Time to clean out the cleaning supplies!

First I got out my cleaning supplies from the five different locations where they are stored…

This was an interesting exercise because it revealed to me that I’m actually very happy with my cleaning products. Weird, huh? In the last few years, and particularly since moving when I had to buy everything over again, I’ve been careful to choose more green cleaners, and to eliminate what I consider unnecessary. In going through everything, I felt really happy with my choices.

I also love my cleaning caddy (visible in the lower left corner). It’s made of metal and wood, and I bought it as a ‘treat’ for myself. So cleaning products really can spark joy.

I did have a hoard of saved plastic garbage bags. Here’s a dilemma. I eliminated plastic produce bags from my grocery shopping, but now I receive them regularly in our farm subscription box at the Farmers’ Market. Ironic. So I was dutifully saving them, the small ones for bathroom bins, the larger ones (used to line the farm box) for our kitchen bin.

But of course, I also had a purchased box of 85 kitchen bags, which apparently I opened on the bottom.

Here’s my great realisation. Since going more zero waste, we average 3-4 weeks without emptying our kitchen trash. Let’s say 3 weeks for a conservative estimate. If this is the case, 85 bags would last us over 4 years. So why am I saving mucky bags to reuse? Since I can recycle them, that’s what I decided to do, for the sake of having a tidier cupboard.

Oh, and then I started wondering how much money I’d saved us in trash bags alone. Turns out, $2.72 a year. Woohoo?

Next, I turned to my laundry supplies. I included shoe care with this, since it falls in the category of ‘clothing care’. I even store them with the laundry supplies, so do I get bonus KonMari points for already storing by category?

Among my shoe care, I unearthed these tins of shoe polish. Why yes, I am very passionate about the care of shoes and other leather goods.

That’s eight tins of shoe polish. Three were black, so I pared down to one of those. But I kept the others. They were different colours. And I am indeed passionate about shoe care. Being a cash-strapped student who walked a lot in a wet climate made me realise how much you can extend the life and function of good shoes by protecting them. Handbags as well. I have a whole basket of shoe care supplies and I stand by them!

This also gives me joy:

Why not? It’s wooden and it makes painful shoes comfy.

My laundry area is now neat and tidy. This makes me really happy. Laundry is actually one of my favourite household tasks.

For my next task, I’ve decided to veer away from general household items into baby items, because I can’t stand the clutter any longer. I find baby things hard to deal with for some reason – huge in number, mushy and sentimental and cute, and the needs and storage constantly changing – as well as totally uninspiring, which in turn makes me feel really guilty. I guess I must think a good mother would love tidying her baby’s 3,406 itty bitty things. So all this is bad news for my tidying efforts, but perhaps it’ll make a good blog post.