Expired Medicine Be Gone!

My sister, Amy, did her every year or two bathroom closet declutter/clean up this weekend.

(Oh, how I would love to have a closet in my bathroom to declutter and keep clean. But that's another posting.)

She took out three kitchen-size garbage bags full of old make-up, toiletries and medicines. When you have lean, mean bathroom storage areas such as myself, you are forced to do this task much more frequently lest you be unable to actually get into the bathroom! Our house was built in 1964 and has the "master" bathroom to prove it.

My friend Emily, children's photographer extraordinaire, (http://www.veralana.com/) suggested a post on what to do with expired medications. She has one husband, two adorable girls and the same 1964 house we do, so she's interested in keeping that master bathroom as uncluttered as possible.

The Washington Times had a good article last year (excerpted here) about the whys and hows to properly dispose of expired medications, over-the-counter and prescription alike.

Expired medicine around the house can lead to multiple problems including the potential for drug abuse (experimenting teens in the house anyone?), health issues (old meds don't work as well, if at all, as fresh meds) and environmental concerns (water supply and landfill contamination issues).

The FDA recommends cleaning out medicine cabinets at least once a year, checking for expiration dates and throwing away all expired medications. They recommend first taking the medicine out of its original container which can then be thrown away with regular household trash or recycled.

Recently established government guidelines for getting rid of the medicines themselves include mixing the medicine with undesirable substances like coffee grinds or clean cat box litter. Liquid medications can also be mixed with these items, rendering them unusable.

After concocting this lovely mixture, simply seal it in an impermeable, non-descript container like a Ziploc bag or empty can before throwing it away with the household trash. This will keep the medicine from seeping into the environment.

Whatever you do, don't flush medications down the toilet, as I once did! Some medications can actually release chemicals into the sewage system, which then could eventually get back to humans via our drinking water. It's not known how these minute traces of pharmaceuticals might affect us, however, rest assured the EPA is "aggressively pursing research on occurrence and fate and transport of pharmaceuticals in various water sources, possible health effects in humans and aquatic life, and the effectiveness of water treatment technologies."

So, there now. Go clean out your medicine cabinet. While you're at it, toss that hip-in-2002 green eye-shadow and three-year old mascara! Not to mention rusty bobby pins (you just never get around to doing that chic chignon you always imagine will complete your LBD ensemble), that stinky body cleanser you got in the dollar bin at Target and any other items you haven't touched or used in a year.

Ahhh, doesn't that feel better?

So much kid's artwork, so little space...

We love our kid's artwork. We get some crazy, visceral attachment from the moment we see her first scribbles. We ooh and aah over the construction paper farmer with the button eyes. We coo at the color wheels. The golf-ball-rolled-in-white-paint-and-rolled-on-black-construction-paper creation. The pre-school version of Rorschach tests that almost invariably look like butterflies. The too-adorable-for-words feather and glitter and cotton ball thingy.

You know what I'm talking about.

Now. What to do with all of it. Before it consumes your kitchen table, the walls. The very essence of your home.

Here are a few ideas.

My friend Emily has a friend who ingeniously put corkboard into large, inexpensive frames and rotates her childrens' special pieces through. Adds instant pizazz and importance and makes the kids feel great!

Tack one of those metal-trimmed strips of corkboard (they are about an inch tall) across a free expanse of wall in your kitchen, the child's room or playroom. Buy some fun thumbtacks and create your own gallery. I found some really cute flower and dot thumbtacks at http://www.officefun.com/ -- a package of 30 is only $2.99. They also have ladybugs.

