30 Days of Clean Challenge: Day One

I am normally a fairly clean and organized person, and I've always had the mindset of "a place for everything and everything in its place".

However.

Since giving birth to Zeke 15 months ago and trying to homeschool three kids with a very active toddler, not to mention all of our extra-curricular activities, my house has taken a backseat. It's not terrible by any means - we keep it tidy, get the laundry and dishes done daily, and keep it generally clean. But there are several projects I've been meaning to get to - some big and some small - and I figured if I gave myself a challenge to blog about, hopefully I would get it all done!

I decided today to tackle a small project - our medicine cabinet. I have been haphazardly throwing medicine back into our cabinet, digging for stuff I know we have (thermometers namely!), and I knew I needed to clean out and organize the box we keep our medicines in!

Here is a picture of the before:

the inside of the cabinet (why do we have so many bottles of hydrogen peroxide??)

and a close-up of the inside of the box

I took out every single thing from the box, threw away all medicine that was expired and all empty boxes and bottles, and wiped down the box.

I put each item into a group:

- kid's medicines

- adult medicines

- creams

- bandages and wraps

- medicine cups and droppers

- sprays (aloe relief sprays, burn sprays, Dermaplast)

I put each group into a gallon size zipper bag and put the bags back in the box!

It looks so much better, and it took me around 20 minutes to do it.

Then I noticed our nebulizer - it never fits back into the box like it is supposed to. I put the nebulizer, the tubing and the medication into a plastic tub with a lid. So much nicer!

before

after

It's a small step, but I felt so much better having done it! Also, am I the only person who keeps weird things, thinking we may can use them for some school project? There were these foam squares in the nebulizer box that I couldn't bear to throw away.

The next thing I tackled was my arts and crafts supplies. I keep this in my laundry room, so I don't see it all the time. Therefore, "out of sight, out of mind." It had gotten a bit ridiculous because instead of putting things back in their place, we were just tossing them in a random box. The kids had been in there, making crafts and making a mess of our supply area. Here is the before:

 

 

As you can see, stuff wasn't even fitting in the drawers and they couldn't be closed all the way. Random items were placed on top and there is no order to any of it.

 

I took each drawer out, emptied it, knocked out the trash, glitter, and bits. I then used about 20 gallon zipper bags to organize the supplies and then organized each bin to have like items. Hopefully this will make it easier to find things when I need them. It took me around an hour to do this, and Mikaela entertained Zeke for me while I did it. That was so helpful!

 

I have an entire gallon zipper bag of Christmas items.

 

I found more rubber bands than I will ever need!

 

And here is the after:

 

Much nicer! I have in the black bin set a bin for stickers, stamps, craft sticks and wooden sticks, beads and buttons, ribbons, glues and tapes.

 

In the purple bin set each bin holds random items like blank frames, cotton balls, straws, Christmas items, balloons and balloon pump, scrapbook paper and index cards, paper plates, chalk, and more.

 

The bins in the middle hold extra colored pencils, crayons, felt, and craft sticks. I probably have 5000 craft sticks, and sadly that's not an exaggeration. We also have our air dry clay on top of the middle bins. The blue box on top of the black bins holds tissue paper. And I have some plastic flowers left over from our Valentine banquet!

 

I feel much better now that my art supplies are organized. I also found some items I forgot I had! Now, to keep it this way...