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I have to offer one huge and obvious suggestion for leading a less cluttered life that I am constantly applying to my own: read the labels.

Specifically, the expiration dates.

These little numbers are blessings to a Walgreen's super-fan like myself as they allow me, no, force me to pitch cold medications, gels, baking mixes, condiments and spices we have been keeping, unknowingly, well past their due dates.

( How cool is this spice/oil rack?  Perhaps on an art wall so it would just blend in as a 3D element?)

(Speaking of art- have you seen this inspired bookshelf?  More here and here.)

It would be bad if we were actually using this expired stuff but we aren't... of course not.  Because if we decide to make onion dip or get a cold, we will not search for the box of mix/medicine buried deep within our cabinet that expired in 2007 but buy a new one when we pick up the sour cream/Kleenex and whatever else you throw in/at such a dip/cold. Chives/Airborne, perhaps?  A brick of cream cheese/Cup O' Soup might hit the spot.  And don't forget the Frito Scoops/Saltines.

Image via Pinterest

(All spices expired?  Perfect!  Order in and spend all that extra time you have not-cooking reading to the kids!  Bookshelves made from this Ikea Spice rack.)

I have know this and thought I did a pretty thorough cleanse of the bathroom last spring before we put our place on the market.

I then stared scanning the door of our refrigerator in horror right before we left for Michigan this summer.  I am not sure what I expected since many of the bottles of hot sauce and pickled, well, anything, had been there since Jack and I met almost seven years ago.  I filled a garbage bag with such bottles and left our refrigerator sparkling.

(I have loved the forward facing shelf ever since seeing Kelly Wearstler's children's library so many moons ago.

Want more?)

Then this weekend- moved- I discover a tube of Neosporin from 1999.

Yes.

By all appearances this mighty tube has travelled with me from boarding school in Rhode Island to College in Ohio, San Francisco post grad and back to Chicago some 8 years ago.  Let's not forget my semester abroad in Rome.

Assuming, of course, I was even the original purchaser.

Thankfully it is such a resilient bacteria fighting ointment or I might be really scared.

And rest assured- I have at least half a dozen other tubes of Neosporin that I have picked up along the way.

Could it get any worse?

No.


Actually, it could get much, much worse. Let's not go there.


 Yet I was still surprised and disappointed to find not one but two unopened boxes of the offending onion dip/soup mixes just last night already at home in my new cupboards.  And I have never, ever, made onion soup OR dip.  I know this much is true.  

So please, check yourself, and your shelves. I have been there.  You are not alone.

Xox,

Jenny