9.9.12 Kitchen Cupboard Cleanout

Well, one thing leads to another.  Katie asked me for the recipe of her favorite chicken and wild rice casserole dish, the one she often requested for her birthday meal throughout the years. I opened the cabinet above the microwave, where I store cookbooks, phone books, and assorted other things, and was struck by this:

The inside of both cabinet doors were full of taped on pieces of paper with phone numbers..

• "moms in touch" group that I belonged to when the kids were small
• Matt's numbers
• Emily's friends
• Katie's babysitting families
• Zach, no number listing for you.  All in your head, no need to write them down likely!
• The poison control hotline number (for which I did actually dial twice, for Emily both times! Once when I was baking, I left the bottom spice drawer open for her to play in.  She was a toddler.  She got the bottle of almond extract open and drank some.  I knew it contained alcohol, so I dialed!  She never did show impairment, must have tasted worse than it smelled.  The other episode, she ate a silica gel pack out of a shoe box!)
• Clinic phone numbers for physicians who no longer practice
• School numbers for schools no one attends
• The number for the substitute teacher hotline

Clearly, even though I cleaned the cupboards now and again, I never really paid attention to what was on the doors. You get the idea!  I took down all the scraps of paper.  Some of these numbers are from 15 years ago.  Today everyone puts their contacts in their cell phone.  Opening the cupboard made me realize I need to clean the cupboard.  Cookbooks are strewn all over the kitchen counter top  right now.  Mauri and Katie, I found the pampered chef cookbooks that have recipies for the covered stoneware baker that you have. Katie, I have a cookbook for the Tupperware Stack Cooker dad just got for you!  I only use it to melt marshmallows and butter for rice krispie treats, and steam vegetables, but you can take a look at the cookbook another time.

Addendum...job complete.  Other observations are:

• I need to throw away pizza coupons more often.
• Can't remember the last time I lit something with an actual match, rather than one of those bic lighter tools...but my cupboard had several books of matches and a box of kitchen matches.
• No one in our family needs to by cough drops for the next 20 years. I had a rubbermaid container filled with about 20 bags of every cough drop/throat drop you can imagine.  
• Need to decorate a cake like a menorah, with candles, a carrousel horse, or a train?  See me.  I have the books to show you how to do it!
• Need a specialty recipe for Bisquick, Campbells Soup, Velveeta, Philidelphia Cream Cheese?  See me.  I've got the book!
• Need a recipe book for the Ronco Rotisserie cooker, the Magic Bullet, or the Tupperware Stack Cooker, or Pampered Chef pans? See me.  I've got the book.
• I need a better way to store the recipies I'm printing off food network, like a binder with plastic page protectors. They are usually good and I make the recipe more than once.  

Mission complete.  Cupboard clean~!  Even better, I just realized that in the last 2 months, I have cleaned our kitchen pantry floor to ceiling, and all but one remaining cupboard.  It's a good feeling.