It's throw away time! First stop, the bathroom!

Here it is! I have been gotten through the first category on my list! I decided on the bathroom as my first project just because there was a lot I knew needed thrown out and I figured it would be the easiest one to start out with. And wow! This feels fantastic and it's just has hard as I thought it would be. I say I got through it... but I'm not satisfied and am very confident more of this will be leaving my house. I started this yesterday and "finished" it up today. Just between yesterday and today I was able to get rid of things I was planning on keeping. I'm curious as what I'll be able to get rid of in another couple months.

Frankly... I struggled with a few items... like my body sprays and perfumes. I still have a total of 5.... UGGG! And not one is natural, they are all loaded with all the nasty stuff I want to avoid but I just love them. I wanted to at least be down to 1 or 2, but I have such a huge soft spot for smelly things. But I finally parted with a huge amount of nail polish, 26 bottles to be exact, many weren't even usable anymore and I have no idea why I still had them. I still have 14 fairly new bottles, I think several will end up being gifted to a certain 11 and 13 year old set of sisters I know that might appreciate them. Because I mean really, how often do I wear nail polish? Not that often. I keep my toes painted but that only needs done every month or so since it seems to never wear off, and I'm a crafter and a mom to a coming up on 2 year old... yeah... painted fingernails are lucky if they last a weekend.

But like I said I'm not where I want to be yet. Going from lots of stuff to not a lot of stuff is a strange thing to try and do. You get so used to just having lots of things just for the sake of having them and it's an adjustment. I also find it very difficult to get rid of anything that was a gift. Especially if it's not been used much. I had collected several sets of body wash, lotion and body spray over the years that were gifted, I'd used them all on and off and most of them were down to the bottom and were years old so I didn't feel bad getting rid of them. I still have 2 sets. One is a small set that I've used sparingly because I love the scent, so I've decided to use it as my travel set until it's gone, and the other one is a normal size set that I only got last year, I've used it a little bit but not a huge amount since I'm trying to get away from the chemical loaded body products and have other things I can use... I know I'll probably barely use it and its sitting just waiting for me to decide what to do with it. I'm thinking of bringing it to my parent's house and leaving it there for when I visit... I don't know.

The pictures below are before and after pictures from our bathroom stuff closet and the shelves above our toilet. Sorry the pictures are so dark. The lighting in the hallway is particularly bad.

The top 3 shelves in the bathroom storage closet. As you can maybe see, the top shelf only has our spare shower curtain, which I'm having troubles parting with because it's a seascape I used in my room when I was a kid so it's sentimental. But the evil cleaning supplies shelf is empty. I haven't gotten rid of anything yet, it's just been moved into the laundry/utilities room until I'm ready to deal with it. But you can see the medicine shelf isn't packet full anymore. It was amazing all the expired stuff we had. Stuff that I didn't think was that old was expired. Good lesson in checking expiration dates more often.

The bottom 2 shelves and the floor. This was pretty much all my stuff. As you can see it was pretty packed full. This is where most of the throw away stuff came from. It was ridiculous some of the things I've kept all these years. Going through this stuff made me feel like I'm a borderline hoarder. But I know I'm not because it was easy to get rid of most of it, I think I might just be lazy and I know I don't like getting rid of things that I MIGHT just use. HA! If I haven't used it since before my daughter was born, I DON'T need it. But okay, you'll see there are no longer boxes on the floor and I actually have room for the dog food and toilet paper! Yay for those things not being shoved alongside the toilet and under the pedestal sink where the toddler can get to them! The bottom shelf has some travel stuff, a few dog things and then some Ann stuff, including a few medical things that we shouldn't need but we'll keep until the expire next March just so we don't have to buy more if we end up needing them. Then my shelf, full of my not often used girly stuff. It's so manageable now. I love it! 

The bathroom shelf. So much nicer. All the baskets are half as full, my jewelry(there is more in the storage room which I'm going to worry about when I get to it) is organized, all my hair clips are in a tin. Ann's bath time toys finally have a spot so we aren't just leaving them in the bottom of the tub. 

I didn't take a before or after of the stuff on the sink, but it looks fantastic as well. There were several things that had just kinda collected there. As is true of about every space in this place.  

12" x 20" x 13" box, very full of all the throwaways.

 And the clear box is all the nail polishes that are getting thrown out.

Not to shabby for the first throw away haul. 

I'm just wondering how I'm going to progress throughout all of this. I know I'm struggling with certain things but I'm already feeling myself becoming more willing to let go of things I logically know I don't need, won't miss, or even want in my house. I really hope in another 3, 6, 12 months to see even fewer things in this closet, as well as everywhere else in this house. But like I've said, I want this to be therapeutic and not extra stress, so I'm going to work my way up to getting rid of more and more.