Minimalism: Bathroom Cabinets

I am going to warn you now that this isn't nearly as entertaining as my delicates drawer, but I told you that I would share, so here it is:

This week I tackled the master bathroom cabinets, linen closet and medicine cabinet.  What is really sad about this is that I thought that I had pared down when we moved less than a year ago.  Apparently I was in a hurry, because I found things that should never have made the move!  I will also tell you guys that I am not going to be like these people who have two toiletries and a toothbrush...I am just not that good, so if you are a minimalist, you may be appalled at the number of things that I have kept.  I am taking baby steps people...on a scale where you have hoarders at one end and minimalists at the other...well, I want to be on the minimalist side of things but I'm still hanging near the middle.

I started with the medicines.  We have two big baskets, one for kids meds and one for ours.  I keep my everyday meds in the kitchen...thyroid, vitamin D, etc.  These are our cold meds, pain and stomach meds.  I keep them in the linen closet...our bathroom is quite large and we use the fan, so I don't have to worry too much about moisture.  Now, I know that I went through these meds last year, so I was surprised with some of my finds.  I had pain medicine from the birth of my daughter...4 and half years ago!  And a half dozen expired meds, including 4 Epi-pens, an inhaler, and (lowering head) vitamins I always forgot to take.  I am much better at taking my vitamins now as I have a little pill box...geez, I am getting old.   I organized our first aid container as the kids aren't very good at getting just ONE Bandaid out of the box and it was a bit of a mess.  Levi keeps his meds in the medicine cabinet along with razor refills, etc.  Um, his was much easier to organize as the man never has to take any medicine!  Makes me sick.  I think the only reason he needs insurance is for me and the kids.

I went through our travel section and threw out the little hotel bottles.  I won't use them, the kids can't use them and I usually just get the refillable bottles so that we can use our own stuff.  Levi grabs them every time we go anywhere.  I find that I have not one, but two spare glasses so the oldest is going to be donated at the eye doctor.  We have 5 little toothpaste kits free from the dentist with a little bag, toothpaste, toothbrush, and floss.  Levi and I use Sonicare so I am not sure why we have these still...I decide to keep two up in the guest bathroom for our guests who may forget, and donate the rest.  I rethink that and dismantle one for our travel stuff...I take the toothbrush and put it with cleaning supplies and the rest in our sample size travel gear.  I then take a couple of the sample shampoo/conditioner things out of the trash and put that in the guest bathroom too.

So I don't bore you with the rest of the experience I will sum up quickly: I got rid of curlers that I have had since HIGH SCHOOL (and I think that they were my mom's before that!).  I am about to celebrate my 20 year reunion people.  I am not even sure that they work as I probably haven't used them in 10 years.  I gave up trying to get my hair to hold curl a long time ago.  I got rid of 5 bottles of lotion and still have quite a few left!  How many bottles of lotion does one person need!  Why have we let the world convince us we need 10 different lotions for our body?...one for feet, one for hands, one for face, one for neck, one for firming, one for softening, one for massaging...etc. If I used all of them it would take an hour to lotion myself up and I would smell like a Bath and Body Works.   I found nail polish that was permanently crusted shut,  and 10 emery boards...I don't really file my nails...like ever.  I found sunscreen hiding from two years ago and Chapstick from who knows when, but it looks funny.  It is REALLY annoying when people don't put expiration dates on things! I got a permanent marker and wrote the date on things without so I will know next year how long it has been there.

Ugh, I need new makeup...mine is getting quite old and broken...I don't wear it everyday so it takes a while to use it up.  I am running out of everything at once...that is going to be a pricey trip.  Levi is going to have sticker shock and I don't even buy the ridiculously expensive stuff.  If it weren't for him, I wouldn't ever wear it, so hopefully he appreciates it.

I reorganized everything using the containers I already had.  I do want to get a container of some sort for the cotton balls, so they are still in their bag at the moment...I have heard the dollar store is good for that sort of thing, but I want to wait until I have been through the rest of the house...I may find something to use.  It doesn't have to be pretty in the closet.

I threw out three grocery sacks of trash!  I wonder if having all this space makes one subliminally want to fill it up.  I do solemnly swear to you all that I will not buy another bottle of lotion until I use them all up!  The cleaning part is the easy part...now I need to focus on not buying things I don't need!  No more Bath and Body Works sales for me:)

This is been more fun than I thought it would be and I keep going to stand in front of the linen closet with a goofy grin on my face.  Levi was very excited as he is the more organized of the two of us and rewarded me with a big sloppy kiss and a butt pat and boob squeeze...such a man.