I hosted a High School Graduation party for my oldest this weekend and I was busy all last week (too busy to post anything on the blog!) getting my house ready for guests and planning our party meals.
I did plenty of cleaning & de-cluttering last week.
Our family moved into our home 4 years ago. We were blessed by the addition of two new babies to our family since we moved in. I think when you are always in "baby-mode" (pregnant and being so tired OR, nursing a little one and being so tired) it is especially difficult to keep your head above water let alone have the clarity to try and figure out the difference between an item that serves you and an item that you serve. My "baby" is 20 months old now. Idecided now was a great time to take a look at my spaces from an un-foggy perspective.
I spent some time in my kitchen re-organizing my cupboards. Before last week I hadn't changed what went where since I unpacked all my boxes 4 years ago. I have lots of cabinet space. I think all this space caused me to keep items that just cluttered up my cabinets.
Here is an upper cabinet between my stove and my sink.
I was keeping vitamins, medicines, and first aid items on the first shelf. Crafts, flashlights, grilling equipment, baby soap & lotion (for sink baths), matches, candles, pens, paper, 4 broken Christmas ornaments and two broken dishes I planned to one day glue together.
I decided I already have a place for medicines upstairs and that it was silly to have more than band-aids and pain relievers here with the vitamins. So when I'd gathered up all the medicine to bring upstairs it didn't all fit in a grocery bag! I needed a bag and 1/3 - and this didn't include all the expired meds that went in the trash! I moved all the vitamins up to the third shelf from the bottom shelf. I think this is safer.
I let myself off the hook and I threw away the broken ornaments and decorative pottery. I threw away any dried up paints and glue. I choose a shoebox sized plastic container to hold all my painting supplies and glue for the kids. Other craft supplies are somewhere more accessible to the children, in this cabinet I only keep what I need to supervise. All these crafts are now on the very top shelf.
Now I have a very large decorative pasta bowl on the bottom shelf, the second shelf up stores my cut glass cake pedestal plate (this gets a lot of use April - October!), my grilling basket fork and turner & matches.
On the third shelf are all vitamins on a lazy susan and some candles.
The top shelf holds the crafts I mentioned earlier.
AFTER
I will post my other cabinets in the weeks to come.
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