Take photos of your child holding their artwork and place the pics into a photo album. Don't forget to include the date in the caption. Make it fun for the kids by having them decorate the album. If you are a scrapbooker, or just more ambitious than me, check out my friend Lisa Emerson's Creative Memory website to see many digital scrapbooking options. (www.mycmsite.com/lisaemerson)

Create virtual albums using one of the many photo websites available. I really like Picasa. I've also used Snapfish. And Shutterfly is popular. I'm not a Mac user but Apple iPhoto is supposed to be a great tool. You can upload photos of each piece of art into an album and send to all the equally adoring grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

There are portfolios made expressly to store art projects by grade. These are usually oversized to accommodate even the largest poster-sized versions of the ubiquitous "My Family" projects! I've tried without success to find one of these online. Post a comment with a link if you find one!

For a simple, retro solution, create a "clothes line" out of string or ribbon strung across a window or empty wall space. Use fun clothes pins to showcase prized art. I got some really cute miniature clothes pins embellished with little painted ladybugs at Michael's.

There was an article in the Washington Post yesterday about Ali Wentworth's home. She is an actor who lives in Georgetown with her husband, George Stephanopolous, and their two young daughters. She has a bulletin board that runs the length of their kitchen wall that displays the girls' artwork. She bought it online from a school supply company. The largest I found was a 4' x 8' bulletin board at http://www.officedepot.com/. You could hang two or more of these side-by-side to create the same effect. I also stumbled upon the world o' borders at http://www.teachersparadise.com/. There are literally hundreds of different border designs -- one is sure to please your Picasso.

I'd especially suggest the digitizing of artwork if you have a hard time actually getting rid of items after they've been properly showcased for a period of time. I'm pretty sentimental but I have an easy enough time disposing of (most of) Mimi's voluminous amounts of art. I just make sure I do it while she's at school. And I've learned the hard way to stuff things under the piles of newspaper in the recycling bins so she can't see them.

I'd love to hear some of your ideas for showing off children's artwork -- and how you get rid of it!

The Aquarium Industrial Complex

John and Mimi have been busily creating a fishy wonderland in Mimi's room with the addition of a 10-gallon aquarium. Yes, this after the tragic demise of the hermies (at my hands) a few weeks ago. Mimi tells me every time they get back from PetSmart, "Mommy, I just can't even go look at the hermit crabs. It just makes me too sad."

We lost one fish within 24 hours (I swear it wasn't me!) but since then, we've been pet-death-free. Lots of partial water changes, adjustments to the water temperature, equipment changes (our first heater had a meltdown, literally), fretting over ammonia levels, researching tropical fish websites, debating live plants v. plastic plants, etc. This aquarium business is highly complex stuff!

The one time I went with Mimi and John to PetSmart I casually mentioned that I might like one of the cool "Mystery Snails". That's what they call them. Really. So the next time they went (I'm telling you there are a lot of trips to PetSmart to get a tank going) they brought me back a beautiful black Mystery Snail which I named "Madame X". Yes, all of our aquarium buddies have names. The better to mourn them upon their inevitable expiration. Well, to the grown ups in the house anyway. To Mimi, it's just common sense to name your pets.

The last time father and daughter ventured to PetSmart, they bought a little frog (Felix) and another beautiful Mystery Snail with a golden shell. With five-year old logic, Mimi promptly named her "Madame Y".

Organized enough?

I was thinking this morning about how you know when you are organized enough. My house definitely wouldn't fall into the minimalist, pristine category that I think a lot of people envision when they think of being organized. John is fond of saying "physician, heal thyself" when I start talking my organizing talk. That's my cue to remind him that I can pretty much put my hands on whatever it is that he's searching for that day! Yes, he is one of those husbands. And, yes, I am one of those wives.

That's one of the reasons I love Kathy Waddill's book "The Organizing Sourcebook". Her approach calls for organizing with nine strategies of "reasonably organized people". I like that! You don't have to be an organizing machine to make your life a little less stressful and a lot more enjoyable.

It also occurred to me that if you are not losing

-- things

-- your temper

-- money

-- sleep

-- your mind

due to disorganization, you are probably organized enough.

Pat yourself on the back. This is Real Life -- it's not like the reality TV organizing shows (although they are a lot of fun to watch!).

