Get organized

Now that summer has officially began, I can get started on some of the projects I have had in my mind. I cannot stand clutter and it amazes me how quickly things can get disorganized so I had a few areas in the home that needed some rescue. The two big areas were the kitchen pantry and a drawer in my master bathroom. You know, that one drawer that everything ends up in and before you know it opening and closing the drawer becomes a carefully orchestrated event. 

For the pantry,I started by pulling everything out. Since we started eating Paleo a few months ago we have really cut out a lot of processed foods. So the next step was to separate all the pastas and breads we don't really eat anymore. I never realized how much pasta I was hoarding in the pantry. It was almost like I was mentally preparing for some kind of apocalypse or natural disaster. If the package was unopened it was put in pile to take to the local food bank. If it was already opened it went in the trash (side note...I really hate throwing things away... I feel like it is such a waste especially when it comes to food).  Then everything was put back in neatly where thing could easily be seen. Since the shelves in the pantry are really high I decided to get some stackable baskets that could be loaded from the front at the dollar store for all the little things, like my almond packs and teas. 

The next project was the bathroom drawer. Again, I pulled everything out, threw away the items that were trash, cleaned out the drawer (I couldn't believe how much hair was in there...I don't even know how it got in there), and then skillfully placed everything back in. At the dollar store I found some shallow wire baskets that were perfect for storing all the little things and keeping them from slipping all over the place each time the drawer opened and closed. Just opening the drawer after to show Daniel when he got home gave me such a sense of pride. 

Going back to my whole "I hate to throw things away" obsession, I have always used these mints tins to store things like bobby pins and hair ties. I even keep some at school to hold paper clips and thumb tacks. Maybe this summer I will get around to decorating them so they look cute when sitting around.