still plodding along.

This organizing thing is SO much harder than I expected. I can't even put into words how much harder. Every time I think the end is in sight, I realize just how much more I have to do. And I'm tired. Soooo....tired.  There are still boxes stacked around the front room. But...its like....5 boxes. 5 boxes left out of 2 storage units, one of which was a 5x10 storage unit stacked to the ceiling, which is probably another good 10 to 12 feet. Jeremy has hauled carloads to the Goodwill down the street and has carried boxes and boxes and bags to the dumpster. I have to keep reminding myself how much we have done. It still looks bad, real bad. But when I look back on what has been done, its not so bad.

This portion has almost been an interlude of sorts from KonMari. Not even real KonMari. The only way to tackle it all was to get it from storage but there was so much stuff and so little space here that taking it category by category was just not doable and what I've had to do was take it box by box and get rid of the super obvious stuff, sort and repack specific things like camping gear. So once I finish up this last little bit of stuff from storage, then I have to actually continue the Kondo-ing process by category. And once thats done, then I have to get down to the actual organizing. The organizing is what I was looking forward to, not the discarding.

I don't have much to show for pictures so I will leave you with this. Marie Kondo makes a number of suggestions, most of which sound asinine when you first read the book, but I just have to say...try it. Just try it. You can go back to your old way if you don't like it. She says to take your things out of the shower. All of it. All the bottles and razors and soaps and potions. SHE dries each bottle off and stores under her sink...thats a bit much for me at least right now. I did find that I liked having everything out of the shower though. First I loaded everything up into one basket and stored it on the shelf behind the door and i would just carry the basket over for a shower or bath. But it was heavy and awkward and before long the basket just sat on the side of the tub. So I pulled this shelf out of the coat closet and put in there and grabbed these little plastic baskets from Wal Mart ($2.97 each!) and Jeremy, Lucy and I each have one. So whomever is in the bath can pull their basket out, shower, then put it back. Much easier!

Oh, and we decided that we don't think Marie Kondo poops or farts or anything. I watched an interview with her this morning. I'm convinced. However, she just had a baby. I'm interested to see what sort of monster motherhood turns her into. <evil laugh>

violins and other strings

I'm cutting the strings. The violin strings, that is. One would assume that in the last week, I've managed to conquer this pile, right? Well...sort of.

I've gone in spurts. Friday, I realized it just wasn't happening by myself, it was too overwhelming. So I told Jeremy I was gonna need some help. His solution was to go buy a couple of rubbermaid tubs and take what I had sorted into categories and figure out what would fit into the tubs. Now, this isn't really strict KonMari, but it was stuff like camping, sports, tools. So it worked out ok, figuring out which items in each category would fit into the tub, and we would've needed to store those items like that anyway. At a later date, I can pull each one out and see if I want to minimize further.

Except the tubs are still sitting in my living room. We have weird limbo in the little storage closet upstairs, with Elizabeth moving out in a few weeks, Clayton needing some of his stuff picked up by the Air Force next month. There is already the Christmas stuff and a few other random things up there that need to be brought down and gone through but that I just can't handle right now.

The biggest problem with all of this is while these piles sit, the rest of the house goes to pot too. The kitchen doesn't get cleaned, I haven't folded clothes. I just feel numb. All of this is further proof that my big issue is all of the stuff. All of the clutter. Without the clutter, I cleaned, enjoyed our space, felt better.

But still I've been practicing avoidance. I just stay in the other room because I can't deal with it. Every day I get up and try and between the mess and the toddler...within the hour I will be back in the bedroom, hiding. Today I walked in and sat down to think, how do I get past this block. I have these piles of stuff and ultimately, the holdup is that I'm still holding onto things that I don't "need". This is all addressed in the book, of course. Basically, our clutter and mess is the result of other factors, either deeper issues present or that the clutter is causing the deeper issue. Some of the stuff, I just couldn't make a decision on. It didn't fit with the inspiration in my head of how I want my space to look, but I couldn't let go of it either, hadn't even thought about letting go. Certain things, I felt from the beginning, I would keep and find a place for. This sounds good in theory, keep what we love and what sparks joy.

The problem is, I keep finding more and more things like that that I think I need to keep. Seems like common sense to keep.

Like violins. I have always adored string music. I have always wanted to learn to play. I was not given the opportunity as a child to learn things like that. We didn't do extracurricular activities. Partly because of the cost and partly because it just wasn't looked at as a necessity for us. So, at 32 years old, I bought a violin and started lessons. And later I bought a 1/4 size violin for Gabe to learn with me.

Well...lets back up a little because 2 years before that, I bought a violin at a pawn shop. But you know how pawn shops are, I basically paid a lot of money for a violin that needed work and wasn't even the right size for me. I had no idea what I was buying and nobody there did either, they just put a large price tag on the instrument and I bought the one I could afford.

When I started lessons, I toted my pawn shop violin into the class, where the instructor promptly informed me that it was the wrong size, was missing a part and needed new strings. I ended up purchasing the new violin.

So I had THREE violins. After paying a fortune for the one that couldn't even be played, I didn't know what to do with it at all.

Last week, the same day I put the old violin in the growing "I Don't Know" pile, within the hour, a woman posted on our local for sale page wanting a non functional violin for free or cheap so that she could turn it into a decoration for her grandchild's room. She found herself the proud owner of that violin and I can't think of a better use for it.

But now we still have the two violins. And don't get me wrong, I wasn't losing sleep over the violins, they weren't even on my radar. Every time I looked at them, I wondered where I was going to store them. It was a given that they were staying.

But still...frozen. This crap isn't going anywhere and Lucy has been cranky with the mess and I've been cranky.

So here we are, today, sitting on the couch, looking at the piles, wondering what to tackle first.  I glance at the pile that has the violins. Recently I've read some stories on my various KonMari forums about letting go of items and trusting that the universe/God would provide that item when it is needed. Well, the whole reason for holding onto the violins was that eventually I want to start taking lessons again. But, I also have daily life, nursing school to try to finish, and a lot of other stuff, before I ever get back to violin lessons. Its just not a priority right now. The thought enters my mind like a shadow...or ghost...not really a conscious thought, just sort of there....what if you just gave the violins to someone who needs them. What if someone can't afford a violin but wants to learn and can learn right now? Instruments are expensive, maybe a parent can afford the lessons, but putting out the money for the instrument is just too much?

Long story short(er), I contacted a friend who gives lessons to ask if she could take them and keep them for when she has a student who needs an instrument and she told me that a mutual friend of ours was in need of at least one! I contacted the friend and found out she can use both, the music stand, tuner, books and everything else! Something from deep within my soul was pushing me to let go of these, because they were needed somewhere else.

The best part? Even though it was hard to decide to let go, I feel so much freer now! I feel like I can get started again and get this done. I had no idea those violins were tying me down like they were. Whew!

I've found myself def holding onto things that I shouldn't be, a lot of "Justin Case" stuff that we don't really need. I'm hoping to move forward with this spirit of letting things go, even if they are things I care about.  The truth is, when I need it, I will have it. I always have. I always will.

eating elephants

Lucy didn't appreciate my analogy this morning when I told her we were going to eat an elephant. She doesn't want to eat elephants. I got some serious stink eye over that.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

Bringing all the stuff from storage has been utterly paralyzing. I expected it to be easy to deal with and now its all dug through, sitting everywhere, dumped out....for 3 days I've tried to deal with it and just felt frozen. Unable to cope. I found myself withdrawing into the crankyness that existed before.  I also began to slack on what was pretty solid before....in that state of "i can't fix it right, so why bother at all".

The good news is, this is the biggest hurdle. Once I get through this, I'm home free...the rest is bits and pieces and much easier and much LESS stuff.

The bad news is, I have to get through it. One. Bite. At. A. Time.

But I did wake up this morning feeling more prepared to tackle it so after I finish this cup of coffee....I'm gonna go for it. I decided that I'm going to just approach it KonMari style and start by sorting it. Most of it is kid stuff, memorabilia, sports stuff, camping stuff, tools. So I'm going to just make piles. Then once I see what all I have, I can decide what to discard and what to save. This is really the bones of the KonMari method anyway....traditional organizational techniques teach us to rush out and buy cute storage containers and figure out our ways to organize our mounds of crap. By categorizing it and looking at everything in that category, you can see where you have duplicates. On one of the KonMari pages I'm on, I saw a woman post a pile of about 15-20 sets of nail clippers. She was laughing because she had been under the impression that they didn't have a single pair left and after she finished her KonMari process, she found that she had plenty.

It also helps my adhd brain to be able to just focus on the one thing, to put myself in the mindframe of that category. Rather than "oh, here is camping stuff, I have to remember that I have this, I wonder if i should keep this, and here are 3 soccer balls, oh and more camping stuff...by the time i've picked up another item, I've forgotten what I needed to remember about the first item!

Marie Kondo calls cleaning and organizing a "Festival". Well....I'm the Queen of this Festival, so lets roast an elephant and get to eating!

marching onward

NOT what I want to be doing today but it must be done. Bringing home the stuff from storage yesterday is something that had to happen. Most of it will go away but I do need to pick through bits and pieces for things that I do want to keep. I'm also listing for sale a few items that may have some value.

You remember my post about 10 days of no spending....well...I got the freezer and fridge emptied, cleaned and inventoried. Then decided to take Lucy to the pool for a bit since the pool closes soon and she needed to work off some energy. And on the way back from that...Jeremy says "i really want pizza". So....we ordered pizza. Great start to the no spend and clean out the pantry and fridge, huh. Typical! But today, I'm serious. At least until dinner time. J/k, I actually pulled out a random rack of ribs that I didn't know we had, and 2 random steaks that hadn't been used because they are yucky and tough. I put a rib rub on all of it and put it in the oven on a very low temp. Its not going to probably be spectacular, but it should cook up tender enough to eat, and its all grass fed beef, so when the meat is off it, I am going to start a pot of bone broth with the bones.

But hey, the fridge and freezer are nice and clean! Today, I am tackling the stack that was brought back from storage, and inventorying the pantry. I have veggies that need to be used up, and we will have those with the meat.

storage junk

I'm ashamed to admit that a year and a half ago, when we moved from the house into the first apartment, we got a storage unit. For just a little bit, of course. For all the stuff we didn't want to clutter the apartment up with. It was still cluttered. 16 months. $90 per month.  $1440. To store JUNK. Yeah...snowboards are in there and pictures and Christmas Decor...but we could have bought new Christmas decor every year and brand new snowboards for all of us for what we spent storing junk.  So, today, as we speak, Jeremy is over there with a uhaul van, loading it up. Its coming here. To be stacked in my living room. That is not ideal and will cause stress. But, it's what needs to be done. It has to be dealt with and thats a bill we don't need every month. So here it comes.....


It's here....

All of this has to be discarded or fit in the upstairs storage unit which is the size of a closet. My goal is to have nothing up there except camping stuff, snowboards and fishing poles, Christmas Decor, that kind of stuff....

10 day no spending challenge

Can she do it? Yes she can! I've decided that as soon as I finish this post, I am going into the kitchen and I am going to empty the pantry, fridge and freezer. I'm going to write an inventory of what all is in there. I'm going to toss what isn't edible. And then I'm going to sit down and figure out how to use it all over the next 10 days. And I'm not going to buy anything.  Besides saving money, it will also help me KM the food. There are so many odds and ends, bits and pieces, bags of pasta, pieces of frozen fish, etc, its hard to make a meal of it but I'm going to do it. It will help me clear out everything that is there as well. At the end of the 10 days, I'm going to implement smarter grocery shopping policies and maybe try to start meal planning as well. In addition to being more organized, I'd like to build up a decent supply of useable emergency food. The thing is, I want it to be actual stores of food, not just half used bags of pasta and such. We have such small storage space in this kitchen anyway, I need to make the most of what there is. I imagine by the end of the month, we will find ourselves being mighty creative with food. Luckily, I know there is a decent bag of coffee beans way back in the back, for when I run out of K Cups for the Keurig, haha! Coffee creamer might be my one luxury item that I will struggle with but its a nasty habit anyway and I should be using the cream from the top of the raw milk that we buy. So here goes, and join in if you would like!

The fridge is sort of embarrassing....I usually have to refrigerate cakes and so last weekend we pulled all the shelves out to fit a rather large cake and it def did not get put back right.

30 days later...

So here we are. Today. I started this blog today after thinking about it for a while. Something I wrote in my notes when I first read the book was to journal. I decided that this was a step towards that. If/when I journal something private, I will just keep that entry private, but the rest is public. My purpose behind this blog is 1. to put my thoughts out there and document the process and 2. if someone else is struggling with these issues, maybe understanding my process will help them.

So, 30 days later. If you know me, you know that I NEVER stick to anything. Never. I love Pinterest and I would spend hundreds of dollars to organize something to look like Pinterest. But did it ever stay that way? Nope. NEVER EVER EVER EVER. NEVER!

I have a LOT of work left to do. So far, the bedroom is the only room that I completely emptied and only put back the things I loved. I haven't been able to do that in the other rooms. But, I need to.  But, I also need to not have stacks of crap laying around and I have an urgent need to deal with some of the things. So what I've sort of resigned myself to is doing each category and ultimately, each room and get it to a place that is comfortable. And then DO IT AGAIN. Yes, I said "do it again". I am enjoying this SO much that I want to do it again. I seriously just need to weed out the bulk of it and then do it again and carefully evaluate what I have left and see if I REALLY like and use it.

Here is why I've never been able to enjoy my spaces, in all the time and money and tears and years that I've spent trying to make my spaces enjoyable: Because they were filled with things I didn't love. Even when I bought things that I thought I liked or even loved, it still didnt work because of all the stuff I didn't love. The reason the bedroom worked and continues to work is because it still ONLY has in it the items that spark joy. Yes, I still have a stack of stuff that I couldn't get rid of that doesn't spark joy that I don't want to put back into the bedroom and no, I don't yet know what to do with it. Its "Komono". Komono is the Japanese word for "misc". Its just stuff. Komono is going to be MY hardest category. Most people say the pictures or sentimental things are the hardest. And I know that won't be easy. But I know I have so much KOMONO from years of being unable to organize it, that its going to take a lot of sweat and tears and time to sit down and sort the items one by one and really, really focus on why I'm keeping it.

One thing that has helped me through this process is knowing that what I'm discarding can help others.  That suit jacket that isn't horribly out of style that I mentioned in the bedroom post....going to help someone find a job. That pink dress...that will make some young lady's day to find that in the thrift store! She is gonna feel so cute in it. 8 bags of other clothing went to an organization nearby that helps families get back on their feet, transitional housing sort of...a place to stay for people who are getting things in order and have a timeline for being self sufficient. These are people who already have jobs, plans. I'm not going to discount those who are really down and out and don't have a plan and are in shelters indefinitely but we know that they can't carry belongings from place to place and yes, fresh clothing and toiletries is going to make a big difference. But being able to give household items like my extra set of pots and pans to a large family who will soon be in their own home and know that it made such a huge difference, that just makes it almost a privilege to get rid of stuff. Of the 8 bags that I took to that organization, several were specifically sorted and marked for a certain family staying there. This family also has a baby and although I had already sorted and stored my cloth diaper stash (for a possible future child or neice/nephew/grandchild), I was able to pull them back down from my already organized closet, select out some that were in good condition to give to the family. The mom had cloth diapered before but its hard to wash cloth diapers in a shelter and so she had sold her diapers to buy groceries. She was SO happy to have some cloth back now that they could wash again!

The other rooms I have done have been the kitchen, in which I DID pull everything out of every cabinet, wash everything down and then selected what to put back. In my opinion, there is still too much stuff in the kitchen but a lot of it is baking stuff and so there isn't really any way around it. I'm thinking once I finish this process and take a look at the space I have available, I will explore some other storage options for cake supplies.  I tossed all my half melted spoons and spatulas, bought a little set of metal ones. Weeded out the knife collection and sharpened the ones I was keeping. I've always been a kitchen gadget person so it took some sorting through all that and getting rid of a lot.

Before

After

I also did the master bathroom but am not happy with it.  I will say again, it is absolutely the BEST to follow her method of categories instead of rooms. The fact that I gravitate towards doing a room at a time means I haven't broken my old habits and its not working as well for me as it could be. I got rid of over half the stuff in the master bathroom but honestly, because I didn't pull it all out of the room to sort, I didn't get rid of enough and found myself selecting things to get rid of instead of things to keep. But I decided to move on and leave it as is, and when I finish this WHOLE process, I'm going to reward myself with some new makeup, make up that sparks joy, and toss every last bit of the rest.

My wanna be minimalist nature is feeling so much better these days. I spend a lot of time in the bedroom, mostly because Jeremy is working from home quite a bit so Lucy and I go in there to play or watch tv so that daddy can have quiet for work, but also because its a clean, clutter free, comfortable place to be. And I sleep way better!