More Cabinet Clutter

I cleaned out the third and final shelf in the bathroom cabinet behind the door in the master bathroom this evening. This final shelf held, among other things, two bins full of “stuff”. One bin held medicines; prescription and over the counter. The other bin held first aid supplies. I tackled the bins first, and then moved on to the miscellaneous “stuff” occupying the remainder of the shelf space.

The medicine bin was an embarrassing arsenal of outdated drugs. I threw things away that expired in 2003, 2004, and 2005. I figure anything later than 2005 probably wouldn’t kill me so I kept it. Some of the drugs were so old they didn’t even have expiration dates; I threw those away, too. I did run across the “Caring for Your Child” and “Your Infant & Child” booklets given to me by the Pediatrician when my daughters were born. I will pass them on to them one day so they can access the wisdom of Dr. Glenn Boris, the best Pediatrician in the entire universe (saving the life of Daughter #2 certainly earned him this title).

The first aid bin was a little less disturbing. No out of date ointments or bug bite remedies, just lots of Band-Aids, an Ace Bandage, Neosporin, and sterile cotton. I do have more rubbing alcohol than I will be able to use in my lifetime and several bottles of hydrogen peroxide. If anyone gets a cut at my house they can rest assured that I will be able to clean, sterilize and bandage.

The miscellaneous items hidden on the top shelf, behind the bins were a hodge-podge. A dental cement replica of my teeth (upper and lower) made when I was in Jr. High and had to have a tooth capped, the result of diving into the shallow end of the swimming pool while trying to show-off for a cute older boy. I also found a heating/cooling pad apparatus that straps around the waist to apply heat/cold to the back and a back massager that resembles a bumpy rolling pin. And just when I thought I couldn’t possibly find any more lotion or shampoo I ran across a few more bottles hidden at the very back of the shelf.

My blog readers will sleep better tonight knowing that I have an organized cabinet and I won’t be purchasing duplicate toiletry items anytime soon. Just think of the money I’ll save, it is truly mind boggling.

Fourteen Bottles of Hair Care Products and Four More Bottles of Lotion

I am working on cleaning/purging the master bathroom. I cleaned one shelf last week and today I found the strength to clean another. This is what I found:

• An extra large container of Q-tips – “Bonus 20% more 600 cotton swabs”
• Rembrandt Dazzling White Tooth Bleaching Value Kit
• No-Crack Super Hand Cream (I swear I don’t make this stuff up)
• SinuCleanse Neti Pot, or as we like to call it – the nose boat
• Moisturizing Saline Nasal Spray
• Nair
• Plastic molds of my teeth, upper and lower
• A heating pad
• Nix Family Pack Lice Treatment – Expired in 1996 – my kids went to public school, what can I say?
• Silver Hair and Body Glitter – left over from Halloweens past
• Face painting crayons – ditto Halloween excuse
• An aerosol can of Streaks ‘N Tips - Temporary Highlighting Colors – yep, Halloween again
• Temporary black spray on hair color – you guessed it – Halloween
• Elvira Cream Make-Up, black – guess?
• Fluorescent Hair Spray – Halloween was very big around our house
• A bag full of department store fragrance samples (yes, you really do want me to list them all): First – de VanCleef & Arpels, Carolina Herrera, Liz Claiborne, Anne Klein II, KL Homme, Must de Cartier, KL Eau De Toilette, Elizabeth Taylor’s Passion, Ultima II Maroc, Chanel Cristalle, Diva Eau de Seduction, Giorgio for Men, Halston Couture, Galore, Elizabeth Arden Red Door, Sung, Anna Pliska, Poison, Antaeus pour Homme, Chanel No. 22, Adolfo, Oscar de la Renta
• A plastic Mary Kay gift bag
• A package of Johnson & Johnson Easy Access Flossers
• A bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide
• Clairol Nice ‘n Easy Beautiful, Natural Light Brown
• 2 wicker baskets full of hotel-size bottles of shampoos, conditioners, lotions, mouthwash, and soap
• A Bath & Body Works Snow Globe Splash – Pearberry
• A jar of jewelry cleaner
• Talcum powder
• Stress mender aromatherapy massage oil “a necessity for today’s hectic world”
• Bar of loofah soap
• L’Oreal ReFinish Micro-Dermabrasion Kit
• A bag of cotton balls – jumbo size
• 2 bars of Safeguard bath soap
• A bottle of Johnson & Johnson Baby Oil
• 2 bottles of shower gel
• A bottle of Saline Solution for contact lenses
• 3 cans of hairspray
• 2 bottles of sun screen
• 4 bottles of lotion
• 14 bottles of hair care products
• A box of Wet Ones individual pocket singles
• A blonde eyebrow pencil
• A brown eyeliner pencil
• A slate eyeliner pencil
• A disposable razor

