The cleaning of the shed continues.  The kids had a costume party at daycare this week and, in an effort to find face makeup for a vampire bat, I brought in (and sorted) the Halloween tub.  It wasn't bad.... I culled it pretty hard last year. 

I'm trying to sort/purge a tub every week.

I thought I had a tub in the shed full of towels I was saving for some unknown reason and I recently made some decisions about towels.... So I went diving in looking for them.

Guess what? At some point in a pregnancy-fueled fit of cleaning I got rid of those towels! I wonder which pregnancy it was? Anyway....

Here's the new improved towel score card at my house. I have one bathroom.... so that makes it easier.

The shed: A tub with a few towels in it. The beautiful butter yellow set that will go with my new bathroom after we remodel and a set of green/tan ones with moose or trees or something on them... brand new and a wedding gift and no real reason to keep them except I'm hoping to pawn them off on my sister later this spring.

The garage: A whole cupboard of towels and rags. Perfect for lining a dog kennel or cleaning bloody knives (What? My husband hunts....).

The laundry room: A gorgeous stack of cleaning rags.

The kitchen: My kitchen towels were inadvertently addressed last year. Leaky sink drain plus whole sink full of bleach water plus kitchen towels stored under the sink equals, well, lots of new rags for the garage cupboard and a renewed commitment to NOT use bleach. I have 4 main kitchen towels plus two Christmas themed ones and three little pink ones (for Valentine's Day and spring). I'd like to add two fall themed ones. Kitchen dish rags are replaced every year at Christmas time. Santa brings my husband new rags.

WAIT.  STOP.  Be horrified by my pink countertops.

Baby washcloths: These live in the drawer with the dish rags. I got a set of really nice ones from Ross in an effort to buy SOMETHING new and special for the baby. Love them. I'll also address baby bibs here. I have way too many. Need to cull this giant pile. I have one plastic one that lives on the high chair and is the one I use the most. (UPDATE:  DONE.  She is 14 months and hates to wear a bib.  Buy more oxiclean and leave her alone.)

Cloth napkins: I have 4 teal-ish blue ones in a holder. We use them every day. I also have a stack of red ones. We use them fairly often. I have 4 Christmas plaid ones that get pulled out and mixed with the red ones at Christmas time.

Wash rags and hand towels: They live in a wooden box on a shelf. They are ratty. There are 4 hand towels and 7 wash rags in rotation. (NOTE:  There are now 3 hand towels (one is in the cat carrier) and 5 wash rags (two were sacrificed to clean up some horrendous mess or another)... and they are ALL getting replaced the next time I find fabulous ones on clearance.)

Beach towels: We have 5 big pool towels on a shelf in the kids' room. They move to a trunk on the porch in the summer. There is also a spare in each car... affectionately referred to as the "Frow Up" towel.... for emergencies of all sorts.

And, finally, the actual towels: My hubby and I each have a towel on a hook, each kid has a hoodie towel on a low hook or the bathroom door (yes, that is an adorable tiny duck bathrobe on the back of my door..... the baby looks like a tiny demented Hugh Heffner when she lounges in it). I also have one of those dorky hair towels. Then we have 5 extra towels for guests.

All towels are swooped up and washed weekly and then hung directly back on their hooks. I don't like to fold towels. Are you horrified we don't use a fresh towel every time we bathe?

Holy Catfish.... who knew a post on towels would take this long to document?

Now I'm off to dream about plush white hand towels.....

Secret Confession: I had a really hard time letting go of some kitchen towels and rags my grandma made for me. But then I thought about what she would say. This was a woman who kept a specially marked "GIVE AWAY" bag in her closet before it was cool. She would tell me to use them up, cherish the memory and move on.