denise

Now that I’m mostly recovered from #BlogHer15, I’m itching to get back into the life-changing magic of finding joy and discarding all of the things. But, I’m also working a lot of hours right now and by the end of the day I’m way too tired to even think about tidying up. And TW, well… she’s still dealing with the shingles issue and is even more tired than I am at the end of the day. So, we’re at a bit of a stand still. I need a list or a written plan in order to get moving again. So… here it is.

– We’re going to Kondo the jewelry this weekend.
– We’re going to take all of the accumulated discards to charity drop-offs this weekend.
-We’re going to put all of these not-blank-what-the-hell-is-this dvd/cds into a player this weekend and finish discarding that category.
– I’m going to coerce RJ into Kondoing all of the things in her room … it’s pretty much this summer or never, since it’s unlikely she’s going to want to Kondo when she’s home for fall or winter break and spring break will be too late since we should be deep into packing up by that point.
– We’re going to de-clutter the extra bedroom because just tossing things in there while we Kondo is causing a huge problem in there, since there are still things we need access to in order to Kondo the categories.
– We’re going to make a plan to go through the rest of the categories, so we’re all set for Kondoing in August. (Answering questions like “What does accessories mean in our world? Can we just skip that category?” and “Valuables? What the heck?” and “Should we follow the suggested order and do electronics next, then household equipment and supplies, and then kitchen or should we tweak the suggested schedule in some way?” Should we go through the basic list of categories and when we hit “other” move to Kondoing specific rooms or continue to try to categorize or some combination of the two?”) See, it’s getting kind of complicated or it’s getting complicated in my head.

In other news, I joined a KonMari group on Facebook. Oh boy. That’s interesting stuff. Also interesting and very amusing, hahahahaha

We don’t have a lot of makeup or skincare products so I turned this category into anything remotely personal care. Everything from shampoo to lotion to medication to hair bands.

And, once we got going, it went pretty smoothly. We’ve needed to clean out the medicine closet for awhile now so yay for getting that done. And yay for throwing away a full bag of things that do not bring joy and finding a couple of grocery bags of stuff we can donate.

We’ve got a basket full of things that the little girls may use so that’s still hanging out, waiting for them to take a look. Once they’ve gone through it, we’ll figure out which of the stuff can go to the nursing home and which of it needs to go to a shelter.

All in all, I’m calling this a success.

I also will not be buying any of these items until after we move:
– Shampoo
– lotion
– bandaids
– tampons
– soap
– cough medicine
– hair bands (I may never buy any again, whether they’re free or NOT. Someone remind me of this at Christmas when I know they’ll be free again…)

Things we will need to buy before we move:
– Conditioner
– razors
– shaving cream
– advil, tylenol, allergy and cold meds that aren’t cough medicine

Next category appears to be jewelry. Hmmm… not much jewelry in this house, this should go quickly. Maybe we can even get it done this weekend.

The thing about this KonMari Method is that it sticks in your head. Or maybe it just sticks in my head because I listened to the book about 10xs? Whatever, it’s in my head.

We’re doing a pretty good job of sticking to her suggested order for Kondoing stuff but I keep finding myself noticing odds and ends that are sitting in places they do not belong which leads me to ask whether these things bring me joy — and the answer has been no, no, no, also NO, so into the trash they go.

I can’t decide if that’s the correct thing to do or if I should leave that stuff be until we get to those categories. It probably doesn’t matter but I’m a stickler for rules unless I’ve pondered the rules and decided to make my own rules. Random rule-breaking is not my thing. Spontaneous rule-breaking, without forethought makes me anxious.

Still, it felt good to toss an old extension cord into the trash. And some random hotel-sized bottle of lotion into the trash. And that feed sack that I thought I was keeping for some good reasons but really just because I was temporarily nuts.

Also, every time I find myself throwing one of these random things away, I feel some urge to find something else to throw away. I really would like nothing better than to just take 2 weeks off of work and Kondo the entire house from start to finish. Make it all go away! Keep only the joyful things!

Seriously, I can hardly wait to start the next category. Except, we still have boxes and bags of books and other discarded things that we need to take to donation places. Or something. I did an awesome job of getting the discarded clothes out of the house but I’ve dragged my feet with the books (and now the DVDs/CDs.)

My new goal is to get those things out of here by the end of July. MUST do that. MUST. (I’d give myself a shorter deadline but I’m not an idiot, it’s BlogHerCon time, after all.)