Pantries and Preparedness. Re organising and rotating....

This week preparedness is REALLY in the news with a cyclone coming in towards Queensland and due to hit early tomorrow. We are not anywhere near this thankfully!  But Bridge lives just about the most affected area and we have friends living right where is expected to come in. Aly is inland from the ocean but could experience a lot of effects as well.  I hope you all will be ok and am thinking of you so much!
There is a sense of nervousness and the news is covering the developments.
I notice that QLD and the local councils have good advice and websites full of really excellent information.  If you are a reader living anywhere near this cyclone I hope you are listening to updates and preparing as much as possible.  I can't really imagine how stressful it would be waiting for this to hit land. I feel quite nervous about it from a good distance away!

Now to the last week...

My goal for the week was to rotate, organise and clean out my kitchen pantry cupboards. The week before I had started  moving my row of big glass jars in the kitchen as they were getting too much sunlight. Light is just no good for storage although I love a sunlit house.  

It took me ages to figure out what to do.  Then it hit me to completely empty my closed in kitchen cupboards and use them to store my jars and contents.  And I got baskets to sit on my long shelf which is under the island bench... and all my canned and packaged goods would go into those. The baskets greatly reduce light but anyway tins and packets would be fine there. 

This meant turning the kitchen on it's head basically.

Last week we were saying how things get worse before they get better. This was a mess unlike any other! haha I tried to do it in manageable stages but several times I bit off more than I could chew. 

And I bet you can predict what happened when my entire kitchen floor was covered in food.  I got visitors!   I can see that this is funny now but I didn't think so at that moment! 

Eventually I set up baskets and labelled them according to their contents and things that I tend to keep a lot of.  Now I can see exactly how much I have of each thing.  All tinned soup is together, all tined fruit is together and so on.

Fake chalkboard labels!

Before I was guilty of buying up on a good special and putting it away where ever it would fit. This was made worse by the usual needing to unpack the usual groceries and get on with the day, cooking dinner etc. Consequently as I cleaned out my cupboards I had a heap of surprises!  

In the end I washed all my shelves, re lined them and started from scratch. 

I now have the really big baskets that I got going last year and these contain categories like long life milk, powdered milk, pasta, tea and coffee, dried fruit... 

These were my side of the road find shelves from last year. They hold a lot of stuff! 

And my row of baskets under the bench which are soups, packet mixes, tinned fruit and so on. 

These are my new baskets, I have a row of 9.  I got them on a special at Big W.

My labels look like chalkboard labels but this is just a trick. I found that black cardboard and a chalk board pen or white out (white correction pen) looks exactly the same!  I love them!  You can use this trick when making labels, signs etc and the only time it isn't suitable is when you actually want to be able to rub the chalk out!

Everything in jars is now behind closed doors.

I have collected jars for years. Most have gone from op shops.

The currently open packets of things go into a jar.

I have twenty of these huge coffee jars that my Mum's friend saved for me.

After my kitchen cupboards were all done I had a few hours going through things in the cellar. A lot of food that needs using in the next months came upstairs into my new system.  I have a lot of work to do in the cellar to get it organised as well! 

Getting to a stage where we have good supplies took a while but it would all be wasted if we don't manage it and keep it rotating.  I think the work I have put in during the week will really help me with this. The basket system could just as easily be boxes and also work in a built in pantry or inside cupboards. Grouping things together helps to keep track of how much you have in each category.

I think putting a few things out of place really easily leads to a snowball effect and it becoming a major mix up! 

Aside of the work on the kitchen I also got a basket for my bike and now can transport a few things easily.

And I put up 100 m of solar fairy lights in the back garden. They work so well. They are really pretty, cost nothing to run and illuminate the yard.  

So that was my week! I am really pleased with it but then I think of how much more I have to do!  

Big or small things all add up!  I will be working on the cellar trying to get it as organised and labelled. 

How are you going with building up your pantry and improving your preparedness?

Next week we have a post by Glenda with some money saving food storage tips. Having had a sneak peek I have already used some of Glenda's tips.  

Have a great week. If you are anywhere near this cyclone please take every care.  xxx