Very useful drawer in the kitchen

Others might call it a junk drawer, but I do not think of it that way, at all. To me, it is an office supply drawer. 

It has occurred to me that all of these supplies are duplicated in the computer room. I could walk down the hall and get supplies from there. And if I was short on kitchen drawers, that is exactly what I would do. 

I suspect this drawer in the kitchen is the one we all use the most often. It is very handy. 

I straighten this drawer pretty regularly. Here is how it looked just as I was getting started, this time - 

My motivation? The medicine bottles lined on the right side, the twisty ties and rubber bands cluttering the back, and the haphazard pens, pencils, markers. 

For weeks I kept thinking - why did I think those medicine bottles were a good idea? What on earth is in all of them? 

One day, waiting for the microwave, I thought, I am going to see exactly what is in all those medicine bottles. 

And to my surprise, they were all empty. And they were very green, ours are brown. I have no idea where they came from or how they ended up on the drawer. They are now in recycling.

I realized - I am not required to save every twisty tie. I use the twisty ties that come on things, but I do not actually reuse them on other things. I saved the very large ones and put them in the garage with zip ties. I pitched the small/obnoxious ones, quite happily. 

Between that drawer and a bag in the computer room, this is how many rubber bands I had in the house -

I saved one and ALL the rest went to my backdoor neighbor. I order asparagus every week which comes with two of the very good wide purple rubber bands, I will be restocked regularly.

I also cleaned out this many fat highlighters from this drawer and the computer room and they went up my backdoor neighbor also. I kept a small set of the skinny highlighters that are much easier to store. 

I kept three of the very good white erasers and sent my neighbor two, still in their wrappers -

I rearranged the drawer a little bit, and here is where we are today - 

Make no mistake, it will needed sorted again in about 6 mos. It is a magnet for weird things. 

A public service announcement about old yearbooks

I am pleased to share - my senior yearbook (1979) went to a county library. I used the post office’s book rate, shipping was very inexpensive. (My brother is now looking thru his things to see if he still has his yearbooks.)

This is not the library in my old high school town. It is actually the next town over, but in the same county. 

This library has a very large genealogy department including a huge collection of local high school yearbooks that they have scanned and put online. Their goal is to get one copy of every yearbook from all the high schools in their county. 

The 1931 yearbook, from my maternal grandfather, is posted on their site. 1931 was his sophomore year. His other three years worth of yearbooks are missing from the collection. He went to a high school two towns over from mine, but in the same county. 

In the process of looking at his one yearbook online, and (really) missing the other three of his years, it was clear the library needed more yearbooks to complete their collection. I found they had all their gap years posted on a “want list” by high school. And I realized all my own high school years (and my brother’s) were on that list. I called to verify and get the shipping address. 

The librarians were excited. I was bittersweet. I was so glad to have found a worthwhile home for my senior yearbook, but a little sad to only be shipping one book, not four.  

I thought I had yearbooks from all four of my high school years. And I thought I knew exactly where they were, in a box in the attic with my husband’s yearbooks. But mine from 9th thru 11th grade were not there, which is a mystery. 

In the process of hunting for my missing yearbooks, my mom realized she still had a variety of yearbooks from her second husband. Some high school, some college, some from when he was teaching, all of these were old. I donated them to the genealogy department my local library, they have a national collection of materials. They are very pleased to get them. 

Two medicine cabinets

I have discovered if things have a place, I am far less frustrated. If I find a stray pair of shoes, I take them out and put them on the garage shoe rack, with very little thought and no annoyance. This realization/coping mechanism has made a huge, positive difference in my life. 

I wipe the bathroom counter and sinks most mornings, just before I hop in the shower. There is always a little something on the counter on my husband’s side. I put it away, no problem, because it is usually just one little thing. 

If I went weeks without wiping the counter, lots of things would collect on his side and my side. So the wiping serves two purposes - decluttering and actual scrub/cleaning. 

Last month, cleaning out the computer room, I found about a half dozen containers of dental floss. I put it all in my husband’s medicine cabinet. But then in subsequent days, putting things from the counter to the cupboard, floss kept falling on my head.

I have learned, to truly organize a space, I must pull everything out and start fresh.

Note: in the above picture, I had already put all the floss in a long/skinny basket. There was a lot of floss. Those baskets work GREAT in medicine cabinets, I have one in mine too (below). All the moisturizer bottles in mine, tip out on my head easily. That basket works wonders at keeping them steady.  

While his cabinet was empty, I scrubbed it and actually reduced the number of shelves. I had done the same thing in mine previously. Less shelves made for better storage in both cabinets. 

I was going to have my husband go thru his medicine cabinet  pile on the counter, but decided to look at expiration dates and pitch the old stuff first. Much of it dated back to 2014-16, by the time I pulled the expired stuff, the rest was very simple, and I reorganized it in his cabinet. 

What is very interesting about this process, was the week before we started on on the computer room, my husband had me add dental floss to the grocery order.  

Once it was all together in one spot, so much dental floss. I have found this with many other areas of the house, like rubber bands. Once they have ONE designated spot, it is startling how much there is. 

A public service announcement about standard size envelopes

First, let me announce, I am now up to 28 photo packages mailed. Each one is very exciting.

I have been using the kiosk at the post office, after hours, for almost all my mailing needs for the last couple years. I have mailed a lot of things since March 2020.  

Several Saturdays ago, I had two packages to mail that needed checked out by a clerk. I had a box going to Sweden which required a customs form. I had a box going book rate to a library (yearbook donation post coming soon). I could not do either of those at the kiosk. 

That day, I had three envelopes going also. These 3 were envelopes I normally would do at the kiosk, but since I was going IN anyway, I took them all to the counter. One was half size manilla filled with photos, one was a greeting card size full of photos, and one was an empty square notecard in a square envelope. 

I put a stamp on the square one, at home, because it was not heavy. 

When I got to the counter at the post office I commented one already had the postage and the rest needed weighed/calculated. 

The post office clerk said the square one needed more postage because it was square. Evidently, square, regardless of the size, must be hand sorted, they get caught/destroyed in the machine/reader/sorter.

So I paid for 30 cents more postage on the square one. He processed the rest of my things. 

I went home and collected all my square envelopes and gave them to a friend who uses them for scrapbooking. 

Very interestingly, later that same day I was at a bookstore, having them buy back old computer games, and I browsed in the close-out notecard section while I waited. A shocking number of the close out notecards were undersized and/or square. (I found cute notecards, 3.5”x5”, and got them for youngest with my store credit. I try to use store credit immediately.)

I am sure I have used square envelopes in the past, with no extra postage, and now I wonder if they ever made it to their destinations.