Do you have the organizing bug?
With the boxing-up of Christmas decorations comes the urge to reduce, purge, organize and clean – come on, admit it – it can’t be just me?
Step one was the tree and decorations, step three is organizing the storage of the tree and decorations.
Step two is medicine cabinet organization.
A natural progression don’t you think?
Truthfully, I got bored with all the Christmas stuff and needed a little job that could be whipped out quickly and easily to give me that sense of accomplishment.
Not to mention that a cold has run through my house of late, and I am the latest recipient.
We have the narrowest cupboard in the universe in our kitchen. Really – it’s 7″ wide, but standard cupboard depth. We thought we’d use it for spice storage, but inevitably the spices would get stuck in the back and you’d never know what you had.
We thought medications would be a better fit for the space – because you rarely need to use them, and because they were out-of-the-way of any main traffic ie. little hands or premium storage space.
Above is a relatively tidy view of our medicine cabinet. This is after I pulled out all the vitamins and protein powders Hubby had forgotten about.
I picked up these cute little drawer organizers the other day and thought they would be a perfect fit for our medicine cabinet – with the added benefit of being see-through, so we could easily take stock of what we do and don’t have.
I decided on a purpose for each drawer and started my medicine cabinet organization.
First, and most important, check expiry dates and get rid of anything that is past due.
Vitamins have best before dates as well, and while they won’t hurt you to take after that date – their potency is reduced (sometimes significantly) so it’s worth purging those as well.
Dates are really tough to read on the embossed tubes, but they are there – right at the pinched end usually.
Clearly I didn’t do this organizing exercise last year eh?
The bottom drawer is the “Tummy” drawer. Rolaids and Tums for Mom and Dad and Gravol for flying with kids and/or flu.
The next drawer up is for adult colds; Contac C to get us through the day and night and a little oil of oregano for when we’re feeling masochistic. Seriously – have you tried the stuff?! It scares a cold out of you.
Next up we have our ear, nose and butt drawer;
a Vicks nasal inhaler, some ear drops and fever reducers…. I call this butt because you’ll see how it’s absorbed.
If you are a stickler for details, you will notice that it’s past its best before date – frankly, I hope to never use it again and just keep it as a visual threat to remind my kids to wash their hands and dress warmly. lol
The top drawer of my organizer is for allergies and dosage cups. These are seasonal in our house, so having them further out of reach is fine.
All tucked away nice and neat and ready to battle the next illness that comes through.
The bottles of medicine for the girls were too large to fit in my organizer, but with all of this new-found cupboard space, I have plenty of room for them on a shelf of their own.
Mommy and Daddy’s medicine gets re-homed even higher out of reach – just in case.
While you have medicine cabinet organization on your mind, you might as well check for stale dates in your first aid kit as well;
I’m feeling like a survivalist here – granted all I have stock-piled is children’s Tylenol – but it does feel good to know that I’ll have what I need when I need it.
Cleaned out, cleaned up and organized in 20 minutes – ready for whatever new virus the kids bring home!
Have a great one!
