I can’t believe it’s been a month since my last post. The sad thing is that I’ve had ideas in my head, just not the time. My job takes more time than I plan sometimes. I mean we all need to till the fields right???

Yeah, that’s right, I was driving a tractor. It fits the metaphor of tilling the fields. Plus, it’s a picture of me driving a freaking tractor. How awesome is that??? But seriously, life has been so busy, I barely even noticed the passage of time.

Back to the staying organized thing. A few weeks back a bunch of people had the notion to try to organize their d-supplies. I too needed to do that. I had boxes of pump supplies all over the place, sensors out the wazoo, plus my magic bag of strips, lancets, batteries, etc… It was time. So after seeing some of what Kim, Sara, and Zakary either wished to do or had done, I thought maybe I should move to the cool kids club and get my life sorted out.

Before I started my supplies were in 4 different places. The floor of the closet had my recently acquired 3 month supply of pump supplies, the one closet shelf had 4 boxes of cgm supplies, numbered by need to use now vs. you still have time. The other shelf had my magic bag of crap, that needed to be addressed. Oh and a drawer of unused meters.

I found expired test strips, a 9v battery (no clue), dried out alcohol wipes, old pharmacy pieces of paperwork, random loose lancets… you get the idea. I attacked the bag first!

I now have sorted out my strips, lancets, my few remaining emergency syringes, which clued me in, I would need more soon a few random pump supplies, and I moved the meters into a new storage basket. (These baskets were on clearance at Target and just made sense.) The one alarming thing was the amount of lancets I still have. Maybe I should be changing them out more often. Who knows what I will do with those. But step one was completed.

Next I moved over to the CGM supplies. Like Sara and Zakary, I too raided Target’s clearance sale and got some nice bins to hold everything in it. I carefully removed them from their boxes and numbered each package, just in case I had an issue and threw the sensors all over the place. Oldest to newest, I ready to go.

After that I focused on the pump supplies. I brazenly claimed to Sara, that I like what she did, but I had a better idea than what she was doing. Maybe I was more alert or smug, but I was all gloaty about my genius idea. Sorry, Sara, that was rude of me.

Anyway, I sorted my pump supplies out, but I did go a step further. I had purchased Ziploc sandwich bags to help me with this task. I took the three pieces of my pump supplies, (reservoir, site, and tubing) and bundled them all together closely in the bag.  I know this idea won’t work for everyone since they may go through random pump pieces such as sites, however normally for me, my site issues are few and not very often. So I bundled each package together to make grabbing things easier. The plan has been once I finished with the pump supplies it was a twofold savior, one when I travel, I can just grab x amount of “packs” and know I have everything, but also for traveling I never really know what to do with pump supply disposal, now I have a small bag to put all the waste instead of random things in the garbage. (When I am at home, I have been saving the bags for the next resupply to do this all again.)

Behind you can see all the trash from my supplies that used to exist in my closet.

Now all of my supplies are in one place. I can grab what I need, when I need it. I know where everything is. I also know what I need to go and get, more syringes, more batteries, and probably not more lancets. Seriously, what am I going to do with all those lancets?

It’s amazing how one small act can simplify things. I have managed to cut my morning pump routine by about a minute, since I do not need to clamber about looking for each item I need. Plus I know where everything is.

Spring cleaning is amazing. Plus it gives me time to deal with my tractoring. On a side not I have straightened the shelf out a little bit. Did you really think I could let that last?? Have a great day. Have a great week.