Am I crazy? Probably...

On the actions described in this post - I'm going to claim it's due to the fact that I'm a crazy finance person. Or accountant-like person. Either or. I like things in their place. I like a plan. I like knowing what is when and where. You know, like an auditor? :) Except it has NOTHING to do with work. It's life. It's what happens when you have way too much freezer space in your house, combined with not wanting to "waste things", in addition to...going nuts when I open my freezer door and I see THIS:

AHHHH!!! What is in here? How old is it? NO CLUE. And what makes me the most mad is half the time I buy something at the grocery store (perfect example on this one - frozen corn!!) because I think I don't have it and it's lurking in the dark abyss of our deep freeze because I was too lazy to walk in the basement and sift through the mounds of freezing food to locate my bag of frozen corn I didn't need to "waste" $1 at the store. Ok, point taken. It's just $1. But really - I have 5 bags of frozen corn! I mean what person needs that much!?!?! Insanity I say.

Oh and better yet, remember, I cook 30 meals in one day. That means 30 separate freezer bags and/or foil baking dishes with our food for the next month or so. I even have the software that prints off a handy dandy list to hang on your fridge. Have I ever used it? NOPE. So I find myself sifting through the dark abyss of the garage-turned-basement freezer portion of that refridgerator each Sunday looking around for meals to defrost for the week that I thought were there.....AHHHH!! Wasted time. Inefficient processes. I can't stand them!! Maybe it was my calling to be an industrial engineer and I just missed it....or maybe it was my LEAN/Six Sigma training and the process improvement projects I was on in my previous life as a consultant. Either way, I hate inefficiencies with a capital H.

Finally, a glimpse of the minimal space in our kitchen freezer that can't open all the way (annoying)....but yet I have somehow managed to stuff lots of stuff in that I can't find ever. Sweet life.

Insert 35 minutes of my day on Sunday. Armed and dangerous (sweats and a long sleeve shirt were necessary even though it was a gorgeous 70+ degrees out) with my computer, excel and an eye for expiration dates.

I went through everything...in all 3 freezers...put them in different tabs in the same workbook...and BOOM. Knocked it out. Pulled each and everything out. That's how I found out I have 5, yes 5, bags of frozen corn. Guess Jimmy should know what the side dish of choice will be in our house the next few weeks....haha.

Even more disgusting than how weird you are thinking I am because I'm talking about this - I seriously found this bag of frozen breaded chicken that I bought in 2008....when I lived in my condo downtown. So apparently I was cheap enough to take it out of my condo freezer, put it in my parents freezer when my dogs and I were in limbo...and then take it to our house and put it in that freezer. Seriously? Gross and weird. The bag was probably like $6 max. I need to get a life. Anyways, that is gone now (thank goodness frozen stuff doesn't rot or smell) and all the freezers now have a little something that looks like this on the outside of them with a list of everything in it and the "amount". So that would be in pounds for meat or number of bags/items for anything else. 1/2 bag was a common metric...I'm sure that doesn't surprise you though!!

So why did I do this besides the fact I'm a complete crazy person and I just really wanted my husband to look at me like "are you serious?" when I told him he needs to mark stuff off the list when he takes it out of the freezer (ok, let's get real - he doesn't really take stuff out unless I ask him to)? I did it because I just felt like I was wasting money. Buying the same thing at the grocery store that was hidden in my freezer. I felt like I can utilize what I have more and cook from that instead of going to the store and spending more $$. Chances are...if it's in the freezer, that means I got a really good deal on it and it was on sale - so I had the typical impulse that said "I need to buy 15 because if I don't, I will die". Just another waste of money on my part.

There you have it. Call me crazy or call me organized. Either way, I have to say I have already snuck down to the freezer twice after I organized it and breathed a wonderful sigh of relief to see it somewhat organized and feel like I am in "control" of my freezer and it has not overtaken me and my wallet. Is there anyone else out there that has something that just drives them nuts that's kind of kooky? I bet there is..... :)