That's not how I thought it was going to happen.

I have been following a blog by a lady named Jo, who lives in the UK. Her blog is called

Simply Being Mum and she does this great thing called "No Waste Tastes Great". Check out her site and read this post about her Friday routine. She has found a way to greatly reduce the amount of food her family wastes each week and it inspired me quite a while ago. It is amazing how much food we waste without even realizing it. Some of you may be on top of your fridges and pantries but I was NOT and I HATE throwing food in the garbage because it has spoiled in the fridge or on the counter. And do you know what I hate even MORE than throwing food away? Cleaning out the produce drawers in the fridge after things have.... what's the word I'm looking for? Hmmm... How about "deteriorated". I can handle a lot of things, but cleaning out produce slime simply grosses me out.

Anyways, since I discovered Jo's blog, I have been more conscious of what I buy, how I use it and when I use it. My ultimate goal is to have a menu planned for the week and then shop weekly and only buy for the menu. I am close, but not quite there. (I should add in here, that the boys are not a fan of this new shopping strategy, because as a result of my new awareness, there is very little "easy" food in the house. They are slowly adapting and I'm trying to ease the pain by baking a little bit more.)

All of this fits in to my whole quest to travel farther down the minimalism road and simplify our lives as much as possible, but I have found myself getting stuck a bit and hitting the minimalism wall, so to speak. Well, I was forced to move forward today when the shelves in my fridge collapsed. Yes. Collapsed. As in, big noise, things crashing, the door popping open and jars rolling around the floor while the dogs moved in for the kill. You don't know how thankful I was that my fridge was CLEAN and had nothing rotting in it! (I did a big fridge purge and clean before we went on our trip and I have kept it up since we have been home.) I took everything out and surveyed the problem. It appears that the center post that holds the shelves in place let go of the back of the fridge. Upon further inspection, the top screw in that post actually broke off inside the fridge and I can't fix it.

Ugh.

Or is it?

Looking at the stuff on the floor around me, I figured it would all fit back in the fridge without the shelves and we would be A-ok. When we lived in England for all those years, we lived just fine with our tiny little British fridge. (If you've ever been in a British person's house in Britain, you know what I'm talking about. And if you haven't been in a British person's house in Britain, think of a very basic, very small bar fridge.) Therefore, we will be just fine without our much bigger North American style fridge. So, instead of paying someone to come and fix my fridge I am going to use it as incentive to step up my goal of menu planning/shopping and finishing each week with a clean and nearly empty fridge.

FYI - I found this fantastic guide to storing fruit and veg and it has helped a lot with how I use my fridge. Check it out... Fruit and Veg Storage