Tidying Up

Have you guys heard of that book, “The life changing magic of tidying up” by Marie Kondo? My brother-in-law and sister-in-law got it for me as a birthday present and as I started to read, I was like “this woman is speaking my language!” As someone who finds great joy in coming home for Christmas and sorting out mom’s pantry, who once volunteered to spend a good half hour organizing a friend’s freezer,  and who can make an afternoon of  re-doing the bathroom drawers, I thought I was the only one. Now I know I’m not alone.

File_000For those of you that don’t know, Marie Kondo’s advice is that by getting rid of items that no longer bring you joy, you can have a clutter-free and happier life. Again… speaking my language.

As the book suggests we started with clothes. We were pretty ruthless- we scoured our closets for any items we were no longer feelin’. Here is the initial pile, with Mochi for scale. We don’t even have large closets! I don’t know where we were storing all that clothing! The crazy thing is even after that pile, we got rid of at least one more trash bag worth.

File_003We then decided to go a little off the path and further sort our pile into two categories: donations and garage sale. This meant that half the stuff we had pulled off the hanger now needed to be re-hung… oy. This is probably why Marie says to just get rid of it and not look back. We looked back. It led to chaos.

File_002And that’s not even really the worst of it. Imagine stuff hung across every curtain rod and dining chair. But we’ve never had a garage sale and I think it’ll be fun to do this spring, so I’m glad we deviated from the path a bit.

At the end of the clothing category, I was left with the most beautiful looking underwear and sock drawer I’ve ever seen following Marie’s folding suggestions. Look at it. LOOK AT IT. Never thought I’d be posting my underwear on the internet, but this is way too visually satisfying.

File_000(2)After deviating from the instructions once, we decided to deviate a bit more. We skipped around the category order and made up our own specific categories. So after clothes I tackled the “holiday decor” category, then “regular decor.” I did this in pretty much one afternoon and forgot to take photos… just imagine our dining table full of candles, vases, prints I’ve been meaning to frame, stuff like that. Shoot I just realized that things like blankets and pillows and extra lamps could be considered part of the home decor category. Literally just realized that as I was typing. Dangit blog, I thought I was done and I wasn’t. Thanks a lot. Got some blankets and lamps to attend to.

We are now in the process of tackling one of our toughest categories yet: technology. I’m looking at you Evan.

20160110_221538After that, we still need to hit kitchen and tools/home improvement type stuff. And I guess I need to finish home decor haha. Then we’re pretty much done! Wish us luck! We’ll keep you posted as we go, since we are obviously learning on the fly! :)

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