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I’m trying to decide which is worse – vacuuming or cleaning out the refrigerator. Today, I decided to do the latter and am pretty certain that it would qualify as worse. I know that I hate doing it. My grandmother always used to tell us grandchildren, as we helped her clean the table after dinner, that her mother told her, regarding leftovers, to “put them in the refrigerator and I’ll throw them out next week.” Right. Only my leftovers manage to stay in there for a month or two because I hate to clean the refrigerator. But I think I already said that. Somehow, whatever was leftover from Monday’s dinner a month ago, gets pushed to the back behind Sunday’s roast beef of two weeks ago, which is, of course, behind Saturday’s quiche from last weekend that I plan on freezing when I finish dividing and freezing the Papa Murphy’s pizza from yesterday – which is on top of three opened jars of apple butter. You are probably thinking, “Three opened jars of apple butter?” Well, you must realize that there is a good explanation for three opened jars of apple butter. The first jar got lost behind the mayonnaise and so my husband assumed there was no apple butter and opened a new one. Then, my son came home and found some homemade biscuits in the freezer that heated up quite nicely in the oven and he had to have apple butter to ladle over melted butter on hot biscuits! He couldn’t find apple butter jar number one or two and so he assumed there was no opened apple butter and opened a third jar. Now you might ask why he would be able to find a third jar of apple butter to open. Right? The answer is simple. Our lodi apple tree was full and so I made three cases of apple butter. It is therefore conceivable that family and friends could contribute a dozen or so more opened jars to my refrigerator shelves if they are too timid to rummage through the four opened jars of pickled peppers (call me Peter Piper), the two bags of blueberry bagels, rows of condiments and spreads and the plastic refrigerator dishes balancing on top of one another. I suspect that my penicillin mold experiment that is my last piece of flatbread and the black fungus incubator that once was corn might be a deterrent, however, one would think that moving things around with a wooden spoon to avoid contact, could reveal at least one errant jar of apple butter. Now, I really can’t explain the saran wrapped baglet of two tablespoons of leftover fried okra. I’m sure that I had plans for it, but now I forget what that was. The same goes for the one ounce bite of salmon from the other night. I’m on a diet and I’m trying to cut portions. I’m sure that I saved that for lunch one day – maybe to go with the two tablespoons of okra. The wrinkled cherries are another matter. I just forgot about them. And they were good too. Oh well. As I scrubbed away at the porcelain walls, it occurred to me that my refrigerator is a picture of life. We have all of this stuff in us that needs to be thrown out and we know it…but it is no fun and we hate dealing with it. That refrigerator dish of anger at a co-worker gets stacked on top of another full of resentment toward a family member. A baggie of materialism is shoved behind a larger box of jealousy which is beside a whole row of jars of past indiscretions. Even those little bitty saran wrapped nuggets of smugness and complaint get kept for some later use. For the past five weeks I’ve been participating in a study by Nancy Leigh Demoss called “Seeking Him” and it is slowly helping me to toss out all of the moldy leftovers in my life. I’m starting to feel pretty clean and sparkly inside and I’m not missing any of those things that I’ve been hanging onto for so long. It is amazing how cluttered we allow our lives to become. It is a good thing to take time out, on a regular basis, to assess where we are and what we need to get rid of. And it is a good thing to keep a box of baking soda – scripture – opened to keep away the odor of bad attitudes!! Yep. Cleaning refrigerators and lives is about equally appealing. However, there’s nothing like that glistening, white, neatly arranged interior of a newly disinfected frig and there’s certainly nothing like the joy of a life back on track. I hope that I have encouraged you in your life journey but I can assure you that I won’t be offering to help you with your frigidaire!   |
This week I went to my favorite kitchen store to replenish
the food storage containers that seemed to have disappeared.
Where in the world do they go, other than the same mysterious place as the missing socks. Then, I decided to
clean out the fridge. I found all the missing storage containers,
some with recognizable contents, some not. Still haven’t solved the mystery of the missing socks.
Great analogy to life. I’ll be passing this along.
Thanks for the inspiration to clean out my fridge. I don’t know how I could have so many containers of fermented fruit (which I threw out of course.) Speaking of inspiration, I find certain lines from stories, poems, or songs give me a boost when doing various household chores. I have a book by Gene Stratton Porter published in 1918 about a single woman who finally has her own farm and is about to marry the love of her life. He comes to the field where she is and she tells him to go in the house for something to eat. Even though I read the book decades ago, this bit comes to mind when my refrigerator is needing a good clean: “She was sending him to chicken perfectly cooked, barely cold, melon preserves, pickled cucumbers, and bread like that which had for years taken a County Fair prize each fall; butter yellow as the goldenrod lining the fences, and cream stiff enough to stand alone. Also, he would find neither germ nor mold in her pantry and spring house…” This makes me thankful I even have a refrigerator and motivates me to keep it sparkling clean!
What a great thought for the day! Like my refrigerator, I know I too am full of too much old junk that needs to be thrown out. Unfortunately, it’s a lot easier to clean out the frig than it is my negative thoughts & attitudes. But I’m going to work on it!
Or, have a great niece AND a grandson move in with you. The containers disappear and are NOT found in the fridge! I even have a container that is not mine that says “Matt’s lunch” on it. Who’s Matt? Maybe he can clean my fridge?
Cute! 🙂 You are registered!