A very long list and a full Hefty bag later I am happy to announce that this particular cabinet only has one more shelf.

I Just Thought I was Skipping Today

It's late, I'm tired - it was a beautiful evening, a bottle of wine, grilling fajitas on the patio - not conducive to cleaning/purging for my blog. Just when I decided to beg off for today's blog my husband reminded me that we did have housecleaning help today. No, I did not get a housekeeper, my husband had the day off and he cleaned house for me today. So, even though I can't blog about cabinets, drawers, or closets cleaned out I can say I have a clean house - floors swept and mopped, carpets vacuumed, toilets cleaned, furniture dusted, laundry piled in the utility room, Febreeze sprayed on all of the upholstery. Life is good!

Aromatherapy

There is a scent, a wonderful scent, which is made up of the combined aromas of hundreds of bath/toiletry products in my bathroom cabinet. The scent is a combination of shampoos, soaps, perfumes, cosmetics, and other miscellaneous things women think they need to be beautiful. The scent is probably unique to my bathroom cabinet, unique because of the special combination of products. My mother’s bathroom had its own special scent as well. The scent in my mother’s bathroom was a mixture of L’Air du Temps, Dial soap, Revlon lipstick, Colgate toothpaste, 5-Day deodorant pads, Jergen’s lotion, Final Net hairspray and Pond’s cold cream. The scents combined to make an aroma unique to my mother’s bathroom.

Every once in a while I catch a scent that transports me back to my mother’s bathroom. It might be a sales clerk at a department store spritzing L’Air du Temps on potential buyers or the smell of Revlon lipstick when I uncap the tube, but it is enough to take me to another place and time.

When I was a young girl I loved watching my mother dress up to go out with my father. My mother was a beautiful woman and she knew how to make herself even more attractive with cosmetics and hair curlers. She normally went to the beauty shop every week to have her hair washed, set, dried, backcombed, and sprayed with enough hairspray to see her through the week. She slept on a satin pillowcase every night to further ensure her “do” would last. The night before her weekly appointment she would take out her black, stiff-bristled hairbrush and brush out her hairdo. She would brush hard and exclaim over how good it felt to brush her scalp. On the rare occasion she didn’t go to the beauty shop or if some emergency occurred (like taking her children swimming) she would set her own hair on black or purple curlers with white brushes on the inside. Those curlers where held in place by hot pink picks that appeared to be piercing her scalp. She would sit under the hairdryer, usually filing and painting her fingernails while waiting for her hair to dry. The first hair dryer I remember was a plastic cap attached to a hose that attached to a small machine that blew hot air into the cap. Later she upgraded to a dome-style hairdryer she sat under.

Watching my mother “put on her face” was an experience. My mother wore it all; foundation, powder, eye shadow, mascara, blush, lipstick and the piece de resistance – false eyelashes. My mother even wore her false eyelashes while dying of lung cancer at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

My mother was a wonderful, beautiful, classy lady and I love being reminded of her every time I catch a whiff of Jergen’s hand lotion or Final Net hairspray.

