Enough!

Hmmm, the out of control pantry.  If you are like me, it's easy to have "my stuff together" everywhere else in my home but the pantry and closets are another story.  I dream of having my pantry perfectly organized, products arranged by size, and use, all labeled, NO sticky fingerprints....something like this...

But let's face it.  I have three boys who touch the pantry doors more often than they touch anything else in the whole house with the exception of the x-box.  No matter how I gripe, or how many times a day I wipe them off, sticky fingerprints are here to stay for a while.  (Someone once told me I will miss them when they are gone but just between you and me, I'm not buying that one.)

So what's it to be...me cleaning and yelling all the time because the yelling is going to happen if even one container is left open...or I find one yucky splotch on the perfectly organized shelf.  You know with organization it's easy to go all or nothing.  When you finally achieve that perfectly organized pantry only to have it rearranged within the hour, with honey drips streaming from shelf to shelf, it makes me want to give up.  I'm not kidding by the way, my family can make a mess in a hurry!  It's tempting to just say you guys win, let's just keep the pantry doors open and with packages and boxes strewn everywhere (lots of them empty because no one can throw them away because they "didn't use them last") tops of the boxes open and gooey messes galore...but that doesn't work either...can you say, cue the ants...!

I have decided that pantries are an opportunity for compromise.  That means I give up the perfectly labeled, uniform look, but I get to keep some special containers and a general shelf location for certain items.  Sound acceptable?  I think acceptable is something I can live with, how about you?  There's a song I like by Switchfoot I think called "Let that be Enough" and I think that phrase applies here.  I want my kids to have access to the pantry so I'm not short order cook and snack maker all day long, so I need to relax... a little. But I think i can also expect that SOME things should have a place (hint shelves over 4 feet)at the same time. 

So here is my pantry today.  I know, I'm really opening up here.  It's not perfect.  It has fingerprints all over the inside of the doors and the lower half of the outside (which I cleaned just yesterday by the way).  It still has some open box lids BUT I can stand to look in it and not have my blood pressure rise at the mess or craziness.  So here's my thought for the day...let that be enough!  It's okay that this picture won't make it onto anyone's Pinterest board!  It's okay that my containers don't have labels...I still know what's in them!  It's okay that the honey jar on the middle shelf seems to have a leak though I know it really doesn't!  It's enough.  I hope you will find your pantry compromise where it is enough for you too! Good luck!