Konmari

I meant to write this update before 2015 ended but I procrastinated badly that last week of December and am just now catching up with everything. What I didn’t procrastinate with was Kondoing the things.

When I last updated you, we had these things left:

– Knick Knacks
– Art (you know, that stuff some people hang on walls but we generally just store in closets. sigh)
– Seasonal decor
– Sentimental things

We also had some things that we needed the children to go through and planned to have them help us out with that during the holidays: the nutcracker collection, the videos and the board games.

Where are we now? Done. Sort of.

We went through all of the knick knacks and art and made some sizable donations to Goodwill right before the kids came for the holidays. We still have a few more things to donate and we have some art and large framed mirrors and such that we’re holding onto until after we choose a new home. It’s possible that even if they bring us joy, they may not fit in our new home… we’ll review right before we move and purge again, if necessary.

We went through the seasonal items and I thought that would be harder than it was. I don’t know if it was TW’s mood or what but she found less joy than I expected her to find and it was a piece of cake to get through that stuff. (We cut down Christmas by 2 rubbermaid tubs and a cardboard box!)

We went through ALL of the sentimental things, once. We did a quick “no joy” pass on all of the things we’ve saved and there are three bins in the office that we need to go through once more to see if everything sparks joy. We also put all of the photos in one big box (except for what’s already in albums) and we need to go through those (and the albums.) Michelle belle helped me go through a shoebox and two small albums while she was here and that was kind of fun to do with her.

As for the things we thought the kids were going to Kondo? We went from four HUGE boxes of nutcrackers to two. I’d like to have gotten down further than that but…whatever. It’s not my stuff, though we’ll probably be storing those boxes for the oldest youngest child until we die.

Four of the five kids went through the games and only a small number sparked joy. I would like the fifth child to weigh in but if she doesn’t make her way over here soon, I’m probably going to just bite the bullet and discard the bulk of this stuff.

The videos that the kids originally struggled to let go of, (while I was trying to Facebook them photos asking “Joy or no joy.”), were suddenly much easier for them to discard and they agreed that I should just let it all go. I’m not sure I can do that, but it makes it easier to discard the bulk of it without worrying that they’ll be unhappy about what didn’t bring me joy. So, I need to go through the cabinet and just get that done. I think I’ll actually do that as soon as I finish typing this post.

I also realized that there are some things in one of the sideboards that we never went through because they were art or sentimental or knick knacks but since they were out of sight, I forgot about them. I’ll convince TW that we should do those tomorrow.

So really, we’re very close to being finished with this (oh, except of course for Elly’s room which we’re still working on, one small batch at a time when she’s here every week or two.) It feels good but TW said the other day that we’ve done so much but it still feels like there’s more to do. I feel that way too, and expected it. It was always sort of my plan to do another pass through all of the things as we pack up to move — and then really think about our possessions again once they’re being unpacked in our new home. I do expect we’ll let more go over the next six months or so. Not a lot, but just looking around while I type, I feel like there are some things here that don’t really bring joy… I like them, but joy… probably not.

It’s been a good few weeks for KonMari. The end is in sight and I can’t wait ’til it’s all done.

We’ve been to the electronics recycling station twice and need to go again because there are TVs, computers and microwaves in the garage that we need to dump before the snow comes back (and there’s a TV and DVD upstairs that will need to go if we can get someone to carry it down for us.) TW did manage to clear some of the content from some of the old laptop hard drives but she hasn’t finished — once she has, we’ll need to dump those hard drives.

Also, during my last update, we were heading into the world of toys. Hah. It turned out to be a more difficult category than I’d originally expected. I kondoed the toys in the shelf that sits in front of the fireplace — that was easy. I ended up discarding a small grocery bag of stuff. At which point, I buzzed my kid and said, “you’re not going to tell me you’re pregnant the day after I discard all of the baby toys, are you?” … she laughed. She said she should ask JMP if the toys bring him joy. I told her that was dumb because he would say yes, all the toys belong to JMP and they all bring joy. But, he isn’t here and he won’t know the difference because Grandma will just buy MORE toys and that will be fine. She laughed and said that JMP needs all the baby toys. I said TOO BAD, they are going….

