Medicine Cabinet Make-Under

In my quest to become more organized around the house, this weekend, I did some work in the master bathroom. I will confess that what really prompted this clean-up was a sick (whiny) husband and a sick 8 year old. After a lengthy discussion with the hubby that an 8 year old is not an adult and therefore does not take adult cold medicine, I realized I needed to really spell things out for him.

A side note here: one thing that I am finally figuring out about myself is that after nearly 10 years of battling Coast Guard schedules, now that my DH is home forever, I'm having a hard time realizing that he really does live here full-time. Now, some of you might nod and agree and some of you might think I'm nuts. To just throw it right out there, I think in my mind that I'm the only one that can do things right around here, because after all, I'm the one that holds down the fort all the time. Now I know that way of thinking will destroy our marriage and put a divide into the partnership that parenting should be, and so I am working to kick those thoughts out of my head. And I find the more empowered my hubby feels to help, the more confident he feels about helping around the house.

So back in the bathroom - I don't actually keep in medicine in the medicine cabinet. I keep hydrogen peroxide, a shower cleaner spray and extra razor blades in there. I keep all of the husbands daily medicines and all of the vitamins in a cabinet in the kitchen, since humidity and heat are bad for most pills.

For Christmas, a friend gave me a tackle box with 4 clear plastic boxes in it, thinking that I would use it for crafty things. In my master bedroom, I have an alcove with a sink/mirror leading into the bathroom (shower, commode, sink/mirror). So essentially, I have two sink/mirror combos for the master bath. In the sink/mirror combo alcove, the sink is a nice sink that looks like a dresser and has drawers. I decided to take the clear plastic boxes and clean up the drawers in the alcove. I tossed out all old make-up and anything that I wouldn't really wear.

Plastic bin#1:

- Individually packaged cold medications - I will confess, we use the same few meds in our house.

Plastic bin#2:

- Different sized band aids, neosporin, a couple of ace bandages, - pretty much a first aid kit for scrapes and bleeding. I can now grab this and go when we are going camping, bike riding, etc.

Plastic bin#3:

- Hair pretties - no-hurt elastics, bobby pins, sweaty-bands, etc.

Plastic bin#4:

- Fun/Funky jewelry. I don't wear a lot of jewelry - but I do have a few cute necklaces and holiday things.

Now, I have a clear top drawer of this vanity, which I have all of my makeup neatly organized in, and so instead of having it on the top of the vanity, I just open the top drawer and work out of it.

In the end, I threw away an entire garbage bag of old/broken stuff. I tried to figure out how to recyle, but make-up and broken hair dryers really only belong in the trash.

On thing I really need help with in the bathroom, is cleaning my shower. There is a difference between organized and CLEAN. I use a Magic Clean eraser on my shower doors, but I can't seem to get my shower tiles as clean as I'd like them to be. What are you using on your shower? I'm sure some of my problem is that I hate to clean the shower, and so it only happens once every couple of weeks.