children are busy thinking of all that candy, costumes, jack-o-lanterns, and more candy. And I'm busy buying bags of candy to give out to cute little trick-or-treaters, hiding the bags in my closet, eating the entire bags in my closet, buying more, eating more, getting depressed, gaining weight, getting chocolate migraines, major PMS, and enough acne to compete with any adolescent. 

     It's a special time of year at the Brady house. We spend quality time together thinking up new Halloween candy rules. I explain to the children how bad candy really is for their teeth and tummies and this is why mommy helps them eat it, because I love them so much. One year, the children picked out their ten favorite candies and the rest went in a “family jar.” Another year, the children could eat all the candy they wanted as long as they gave mommy all the Butterfingers. “Butterfingers are especially bad,” I told them. Unfortunately, as they got older, they began to wise up to their mother.      
     This was always a good time to have another baby. I just loved to dress up the baby and take her trick-or-treating. People are always cooing and saying, “Oh, how cute, here have an extra treat. Here's one for mom, too.” Are these people nuts? Do they really think I'm giving this candy to my six-month old? But it's all right with me. “We'll take a Butterfinger;” I smile, “they are her favorite.”          
     One Halloween, years ago, when Katrina was just two or three, we trick-or-treated half the night away. My poor little toddler was so tired. “Mommy,” she cried, “my feet hurt. Can we please go home?” “Come on Katrina,” I said, “just four more blocks. Don't cry. You can do it! Now, ring that doorbell, smile, and say 'trick-or-treat'.”

     John asks me why I don't just buy a bag of candy instead of begging from the neighbors and stealing from the children. He has no idea . . . how many bags of candy I have bought. I am a sick woman. I need therapy. Read between the lines, friends. This letter is a desperate cry for help.

      That letter, written many years ago, inspired one friend on my Christmas card list to send me a box of butterfingers, which I promptly hid in my sock drawer.

   

     Well there you go! Blog entry number one! And the project of the week: organizing one bookshelf. I shall now attempt to post a before and after picture!

I did it! I posted a picture! Welcome to the 21st Century Shelly! (FYI - I am talking to myself here.)