When they leave their condos for long periods, some folks clean out their refrigerator completely and shut off the power to it. We don’t. We’ve been told that refrigerators last longer if they aren’t put through the trauma of being shut off and turned on again with hot and cold extremes. So we will try to use up the food that’s currently filling the unit, but ketshup, mustard, salad dressings, and other staples will be left in the refrigerator and some items will be in the freezer.

I’m think that it might be good to store non-food stuff in the freezer or refrigerator. Aspirin, perfume, vitamins, cold products, even shampoo, cream rinse, and liquid detergents might do well in the refrigerator. We’ve found those items are affected by heat and leaving them in the condo shortens their shelf-life. (With liquids like shampoo, they tend to “thicken.” Hopefully that’ll mean we’ll have more success keeping items from being wasted when we come back in the fall.

When we return in September or October, we’ll make sure we have a frozen pizza and maybe some coffee to tide us over until we can get to the store.

John, who’s our cook, is trying to use up all of the perishables. Between now and when we leave, we’ll try to make sure everything is consumed. John was looking into the refrigerator tonight commented that he can now see the inside (back) of it. We’re getting there!