And then the weekend was over and I hadn’t gotten upstairs or into the extra bedroom to do anymore, which is a good thing since the damn kid sent me this photo, the next day:

Yea. There goes the idea of discarding all of the baby toys, right? Right!

I did, however, manage to discard a bag of odds and ends – some broken things, some things that just never got played with. I also found all of the old legos, wooden trains, and hot wheels (joy!) and I started sorting through the toys in Elly’s room – tossing anything that was totally dead or disgusting and putting her zillion stuffed animals into bags for her to sort… soon. Very soon.

I tracked down all of the board games and stacked them up in the dining room — when all of the kids are here for Christmas, I’ll make them decide which ones we should keep and which we should get rid of. (Oh, they also need to go through the DVDs/VHS tapes when they’re here — someone remind me of that.)

Then, we moved on to the arts & crafts supplies. Another tough category but we did it.

TW sorted through all of her quilting material and knitting stuff and ended up with a bag to take to goodwill and a bag to throw in the trash. I went through all of the art supplies on my desk and Raskogs and various other carts and gave some paint to Elly (Buster ate a bottle and ended up painting one of the dog beds pink — that was fun.) And, I had a bag of trash as well as a bag to donate. I even managed to get Elly to go through her craft supplies — that was tough but she did it. She took a bag of stuff to her father’s house and we ended up with a bag to donate. Yay, us!

Then we back-pedaled a bit and Kondoed shoes — we ended up discarding or donating 9 pairs of boots/shoes/slippers/sandals. Woot.

Here’s what’s left:
– Knick Knacks
– Art (you know, that stuff some people hang on walls but we generally just store in closets. sigh)
– Seasonal decor
– Sentimental things

In preparation for the last four categories, and the holidays, I cleaned out the present closet and then the entire cold room (it’s a bedroom that has no insulation so it’s always freezing cold and we use it for storage.) All of the bins and boxes that hold sentimental things, that were in the cold room, are now in the office. I dumped two garbage bags of stuff and have another garbage can full of stuff to throw out and we have a ton of stuff to take to Goodwill next week, too.

I’ve got all of the seasonal decor in one place, ready to Kondo when the kids are here (though I’m going to do the two bins of gift boxes/wrapping paper tomorrow) and I’m going to move the empty rubbermaid bins into the cold room so they’re out of the darn office where I keep tripping over them.

I can’t decide what to do about the knickknacks… do we really need to put them all in one place and touch each one to determine joy? I’m leaning toward no — and just have us all wander around the house and looking at/touching everything and discarding as we go… That seems fine, doesn’t it?

So, that’s where we are… making excellent progress. We might really be able to finish this by the end of the year. Maybe. The sentimental stuff is going to be hard — there is so much and we are so sentimental. lol.

(We’ll also be going through each room, once all of the categories are done, and Kondoing again — the stuff we overlooked the first time or never got to for one reason or another. And of course, there’s also the garage. Ugh. But let’s not think about that now. Ugh.)

We’re a month behind schedule but we’re really digging in and getting stuff done, now. Unfoturnately — we’re about to hit some difficult categories not to mention BlogHer Food 15, Michelle visiting, Thanksgiving, Holiday shopping and planning and then Christmas with some subset of the kids here. It’s going to be tough to make it through the next five categories + Elly’s room before Christmas and that was my original goal.

Think good thoughts for us.

But back to the update…

We’ve made two trips to the electronics recycling station (they are only open on Saturdays from 9am-11:30am which has been a challenge but I’m pleased with the progress we’ve made for finally getting the old electronics out of the house.) My goal is to have all the discarded electric stuff out of the house by the end of the day November 5, except of course for the stuff upstairs that’s too heavy for us to carry down and all of the laptops that need to have the hard drives cleared… My goal for that stuff is 12/31/15.

We made it through the kitchen stuff without too much trouble. I don’t seem to have written down any notes about how many things we discarded but I know we carried about six boxes of stuff to Goodwill and we threw away quite a bit of stuff as well. It’s so weird to open the cabinets and see a small number of plates and mugs and glasses… I’m always tempted to yell “KIDS, bring your dirty dishes downstairs!” Life with only what you need and what brings joy is weird, lol.

