Looking out the window, I see pink blossoms indicating spring has arrived. While God restores life to the outdoors, spring is a great season to restore indoors. Here are Timely Tips for three often neglected areas.
Timely Tips to Restore Order
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CLEANING PRODUCTS
Have you looked under your sink lately? Chances are there are more products there, than used. Someone touts the effectiveness of a new cleaning product and we order it. It gets used once or twice, or not at all, then finds its place with the other neglected products. Under the sink becomes a graveyard for sprays, sponges, and fancy brushes.
Pull it all out.
Place the products you’re using frequently in a portable tote or under sink organizer.
Place backup supplies in a separate bin in the back or in a garage cabinet.
Relocate the seldom used items.
Share your bounty with family or friends.
Check with your disposal service about the proper handling of the liquids no one wants.
Replace well-used brushes and sponges.
Place a motion sensor under cabinet light under the sink. It will reduce the black hole effect making it easy to find what you need and use.
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MEDICINE CABINET
How easy is it to add and add and never subtract? Very. Eventually you end up with a cluttered mess that makes it hard to find what you need.
Gather these supplies: a baggie for expired pills, a container for recycling, a piece of scratch paper or marker, and a trash bag.
Remove one prescription at a time, check the expiration date and decide if it’s a keep or toss.
If it’s a toss, remove the prescription sticker and place it on the scratch paper to shred later, or mark out your personal information with a marker.
Place the pills in the baggie and toss the plastic bottle in the recycling container. Do the same with expired over the counter pills, except for the label removing.
Keep a reasonable supply of Band-Aids and first aid supplies, but let go of the multiple packages of gauze, bedpans, barf bags, etc. that came home with you from your emergency room visit or surgery.
Organize, containerize, and label what’s left into categories like meds for colds/allergies, stomach issues, pain, etc.
Take the baggie of pills to your nearest police or fire station that has a pill drop-off box.
Shred, recycle, and you’re done!
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Freezer
The fuller it gets, the more things you need to remove to find what you need, or simply ignore what's in the back or bottom.
Pull everything out and ask the following questions: Is the item still viable? Is there freezer burn, or layers of ice on the product? If it’s bread, is it better suited for ducks?
Toss anything that doesn't pass, or isn’t safe to eat.
If it’s safe, but not desirable, make a bag of items to share.
While everything’s out, give your freezer a good cleaning.
For deep freezers, use a hair dryer to loosen ice from the sides.
Use open-topped or stackable containers to corral categories of food and make them accessible.
Shop your freezer instead of the store until you’ve used what you have.
If it's a lot, make an inventory and tape it to the fridge.
wise words
Spring cleaning: where you find things you thought you lost, and then realize you don't need them. --Unknown