This weekend my fiancee Brad and I completed his move into my home.  We had been preparing for the transition for several months and thought we had covered all the bases.

The first and most traumatic for me was to make room in my closet. Making room in your heart is one thing but closet space is a serious matter.  I have a large walk in closet and the first thing I did after my divorce was to spread out all my clothes.  With all that space they looked lonely so I purchased more clothes to fill in the gaps.  Add several pairs of shoes and just a ‘few” new purses and my closet was busting at the seams.  It made me very happy to walk in there and gaze at all things sparkly, pretty and mine!  But love won out and I ended up spending a very long Saturday with my daughter sorting through all the things I thought I couldn’t live without.

She was brutal to say the least.  She began with “Mother, where in the world did you think you are ever going to wear that” to “Hell No! Put that in the trash bag RIGHT NOW!”.  She got even testier as the night went on so I just starting throwing things in the bags before she even had a chance to roll her eyes.  Nine large trash bags later my closet was ready to once again go co-ed.    When Brad saw it all he could say was “You must really love me baby” and all I could say was “You have no idea”.

We moved on from the closet to the other parts of the house and purged and made room for him and his family.  Drawers were cleaned out and cabinets were emptied to make way for the merging of two households.

The one area we forgot all about was the pantry.  My pantry is like my closet, full of all the things I love as well as all the things Michael and his friends love.  I am like my daddy I love to grocery shop.  I don’t make a list I just randomly throw things in my cart that look good.  When I get home I shove it all in the pantry and when I go back to the store I buy all the things I love again. Once it is in the pantry I can never find it again.  If it gets shoved to the back I consider it gone and repurchase. Did I mention that I do not have a Type A personality?  I am not the type of person that lines my soup up in rows according to flavor or organizes my spices alphabetically. I really want to be that type of person and somewhere one of my three junk drawers are little labels for spice bottles.

Today we cleaned out Brad’s kitchen and when we combined the pantries we had more food than our local food bank.

We have three refrigerator/freezers that are full to the point that we have to lean against the door and pray the light goes off inside.  The really funny thing is that tonight was the first night any of us have eaten at home in over a week.  We are always on the go and usually grab a bite while we are out.  What was even funnier was that I went to the grocery store and spend 94.00 dollars on food to make for dinner and for lunches next week.  Hello, my name is Kim and I am apparently addicted to grocery shopping.

So if you see me at Kroger and I have anything in my cart other than wine, milk or bread please escort me to the nearest exit.  Just say NO!