My Original Idea...Maybe

 Picture yourself gearing up for one of those big grocery shopping trips. The ones where you have to get yourself mentally and physically prepared, like some olympic athlete. You probably spend countless hours meal planning, dividing up the shopping list into categories that coordinate with the layout of the store, and double check the ad sales, just so you can be in and out in record time without any hiccups all while still saving as many pennies as possible.

You may even spend a full week at the gym prior to your shopping trip in order to be in peak physical condition. You know you will have to endure pushing carts filled with granola bars, millions of gallons of milk, some "healthy" breakfast alternative like Nutella, and kids who are not quite old enough to be trusted to walk outside the cart without a degrading animal child leash.

Your olympic training also prepares you for that child you will have to wrangle away from the bakery kicking and screaming cause they didn't behave well enough to get the oh-so-coveted complimentary velvet and white chocolate chip cookie that turns their poo insane shades of red, or drag them from those colorfully designed sugar-filled boxes of cardboard cereal some lousy person so conveniently placed at kid level.

You've got the kind of shopping trip I'm talking about in mind, right?

Well...these olympian trips are the only way my poor fridge is ever lucky enough to be cleaned out and wiped down. If you are anything like me you usually have no idea what is lurking in the depths of the fridge collecting mold specimens that would put a 6th grade science experiment to shame. There's always so much stuff crammed in there, that it's impossible to know whatcha got goin' on in there.

As I give the fridge a beloved make-over, my calm and collected demeanor quickly changes to a sleep-deprived and cranky "I'm-stuffed-like-a-sausage-in-these-jeans-cause-my-leggins-aren't-clean" madwoman when I see this...

Leftovers gone wild

Not only is it super obnoxious having to deal with this before I can even put my olympic "winnings" away, but I just can't comprehend how I could let so much food go to waste.

Here's how it happens...

As you joyfully make lunch for the babes (while they tear the apartment to shreds when your back is turned) knowing their affinity for pineapple tidbits, you crack open a can to go with the ever-so-healthy mac n' cheese, or yellow death as my friend likes to call it. During clean-up, you put the remaining tidbits in a tupperware and throw it in the fridge.  That tupperware gets shoved farther and farther back into the abyss, until you are no longer aware of it's existence and mindlessly crack open another can several days later.

As I angrily cleaned each petri dish, still exhausted from the olympic event called grocery shopping, I pondered how I could put an end to this world problem.  In an instant my muddled mind came up with a genius idea:

I can use a dry erase marker on this nifty little do-dad which is attached to the side of the fridge every time I throw leftovers in. Then before I go to make lunch for the boys, or crack open yet another can of green beans, I can check here first to see what's already available.

Then to solve the little problem of "how long has that been there?" I came up with this solution:

Write the contents and date with a grease pencil, which washes off easily with soap and water

This may not be a 100% original idea, and even though Mr Medic doesn't see it as that big a deal, I did come up with it without turning to Pinterest to solve my problem.  Go me!

Now let's see if it actually helps...

TO BE CONTINUED.