My Jars (for Jen)

I've owed this post to my friend Jen for a while. She's one of the few people I know who's as much of an organizational geek as I am. I couldn't believe it the first time I saw her kitchen cabinets. Every cabinet, heck, even the fridge, was sorted into zones by use and labeled. It was amazing. It was something I would do. But shamefully, hadn't.

Was it kitchen-cabinet envy that sent me on my quest for the perfect storage jars? No, I don't think it was. As I said, it was something I'd do anyway, left to my own devices (anyone who's seen my linen and medicine cabinets can attest to that). But perhaps the idea that someone else would appreciate my efforts helped motivate me. Actually, the real impetus was that I started buying more whole foods in bulk (see the Momnivore for more on our family's lifestyle changes). Unfortunately, those stupid, flimsy little bags you use at the bulk bins turn into squishy little green bean bags in the pantry, hard to store and even harder to see or remember what was in them. I'm not a big fan of wasting food, so I went in search of a new storage solution.

I wanted something clear that had an airtight seal. There are dozens of types of plastic containers available, and for a while I was seriously considering OXO's Pop containers, which are not only super-cute, but they use them for the entire professional pantry on Iron Chef America, which is pretty impressive (even if I assume that OXO generously donated all those containers to ICA). Ultimately, there were two reasons I didn't go with the Pop containers. First, they aren't inexpensive. They're reasonably priced and I'm not saying they aren't worth their cost, but I couldn't afford to do a whole pantry one $10+ container at a time. More importantly, though, they're plastic. It seems like every season we discover a new chemical leaking out of our plastics, so who knows if 3 years after I buy hundreds of dollars of these containers, currently deemed food-safe, we'll learn that they aren't safe for food at all? No, I knew I wanted good, old fashioned glass. You know, glass. Really hot sand. I'm comfortable with that.

This is where it got complicated. I knew exactly what I wanted: hermetically sealed jars. Think of a Mason canning jar, but with a rubber gasket and that wire & bail that holds the lid on tight. I know it's something completely foreign to most people, but I grew up in Northern New England and seriously, ancient stuff that works never goes out of style there. Apparently, however, it does everywhere else - except Europe! It took hours of online searches to wade through the over-priced, tiny, decorative (read: useless) little jars and find proper food jars, but finally I found just what I wanted at GlassWarehouse.org: 2-quart, square glass food storage jars with hermetically sealing lids by Italian glass maker Fido. I love the Internet, but I have to confess this search was a long one with a lot of wrong turns, so I ordered 6 cases. The worst part was the shipping cost (ok, and the fact that they arrived in two 50-lb boxes - lucky my DH was home), but the jars themselves were less than $ 4.50 each since I bought enough to break the wholesale minimum. I've opted not to label them since I can see the contents and going label-free allows me to change their contents whenever I want. One unexpected perk is that recently we had an informal party and I was able to grab several of the jars with snacks in them and simply put them out on the buffet, since they're so simple and pretty.

It took about six months of searching and researching, but these jars are exactly what I wanted, and I love them! Here are my honest, unretouched before (l) and after (r) pantry pictures. Of course, I also use my new jars to keep baking yeast fresh in the fridge, and to keep the dog's treats crunchy, and to... well, you get the idea.

Ta-Da!

Franklin Covey Failure

It is with a heavy heart that I write this. I have been a devout follower of Franklin Covey planning systems for well over a decade, but alas, we must go our separate ways. What could possible tear me away? Is it that lousy iPhone app that just wasn't up to snuff? Or a fabulous new planning system I just love? Sadly, no. It's neither. Franklin Covey isn't the company I fell in love with all those years ago, and I don't want to stay with the company they've become.

Last fall I ordered my usual supply of paper planners for the family for the upcoming new year. For some reason, FC shipped it in pieces, and only billed me for the first piece. Being a good person, I emailed them a few weeks later and offered to pay the balance. I got no reply, so a week later I called. I was told it was their fault for shipping late, and "not to worry about (the balance)". Classic good customer service, right? After the call, I finally got an email, which confirmed my balance was considered "paid in full". This was in December of 2009.

Last month I was searching in an old email account for a lost contact when I stumbled over an email from FC. Attached was an invoice for the balance I had tried to pay 6 months earlier. Now, it was sheer luck that I ever saw that email, as it was an old, obsolete address I never use. The email was obsolete, the attachment was hard to open, and the invoice numbers were internally assigned at FC, i.e., they didn't match an order number or anything I had on record. In fact, FC decided not too long ago to wipe out all customers' accounts and start their website from scratch. My 10+ year history of orders was gone. But somehow they managed to save an old email address and a "past due" balance. Interesting.

I emailed the finance department back and forth a number of times. The woman I spoke with (via email) never did explain the new invoice numbers or account number they attached to my "past due" bill. I did make her show me what they were supposedly for, so at least I could check if I'd every used the supposed products. I sent her my entire paper trail from my attempts to proactively pay the balance in the past, but she said that all of the customer service reps I spoke to, online and on the phone, were ALL new and incompetent. You know, I learned to keep paper trails like the one I had from FC. One would think they would be anything but incompetent. And just for the record, the finance woman had a poor English skills. Enough said.

I paid the bill. It was for $ 38.57. I'm an honest person, and I think that maybe, perhaps, this might have been the money I owed last fall.

However, if you tried to pay a bill, repeatedly, and you were told you didn't have to, and then had all traces of your account and history wiped out, and then received a bill in a suspicious manner with all the tracking numbers changed and no paper trail, would you pay it? Would you trust a company that told you their own people were often and consistently wrong?

This isn't the Franklin Covey of the past. I don't know who or what is in charge there now, but their company has gone down the toilet and fast. They should be ashamed of how this was handled. If nothing else, the way they handled this $38 bill cost them the hundreds of dollars a year I usually spend there, as well as all the good press I've given them, which I am formally rescinding with this post. When I find a suitable replacement source for my planning needs, I'll gladly share it with you all. In the meantime, please keep my tale in mind and do not patronize the new Franklin Covey.