Blog Questions

A question not a comment...do you find writing about yourself makes profound life changes or does it just document where you have been? Can we get a before and after picture? How many pound of "stuff" have you lost? Will we really notice any difference in your abode upon our next visit?
Inquisitively yours,
An Inquiring Mind

A very nice blog follower asked the above questions. Good questions. Let me see if I can answer them.
Does writing this blog make profound life changes or does it just document?
Well, I don’t know if you would call them profound life changes, but I have uncovered a lot about myself and about my family while purging stuff. I have realized the freedom of not having so much stuff. I have given more thought to purchases I have made since beginning the blog and I don’t think I have brought home anything from a garage sale or an estate sale, either. That may not sound like much, but for me it is pretty close to a profound life change. As for the documenting part of the question - I like documenting, I like lists. In Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" he lists things soldiers in Vietnam carried and it made a powerful story.
Does it just document where you have been?
It does document where I have been. Going through my mother’s saved recipes gave me a glimpse into her life I hadn’t previously known and I got a bit of an insight into myself as well. Cleaning out my children’s toy closet brought back great memories of their childhood. Actually everything I have cleaned has brought back memories. Some of the items I have elected to keep because of those memories, some of the items I have given away, because the memory was no longer significant or I didn’t need the 'thing' to recall the memory. And writing about my grandmothers’ stuff has been a lesson in my history and the history of my family.
Some of the things I have purged have been a lesson in letting go of the past and moving on. Turning Daughter #2’s room into an office/guest room helped me to accept her as an adult, living in her own home. Having a home office gives me a space to pursue new interests, a place to begin the next stage of my life.
Can we get a before and after picture?
I guess you will just have to trust the blog and draw those pictures for yourself.
Will we really notice any difference in your abode upon our next visit?
I doubt you will notice. I think I have always done a credible job of keeping my crap hidden. If you would like a tour of my closets, cabinets and drawers feel free to ask. Just don’t expect to see the inside of the garage yet!

Seventeen Bottles of Lotion (are you kidding me?)

My husband is perplexed that I want to write about the crap I am digging up in our home. He can’t imagine that I am not embarrassed by this stuff. I haven’t been, until today. The bathroom cabinet was worse than I imagined. I pulled everything out of only one shelf in one cabinet, grouped it by product, and here is what I found:

• 2 bottles of mouthwash
• 4 contact lens cases
• 4 boxes of contact lenses
• 10 bottles of hair product
• 17 bottles of lotion
• 5 bars of soap
• 2 boxes of bath oil beads
• A jar full of buttons
• 2 boxes full of old makeup (I won’t even bother to inventory)
• 3 deodorants
• 2 bags of cosmetic sponge wedges
• A box of Crest Whitestrips
• A package of 8 purse size packages of Kleenex
• A Hairdini (don’t ask)
• An Epilady (this was invented by the Marquis de Sade)
• 2 loofah sponges
• A box of Off! Towelettes
• A bottle of rubbing alcohol
• A blow-dryer diffuser
• 3 pumice stones
• A bottle of nail polish remover
• A box of nail polish remover pads
• A tube of toothpaste
• A 6-step nail buffing kit
• A disposable razor
• A basket containing fingernail paraphernalia – to include 24 bottles of nail polish, 6 fingernail files, a nail buffer, cuticle cream, 5 cuticle sticks, a tube of cuticle gel, manicure scissors, 4 fingernail clippers, 1 toenail clipper, a package of silk nail wrap and super glue
• 2 pocket knives
• 11 loose Band-Aids
• 4 books of matches
• A cosmetics bag

Oh my God! All of this was on one shelf. No wonder I keep buying stuff – I can’t find what I already own. I have tossed what I don’t need, arranged the rest of it neatly on the shelf and sworn not to buy another bottle of lotion until these are depleted.

APB

There are no blog police. That is what my husband tells me on the days I don't find the time to write my blog. I hope he is right!