Organizing the Freezer & Pantry

Since baby Sara was born, we've starting using a large stand-alone freezer in addition to our regular refrigerator/freezer.  Last week after ordering a large amount of groceries, I finally got frustrated enough to organize it.  Then this evening, inspired by my freezer organization, I finally organized our balcony pantry. 

I didn't take any before pictures of our freezer, but it was certainly a mess.  Before turning on the stand-alone freezer, my husband would marvel at my "Tetris" skills as I put away the frozen food in the small freezer section of our refrigerator.  Here are the after pictures:

After we got our last groceries, I was feeling overwhelmed and just left a lot of them on the counter and balcony table:

There was room in the balcony pantry, but it was just such a mess that I didn't know where to put things. 

Before picture of the balcony pantry

I was feeling really overwhelmed at the sheer volume of it all, and I didn't know where to start.  I decided to start with what annoyed me most: for years I'd been wanting to put the aluminum foil closest to the door opening, since I use it more often that the ziplocs.  So, I took everything off that shelf and put it on top of the cabinet.  (I cleaned the top first - man was it dusty!) Then I put it back with the aluminum foil and plastic wrap closest to the door opening.  I threw away the non-zip bags that have been in there for years that we've never used.  I have such a hard time throwing things away, but if we've lived here for 4 years and never used them, they needed to go.  Also, I realized that I had bought aluminum foil when there was actually another roll in the cabinet.  My disorganization led to buying something I already had.

All the aluminum foil/plastic wrap/ziplocs on top of the cabinet.

 

After picture of the foil/plastic wrap/ziploc shelf.

 The next thing that has been annoying me is the disorganization of my Asian sauces.  We cook a lot of Asian food from scratch, because most of the Asian restaurants here are expensive and not that great.  They used to be on the middle shelf, but since they are one of the things I use most frequently, I decided to move them to the top shelf closest to the door opening.  To me, what logically followed was the corn/peas/carrots, spaghetti sauce, beans, and cream of chicken soup. 

Top shelf

 Since I started nursing, I've been eating cereal as a snack pretty frequently.  I never ate cereal much before, so I didn't have a good place to keep it. I've been keeping it on the kitchen counter for months.  I decided this evening to find a place for it in the pantry.  Since the cabinet is so deep, I combined the section for cereal and formula.  After that, I was at a bit of a loss for how to organize the rest.  I ended up just making a fruit section and labeled the rest as "various sauces/seasoning."  I used the bottom section for overflow.  I couldn't believe how much more I was able to fit into the space once it was organized. 

Middle shelf

After picture of the cabinet

After picture of the balcony table (the missing cushion is in the other room)

After picture of the kitchen counter

I left a few things on the kitchen counter, but overall I thought it was pretty good work for one night! 

Packing for Geneva: Clothes for Mom & baby

Packing for a 2-week trip with a 3-month old baby was quite an undertaking.  For this post, I will focus only on clothes for Sara and me.

Before I could begin to figure out what to pack for baby Sara, I had to first transition her wardrobe from newborn to 3-month old. 

1. First, I went through her drawer and took out everything.  
2. Next, I put back in what still fit her.  I chose a few items to keep (the outfit she came home from the hospital in, etc).  I bagged and labeled the other clothes, which I will pass on to a friend having a girl in March.  I also only put in 10 pairs of regular socks, plus 3 pairs of fancy socks.  I took out the lightweight spring hats.
3. Third, I went through all the size 3-6 month clothes to decide what I liked and was seasonally-appropriate.  (Some clothes we received from friends who had babies born in different seasons - some worked, some not.)  
4. Fourth, I put everything in her drawer that I envisioned her wearing for the next 2 months or so.  I used the drawer as my physical limit of how many clothes she would have.  It worked out very well with the clothes I picked out.

 

5. Finally, I picked out 10 outfits for her to wear in Geneva (with a plan to do laundry over the weekend).

 I packed a short-sleeved white onesie for each long-sleeved shirt, so that her shirt wouldn't ride up and show her belly/make her cold.  I packed a 10 pairs of socks and 10 sleepers.  At the last minute, I packed two zip-up jackets that she ended up wearing a lot, because it was chilly in the cafeteria.

And of course, her winter coat and hat:

Since I'm writing this after our trip, I can also comment on how my packing worked out.  First, I ended up not doing laundry, because it was just too much trouble.  Sara pretty much never spits up, so her dirty clothes only had drool and maybe a few drops of milk on them.  I felt a little bit bad having her wear dirty clothes, but it was just too hard to do laundry.  In the future, I would rather pack at least enough shirts to have a clean one for each day.


Clothes for Mom:

I didn't have time to fully transition my wardrobe from maternity to current/nursing-friendly clothes.  Instead, I just picked out outfits that would work for Geneva, with a focus on layers and nursing-friendly shirts.  I chose navy and cream/white as my neutrals and teal and burnt orange as my colors, to keep it simple and help with mixing and matching. 

These are the outfits I planned:

This is what I ended up wearing:

I planned a mostly casual wardrobe for hanging out on campus while my husband was in class, with a few nicer outfits for touring the city on the weekends.  I also wore my white/gray nursing infinity scarf, even though it didn't really fit into my theme.  I found that the nursing infinity scarf and the traditional nursing cover I made worked equally well.  Since coming home, I have ordered a navy nursing infinity scarf, which will work better with my wardrobe.

I tried to be somewhat minimalistic (for me) with shoes and accessories.  Although I brought a few different scarves, I brought only one pair of earrings and two pairs of shoes.  Sara has started grabbing and pulling, so I can't wear dangly earrings or necklaces unless I am out without her, so I just didn't bring any.  This was a huge change for me, since I love dangly earrings and necklaces and normally bring several with me while traveling.  I also brought only snowboots (which I wore on the airplane) and slip-on walking shoes (which I used both as indoor slippers and around campus).  It was such a blessing that the cafeteria was in the same building as our room, so I could just wear the walking shoes Mon-Fri.  It was so nice taking Sara in the stroller to meals without having to put on our winter coats.

I discovered quickly that my teal and brown batwing shirts were by far the best for nursing in public, because they have a v-neck that can be pulled down, instead of having to pull my shirt up and worry about my stomach showing/getting cold.  I rearranged from my original plans to wear those two shirts every Saturday and Sunday, when we were traveling.

Overall, I feel like I really did well at packing for both of us for this trip.

I didn't really take and "outfit" pictures, but here are a few where you can see our outfits: