Welcome to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live. It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes? Every month a group of six bloggers share their work-spaces, homes, towns, and more!

So…WHAT is it that everyone has?? A JUNK DRAWER! At least I THINK everybody does. That one drawer that holds all those little random things that don’t really have anywhere else to go and yet…you’re not prepared to throw them out. Twist ties, birthday candles, chopsticks, cards, plastic forks, screwdrivers, old glasses, etc. I feel like that’s The Usual.

I’m gonna brag just a bit and say I think I have a pretty aesthetically pleasing junk drawer (relatively speaking). I don’t have a kitchen junk drawer in this apartment…but I do have a drawer in one of the dressers in the bedroom that holds more like “bedroom junk,” for lack of a better term.

This is the drawer. The top drawer of the ohtjang (dresser).

Heeeeeere we go.

Oh.

Step 1. Empty drawer.

Shoot. I thought everything would fit on one board. Silly me. There was more stuff crammed in there than I thought. Lots of little boxes. I have a hard time letting go of cute lil boxes. What if I’m giving someone a tiny gift? Any of these Mejuri boxes would be perfect.

WHO AM I GIVING TINY GIFTS TO? NOBODY. I’M GIVING NOBODY TINY GIFTS. GET RID OF THE D*MN BOXES, BETTYE.

Sigh. But they’re so cute.

And this is how I have an apartment full of STUFF. “But it’s cute/pretty/funny…and I just want it.”

I kept the one box that actually had earrings in it, which I put in another drawer where I keep jewelry…and managed to throw the others out.

YOU GO, GIRL.

Here’s everything out of the drawer. There were a couple things that went immediately to the trash or their rightful homes and didn’t make it onto the boards: a can of Febreze, a bottle of linen spray, a gift bag, little cards, candle lids, etc. Then I tried to sort of group like items together.

All the little candles in tins went back in the green box. I bought them last year when a friend and I took a trip upstate. I thought it would be nice to have scented candles in our rooms…but in the end you weren’t supposed to burn candles in the rooms so they all came back with me.

That navy blue canister thing is reed diffuser sticks and the scented oil that lives on top of the dresser. And the little black bag next to it holds essential oils I use in the diffuser on the dresser.

The tarnished silver cigarette box was my father’s, it’s monogrammed and I have it holding jewelry at the moment (in the past it held fortune cookie fortunes…cuz I can’t let go of THOSE, either!). So it went in the drawer with the jewelry.

The evil bunny I’ve had since before Katie was born. It hung in her room when she was a baby…and when she stopped having a bunny room it came back to me. I will probably have it forever. It’s silly but I love it and maybe in my next place I can hang it somewhere.

The shamrock beads were from a fun St Patrick’s Day a few years back. A friend brought these beads and silly hats for us to wear when we were in the city. Ha, funny, you can’t see the beads in the picture but they were there.

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Ha ha, also, the glasses I’m wearing here are the glasses in the green eyeglass case in the drawer. The “just in case I lose/break my current glasses” glasses.

What else? A linen mask from early covid days when I thought linen would not be so hit, but. It was just as hot.

“BOLD” is from an embroidery class I took and sucked at.

My 60th birthday tiara my niece sent me.

Some scarves and hankies went into their rightful place in the scarf and hanky drawer (a project for another day).

Samsung fanny pack from when we were in the city and needed a bathroom and they were like, “you can use the bathroom if you take a little survey about Samsung products” and then they gave us little goody bags. That is now in the donate pile. A shell. A silver Tiffany knock-off necklace.

And. The Llama.

I can’t remember if I bought this or Katie did, from a street fair in the town where we lived in our cute little house. But I periodically put the finger puppet on and video a little llama puppet show that I send to Katie. She acts like it’s stupid…but someday she’s gonna come across the llama puppet in HER drawer and remember. And I bet she’ll smile.

The llama stays.

No cat can resist the appeal of a new thing on the bed.

So. I managed to put some things away…and put some things in the trash. And this is what’s left.

Ooh Ahh.

It is essentially the scent drawer – candles and oils and matches. The llama, the angry bunny, tiara, woodland creature headband, and a few other things remain.

I’ll consider putting a couple dividers in here so it can hold some other more useful things like…I don’t know…jewelry? Socks? That I never wear? I don’t know.

But now I feel like it’s a more pleasing drawer – with pretty scents and fond memories.

One drawer down. 14 to go (evil laugh).

What’s in YOUR junk drawer??

Make sure to check out the other ladies’ posts and see what things THEY can’t let go of!

Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Leslie at Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After
Em at Dust and Doghair