Spring Cleaning

I think I’m rebelling against the unusual cold and starting my spring cleaning early.  Actually, doing spring cleaning in the winter makes some sense – who wants to be trapped inside cleaning when it’s nice outside?  Maybe that’s why my spring cleaning didn’t really happen last year.

Over the weekend, I started going through cabinets and closets and getting rid of things that I didn’t need/want.  The most important of this was going through the linen closet and tossing all expired medications.  Of course, when I pull something out, I always check the expiration date, just in case, but it was good to see what needed to be trashed.  It was a surprising amount of things, which makes me feel a little wasteful.  Clearly I need to be more careful about my shopping.

I realize I also have way too many cleaning supplies.  And personal care items.  I forget that I have toothpaste, so I pick some up, and then suddenly I have eight tubes.  And then in a year, I’ll be completely out because I thought there was still some in the closet.  I know some people keep an inventory list on the doors to their cabinets and closets, and while that sounds ridiculous, it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea at this point.

I didn’t get through everything – I really wanted to tackle the kitchen cabinets, but only made it through one cabinet – the dreaded tea cabinet.  I ended up tossing a bunch of stuff and I probably should have thrown out even more.  Tea may not expire but it definitely does go stale, and somehow I managed to stock up a bit too much.  It feels so wasteful to throw things away, and it is, but the solution isn’t to not toss things – the solution is to learn from it and buy less.

And I’ve said that before, I know.  But now I need to stick to it. Buy less.  Stop stocking up on things that don’t need to be stocked up on.  It’s not a good deal if you never use it.