Decrapification - The Medicine Cabinet

I'm stealing the word "decrapification" from my new-found hero Thrifty Decor Chick.  I just love that word...decrapification.  Anyways decrapifification of my home has begun.  I do not want to appear on an episode of "Horders, Buried Alive," and if I continue on in the chaos I've been living in that's where I'll end up. 

I decided to start with my bathroom medicine cabinet.  It has been pretty much a total mess ever since we moved in.  I think I've cleaned it maybe once in the past two years.  Stuff just gets thrown up there and never really sorted through.  So I decided to dedicate this afternoon to organizing my medicine cabinet.

If you think I suck at decorating stuff, I REALLY suck at organization, but with all the couponing I've been doing it's been nagging at me that I was gonna need to eventually do something to control the chaos.  I start organizing and get into a total tizzy on how to organize stuff.  Like, do I go by ailment or do I organize by kids medicine vs. adult medicine, or both?  For GOD sakes it makes my head spin.  If you don't believe me check out my post on organizing my kids clothing.  It's enough to make me insane.

So, I actually GOOGLED "how to organize your medicine cabinet."  I'm not kidding people.  The consensus is to organize by ailment like "cold and flu" and "pain relief", etc...so I started on the daunting task of going through all my meds.

So, for those of you who are organizationally challenged like me, here is what I did.  Maybe it will help you, or maybe you can give me ANY advice for the future ;)

Here is my before shot.  It's NOT pretty.  It's downright embarrassing.  It's a total pain in the rear to try and find anything in there at all.

I cleaned it all out, and wiped down the cupboards.

Then I organized categories of meds into piles.  It about threw me into a tizzy when one medicine would fit more than one category.  For example:  Hydro-cortisone.  It could go into anti-itch or it could go into first aid.  I think I debated this one for twenty minutes.  Have I ever talked about my inability to make a simple decision?

  I then took out all expired medications, and put them all into baskets according to their category.

Then after about 30 minutes of cursing and screaming trying to get a label maker to work, I just decided to write the labels by hand with a Sharpee.  I put all the labels on and put them up in the cabinet, and finally I was done!  I wish my shelves were adjustable so I wasn't wasting space, but this is much better than where I started.  I'm pretty proud of my progress!

I learned some things I learned while doing this:

• I have enough feminine hygiene products to get me through the apocalypse.
• I have purchased Benadryl probably EVERY time I felt allergy symptoms. 
• I've purchased sunscreen every time I've gone swimming.
• I've bought aloe practically every time I've gotten a sunburn.
• Sunscreen actually DOES expire.  I never knew that.
• I had items in my cabinet that expired in 2007.  That's before I MOVED.  That means I MOVED this crap.
• I had BREAK FLUID in my medicine cabinet.  Not sure why, but that's a bit scary.
• As technically savvy I think I am for the life of me I can't figure out how to use a label maker.
• When left to their own devices, a three year old will try and mix water and Play-Doh to make a cake.

Tomorrow it's the linen closet.  Yikes.