I had been meaning to do this for a very long time.
Like, a ridiculously long time.
Every time I emptied the dishwasher and had to squeeze and push and finagle to get all my cups and glasses into the small amount of space available, I’d shoot a dirty look at the mess of meds and bandaids and vitamins stealing their rightful space.
Unfortunately, they never got the hint.
But the day after Valentine’s Day, I had to at least do something. A search for a last minute Valentine’s box idea had required the temporary sacrifice of the basket I use for our daily-or-mostly-daily stuff.
I emptied the basket into an already-empty-and-on-the-counter-and-therefore-unavoidably-convenient box. But when I went to put things back in the basket (that my daughter actually remembered to bring home after the party, hallelujah!!!), decluttering was unavoidable.
Completely unavoidable.
Completely and totally unavoidable. After purging pencils and plastic clips and other such completely-unnecessaries and combining half-used bottles of the same things into one, I got it down to this.
Inspired by my own success (and that years-old knowledge that I needed to do this), I tackled the cabinet above:
Right. It was filled and overflowing with thing we DON’T use regularly.
I went through everything.
(Warning: I’m about to sprinkle in some affiliate links, y’all. If you use them to get to Amazon, anything you buy while you’re there earns me a little money. It’s how I get to call slob-blogging my job.)
- I combined band-aids and bandages from anywhere and everywhere throughout the cabinet into one full-to-almost-overflowing container.
- I purged all liquid medicines (except for unexpired cough medicine) because everyone in the house can now swallow a pill and no one is going to choose nasty-tasting liquid anymore. Besides, most were expired since we’ve all been mostly-healthy pill people for a long while now.
- I purged completely empty blister packs. (Yes. I was irritated, too.)
- I decided Disney World pins don’t belong in medicine cabinets and realized no one loved it anyway if it was in there. It went in the trash.
- Since I made the decision to purge liquid medicine, I realized I don’t need medicine droppers/whatevers anymore! (There are definitely some perks to kids growing up!)
- AND . . . the mother of all past-their-prime-prescriptions: diaper rash cream. Since no one in this house has worn a diaper in more than seven years.
Much better, don’t ya think?
Without all this:
Now I just have to train my family to actually look on the left side of the cabinet for clean glasses. I told Hubby I was willing to leave the cabinet door open indefinitely to help them learn to look there.
P.S. My aunt emailed to remind me that many towns have programs for getting rid of medicines that shouldn’t be thrown away or put down drains. Check your town’s website!
--Nony
Cleaning out my medicine-drawer has been on my list for at least a month now!
We have a tiny drawer bursting at the seams with band-aids in all shapes and sizes, various sore-throat remedies and an abundance of all kinds of painkillers I’ve tried in order to curb my monthly female issues…. Probably plenty of expired stuff in there as well.
I was always fine with this jam-packed tiny drawer, but last week my boyfriend went through some serious surgery (don’t worry, it went even better than I could’ve imagined, yay) and now he’s home recovering and I’m stuck with a bag from the pharmacy that contains medication that should be treated with a little more respect but are still stuck in that bag because they won’t fit anywhere else….
Long story short, tonight I’ll clean out my medicine drawer and maybe also find a new home for its contents with a bit more room! Thanks for the push I needed;)
I did this not long ago-seriously wish I’d taken a before and after, it was…well really embarrassing to be honest! LOL!
We have 3 adults in the house now, and I still had kid medications (my kid is taller than me, wider than me, bigger than me all around, drives, and is old enough to vote-I do not need pediatric tylenol). We had medications that had expired up to six years ago that were for adults. We had prescriptions that had expired. We had cat medications mixed in for all 3 cats, medications that I no longer keep in that area.
I threw out 2 FULL kitchen garbage bags of expired meds. It was insane. I’ve got all kinds of space in there now, and it’s a good thing because we all just came down with colds and I’ve had to purchase medications.
sigh.
I did a week ago. Now I have such a spacious cabinet 😀
But I haven’t taken old medicins to farmacy yet 🙁 (in Poland it’s what must be done).
Eh, I missed ‘it’, of course 😛 For someone who makes a living from teaching I’m quite careless 😉
Every time I move things in an attempt to reorganize my family flips out. They like things to stay in the same spot forever. And will look for months in the old place for something !
Great job! 🙂 I had to declutter In 2015. My toilet was leaking & had to remove items somewhere from tank lid & there was no room in cabinet. I’ve kept on top of it since. I clean the glass shelves every 6 months now. I can’t believe they get so dusty! How does it happen with a closed cabinet! LOL have a blessed day.✌🙏💐💗🐇🐤🐑☕
Would you believe that I am midway through cleaning mine. Cannot remember when I did it last!! Wish I thought to take a picture before I started. Need to go finish it.
I had to smile when I saw this subject pop up.
I’ve just cleared out the old and put some new bins to help it work more smoothly