Tales from the 'Use it or Lose it Shelf'

I was finding that our weekly grocery shopping days would always have a fridge clean out attached to them that was taking up too much of my time. We were also having the problem of a lot of waste going directly into the green cart for composting.

With a large family, and a desire to stretch our pennies, I thought "There has got to be a better way".

One day, it occurred to me that a change of approach might serve us better. When we replaced our fridge, creating more usable space, I designated one of the shelves the 'Use it or Lose it Shelf".

Everything that is near expiry date, or left overs, or that would otherwise be relegated to the farthest recesses of the fridge, never to be found again, until it had reached 'science-project' status, goes on this shelf.

We keep it there, because in a pinch, if we need to figure out something for dinner, we can immediately see what needs to be used up.

There are lots of websites out there that allow us to punch in the ingredients we have, and then it'll spoon feed us a recipe that will help us use those ingredients. Getting the kids involved can really work out well too. Helps them to learn cooking skills, and also problem solving.

This morning, the shelf had broccoli  and grape tomatoes on it. So our budding chef, 'The Planner', chose to make an omelette. Some eggs, and cheese and butter later, and Voila! What you see in the picture at the top of this post was born.

One less offering for the green cart!

Things we never thought we'd say (And then we had kids)

We have some pretty eccentric monkeys in our zoo. There are five of them, which almost never leaves us at a loss for strange goings on at our house. So keeping that in mind, we often have to say things that we never ever imagined would come out of our mouths.
Since someone ought to get a laugh out of it, here are snippets of our 12 years as parents. You might want to put that drink down now, and imagine trying to say this with a straight face:


"Gram, is there a procedure for cleaning a child's eye after he has peed in it?" (Josh was a few days old when he took advantage of an open diaper during a change. Chalk it up to being rookie parents)

"Please don't stand on the refrigerator."

"The contents of your diaper are not for painting with."

"Stop biting my sock!"

"Please don't lick the baby."

"Take the Marshmellow out of your nose."

"Honey, we don't tear the wings off flies and take them for walks. They don't like it."

"No, I'm not going to kiss your butt better".

"Sit up please. Your head is too close to the toilet water."

"Yes, I know you are done with them for the year. No, you may not burn your school books."

"Please don't lick the window."

"Spit out that worm. Wait. How many have you eaten?"

"No running with scissors."

"Hand over the diaper stash."

"You need to put on clothes BEFORE we leave the house. Yes. Underwear too."

"Fine. Oatmeal for a third meal today. Just eat SOMETHING."

"You need to stop drinking the bath water."

"Don't lick my arm" (Are we sensing a theme here?)

(On the umpteenth time being asked about 'what's for dinner')  "Frog legs and Purple Ketchup."

" Get down off the __________ I don't have time in my schedule for an emerg trip today." (Can you tell this one took on many forms?)

"No, I do not want to hold your booger."





Hope you found this fun, and that you add a few of your own at the bottom of this post!