Most of the cabinets in our kitchen are filled with either food, dishes or utensils. A few others are used to store pots and pans, along with some small appliances like a blender, coffee grinder and a hand-mixer.

Rita recently decided it was time to do some spring cleaning and is determined to start with the living room.

Meanwhile, I’ve been looking through the kitchen cabinets to see if there’s anything I can toss or donate to the food shelf or a thrift store.

We already went through some of the canned goods a few weeks ago and checked expiration dates. There weren’t many older items except some cans of soup that were just about expired.

We had soup the next few days.

There’s also a kitchen cabinet close to the front door that has a bunch of miscellaneous items we just decided to put there because they really didn’t fit into a specific category. Many have nothing to do with the kitchen, but they’re things we’ll probably use and don’t want to misplace.

That’s where we store our light bulbs. We don’t go though too many since everything is LED now and lasts longer. But I’d hate to need a bulb and not know where to find one.

That’s also the cabinet where we store our batteries. Ever since we started metal detecting we use a lot more batteries. Both our detectors use four AA’s. Our pinpointers each use a 9-volt battery. So we’re constantly buying new supplies to keep up with the demand.

At the back of one of the shelves are two unopened boxes of fuses. They’re only used in the barn, garage and old chicken house, but I’ve had trouble finding them in the past, so that kitchen cabinet is their new home.

Over time, that cabinet has become the home of more stuff that’s not really too important, but not quite useless enough to throw away. I’ve seen tins of shoe polish, a box of markers, one of those sticky lint rollers and a half bottle of hummingbird food.

There’s also a tube of sunscreen, a box of birthday candles, a two-pack of Dr. Scholl’s shoe insoles and an old knee brace. I also spotted a box filled with keys of all shapes and sizes.

I don’t know where all the stuff would go if I removed it. So after carefully looking through that cabinet, I’ve decided everything should stay just the way it is.

So I’m moving on to sort through the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.