Next up we sorted through all of the tote bags. Oh the tote bags. We had 120 tote bags. We kept 50. We’ll be taking the donations down to Florida this winter and donating them to Peaceful Paths. Until then, they’re in a box in the empty bedroom.

After tote bags, we moved to luggage — which was pretty easy. Anything with a broken zipper, a rip, or a handle that didn’t work brings new joy. BUT, we’re not discarding immediately. We’ll be packing stuff in those suitcases and discarding once we unpack down south. The suitcases that bring no joy have red strips of tape on them so we’ll know immediately to discard them next spring. We kept 6 suitcases and 3 duffle bags. We have 5 suitcases in the no joy pile but we may change our mind about one very small rollerboard… we’ll see. We also kept 3 of those weird shoulder strap carry-on bags that you get when you buy 3/5 piece luggage sets. We’ve never used them but TW says we might be able to pack stuff in them. Whatevs.

Which brings us to linens and towels. Those suckers were EVERYWHERE and I spent a few days last week collecting them a little bit at a time. Oh my gosh, so much stuff that we never ever use. We ended up with 8 bags of sheets/blankets/comforters and 1 bag of towels to donate to the animal shelter. Another bag to donate to goodwill. And, one bag tossed into the trash. We also sorted through the throw pillows — we kept 3 and discarded 7 (though there are 2 more in the cold room that I can’t access right now — we’ll discard those as soon as we’re able to remove them from underneath some very heavy mirrors that are sitting on top of them. lol)

This was a long update — because we’ve made a ton of progress.

Next up… toys. You’d think that would be easy, wouldn’t you? Next up… convincing Elly to Kondo her room… that’s not going to be easy at all. I’m probably going to have to threaten to do it for her…

I hit a KonMari wall and am just now trying to recover.

We did manage to look for joy in an entire room full of old electronic items and we found very little joy. Those items were moved into a rubbermaid bin and that bin is still in the dining room. Because my back hurts and I shouldn’t lift it but also because I think some more things need to go in there but I haven’t figured out what.

The things that spark no joy are still in the bedroom because I can’t figure out what to do with them. Should any of them go to Goodwill? Or, can they/should they just go to the electronics recycling station? And, there’s also the problem with my back. Some of this stuff is heavy and I probably shouldn’t be lifting it, even with TW’s help.

There are some things upstairs that need to go but again, too heavy to try and maneuver down the twisty metal stairs, so… we’re at a standstill.

We’ve also got 15 laptops/desktops that we need to figure out how to clean and/or retrieve data from.

I’m hoping we can get all of this electronic stuff sorted out this month.

In the meantime, we’ve moved on.

Before I went to visit JMP, I cleaned out a cabinet in the laundry room that’s full of… tools. Hammers, screwdrivers, nuts, bolts, nails, and fasteners. That sort of thing. There were many things that I don’t even know the purpose of. I ditched anything obviously junk and then put it all away neatly into the cabinet. TW went through the cabinet today and got rid of some things. I was hoping she’d get rid of more but apparently having 15 differently weighted common head screwdrivers brings her joy. Whatever. That category is done.

Then, I went through all of the household cleaning supplies. Why we have 500 old washcloths and dish towels/hand towels is beyond me. Whatever. Not much joy there, except in the organization and in learning that we have more lightbulbs than we will ever need and that we have a lot of Pledge multipurpose cleaner (thanks, BlogHer Con).

Next up… kitchen items. This is a big one and I think we’re both looking forward to it. I want this category done by the end of this month, too.

This category was primarily for TW this time around. I’ve already discarded almost all of my jewelry and what little I had left, Michelle has gone through a couple of times so there just wasn’t much for me to sift through.

TW on the other hand had a bunch and she got it done. We went from having a full popcorn tin (you know what I mean, right?) of jewelry to having just a few things in the bottom of the tin. We have some jewelry to donate and some jewelry that we may sell but either way, it’s leaving the house.

Next category for us will be… electronics/appliances. That means we need to figure out where we can drop off a whole lot of old laptops, desktops, monitors and a TV.

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.)