If you are losing something due to disorganization, just make up your mind to take a baby step today. Go clean out a kitchen drawer. Put all those read or unread magazines and newspapers into the recycling bin. Go to your closet, pick out 10 pieces of clothing to donate to Goodwill, put them in a bag, put them in your car and drive over there. Create just one file folder labeled "Bills to Pay" and keep it on your desk.

Repeat daily.

Put a lid on it...

I'm not sure where she got it from but Mimi is always scolding John about leaving the toilet seat up in her bathroom. John always mildly replies, "Well, I think y'all should always leave the seat up for me!"


Her friend Helen was over the other day and one of the last things they did was a very special art project.




In case you can't read the sign it says "No leaving the toilet seat up." It's signed by Helen and Mimi. They've been drawing stick men forever but I thought the drawing of the toilet was pretty good!

John's response was, "Hmm, I think I'm going to work on a sign that says 'Please leave the toilet seat up.'"

Whine-O: The Reveal

OK, thanks to the nudge from my friend Emily commenting on my Whine-O post, I am now getting around to revealing my friend Darla's simple yet brilliant wine "labeling" system. I've been a little off schedule the last couple of days. My parents and my 13-year old nephew, Max, drove up from Texas and arrived on Saturday -- we've had a busy 48 hours!

So, Darla has a great wine collection that she keeps in a closet space under her stairwell. Nice size area, cool and dark. As I was whining to her the other day about John unwittingly drinking the "good stuff" (see, now I've passed the bitter stage and am simply resigned), she shared with me her wine labeling system.

It does serve a couple of other purposes in addition to keeping her husband on the straight and narrow, wine selection-wise.

Any bottle of wine given to them as a gift gets a brown rubber band around the neck. A nice reminder of the gift, it also helps to prevent any potential re-gifting embarassments! She was once on the receiving end of such a faux pas during a gathering at her house. Although she can't say that she was unhappy to see the nice bottle of champagne, ribbon and all, that she had given to her unwitting guest some time ago.

Bottles that need to sit for awhile, or are just generally really good, get a purple rubber band. You can usually find these on your bunches of broccoli. These help define "the good stuff" in the collection.

Bottles that are wine-a-licious and deserve to be shared or at least properly appreciated while drinking get a green rubber band. These could be for a romantic dinner for two, dinner gathering or to placate a whiney friend.

All other bottles are devoid of rubber bands. Michael knows that any bottle in the wine closet with no rubber band on the neck is fair game.

Brilliant, heh?

Whine-O

A few months ago I went to Total Wine in Fairfax and did a little wine shopping. I got several every day sipping bottles and one bottle recommended by one of the employees. It cost about $50. A pretty nice, pricey bottle at retail. When I got home, I put one of those little collars on it and wrote "John, do not drink!" We had a little laugh over that as I told him of my plan to open up this bottle when we had a special dinner during one of our too infrequent "in-house" date nights.

Sometime in the past couple of months the tag was removed (probably by Mimi - she LOVES to play with a little basket of wine charms that we keep in the wine cabinet, we find them everywhere).

Last week I noticed we only had a bottle or two of wine in the cabinet. I quickly took a look and, sure enough, the "special" bottle of wine was gone! OK, maybe livid is a little too strong a word to describe my reaction but let's just say that John was lucky he was out of town. By the time he got back, I was simply bitter. When I asked him about it he just said, "Don't worry, I'll buy you another bottle."

It wasn't the fact that he drank the wine that got to me. My little tag had disappeared and I couldn't really expect him to remember exactly which bottle I had stashed away for our little future romantic evening.

No, it was the thought of him obliviously drinking that really nice bottle of wine downstairs in our basement one night, in his pajamas, watching Battlestar Galactica and eating popcorn that sent me over the edge!

Come back tomorrow and read about a husband-proof wine labeling system designed by my friend Darla. A little tease: it involves rubber bands. I'm going to implement it immediately.