What’s big, rectangular, white and happiness-inducing?

That would be my brand-spankin’ new chest freezer, which we purchased with money from our home maintenance fund.

Before you can appreciate why this freezer makes me so giddy, you need to see my old one.

This was a freebie, and I think it may possibly have pre-dated me.

It was enormous.

(full disclosure: I considered cleaning up my messy laundry room before I took these pictures, and then thought better of it. Please enjoy the real-ness. )

It was leaking, which caused rusty water to drip onto the floor.

The seal no longer worked, which meant that ice would build up very quickly around the lid. That’s solid ice between the lid and freezer.

I could knock it off as much as I pleased, but it came right back.

And the lid of the freezer! Oh my goodness. There was so much ice accumulated inside of it, it must have weighed 20 pounds.

The weight of the ice in the lid was actually causing the plastic to sag and pop out.

The lid was so heavy, it scared me to think of what might happen if I didn’t manage to hold it up properly while reaching into the depths of the freezer (props to Joshua for holding it up while I took the pictures!).

The final strike against this freezer is that there were no baskets or compartments or anything inside of it. It was a massive space that just begged me to lose and forget about food I’d frozen.

Oh, I remembered one other bad thing. Lately, it had started to not stay sufficiently cold (this is a major defect in a freezer, I think).

So! Given all of that, you can maybe understand why I am so stinking thrilled with my new freezer.

Check this out. I have baskets! Small items will no longer hide in the depths of the freezer.

And I have compartments! I love compartments.

There’s even a little divider on the side of the motor, which makes a handy little storage section.

This is one of the best parts. Do you see what that lid is doing? It’s staying UP, all by itself. The lid on my other freezer never stayed up by itself.

And it has a light! The light on my other freezer never worked.

Do you know what I’m most excited about, though? I think that this freezer will help me in my fight against food waste.

• Since it has baskets! and sections!, I think that I will be much more able to keep track of what I have (no more forgetting about stuff until it’s several years old).

• Because it’s easy to organize and easy to open, I will be much more prone to storing food in it instead of in my above-the-fridge freezer. This will reduce waste because food stored in my chest freezer will not get freezer burnt like it does in my above-the-fridge freezer.

Happy sigh.

New freezer, I love you.