I had a busy day today. And actually, quite the busy weekend. I’ve still managed to post daily for NaBloCleanMo, but I’ve fallen behind.  I’m currently not working a day ahead on any of my cleanup projects.

When I got home around 6pm tonight after being out all day on a running-related field trip (more on that later), I wasn’t really sure what I was going to tackle tonight.

I went about showering and putting on my jammies (yes, before 7pm), and then went into the kitchen to fill up a water bottle. It’s hard to drink out of cups in this house! And I got a little sidetracked …

While I have plenty of clean water bottles, I decided I should wash out the three in queue next to the sink. And then I washed the colander that had been sitting beside the sink for a few weeks.

And then I cleaned out the empty cookie jar. Even though they were long gone, everything had been tasting minty since the last of the Candy Cane Joe-Joe’s (which should be back soon, if not already. Yay!).

I also have a canister that used to have whole wheat flour in it. I ran out long ago, yet hadn’t gotten around to washing it out. Until today.

I don’t have a before picture since I didn’t really intend this to be tonight’s clean-up project. It just happened.

Once everything was clean I wiped down the countertops. Sure it’s only part of my kitchen, but it makes a big difference!

I can’t take credit for most of today’s cleanup. My husband did most of the work while I napped on the couch, recovering from this morning’s 9-mile run. Since I had a chorale concert last night and another tonight, I needed the rest!

Onto the cleanup … Our laundry stack had gotten quite impressive!

I can’t believe it didn’t topple over.

After I got back from my run, I did wash a load of running clothes. This didn’t help the main problem … but my running-clothes hamper was also full. Yikes.

Once that was done, I pulled the darks/colors out of the mountain and my husband took over from there.

It’s still kinda full, but the lid closes!

Before my nap, I tried on all of the jeans and pants in my dresser. I’m less likely to put my clothes away if my drawers are too stuffed! I found a small stack that I didn’t wear much or didn’t fit well that’ll go to Goodwill. I didn’t get rid of that much … but it should help.

Now I just have to go through the rest of the drawers … and my closet …

I have too much stuff, and not enough places to put it.

Tonight I returned to cabinet in the powder room. This half bathroom truly is my powder room, since I use it to do my hair and makeup in the mornings while my husband is in the shower.

Aside from storing toilet paper and some cleaning supplies, I have a quite a collection of hair products, sunscreen, lotions and bath products in here.

I find it kind of amusing that the black box in the front was full of stuff I hadn’t yet organized the last time I cleaned out this cabinet. It’s referenced in the post I linked to above … from November 2007!

Anyway, that’s gone now. Also gone are a lot of half and mostly-empty sunscreen bottles that have expired, some empty boxes, and some products that I remember disliking.

I have the same problem as last time — a ton of nearly-empty hair products that I simply won’t toss until it’s all used up. I now have all of them consolidated in a large basket in the front. This time I really do have to finish off all the almost-empty ones, and figure out if I like the full ones. And then toss them if they don’t work!

Last time I didn’t have that large basket … and all of the extra hair products were in the back where I couldn’t access them as easily. Hopefully this works!

I still have some work to do with the small basket in the front. There are some lotions that can stay, but there’s also a rather large assortment of travel-size shower gel, shampoo and conditioner bottles that should probably be stored with the others I have in our master bathroom cabinet.

But that’s another project for another day!

Apparently, both.

I started going through my cluttered pantry last night. Here’s what we started with:

It seems I feel the need to save every paper or plastic bag that comes into this house. By cleaning out just the bottom section of the pantry, I was able to remove this:

Oh, I also re-attached the bag holder/dispenser that had fallen off months ago. That was also shoved into the floor area of the pantry.

I still have a long way to go. But at least now stuff won’t fall on me every time I open the door!