Thursday 13: Hi

Since I haven’t blogged in quite a while, I thought a Thursday 13 would be a good way to start back.

1.    Since a cat picture is always a good way to start a Thursday 13, enjoy this picture of Tara.  She’s camera-shy, so I’m always happy when I’m able to get a picture of her.

 

2.    I don’t really have a great reason for not blogging much.  One of the main reasons has been that I find myself alternating between ridiculous amounts of doomscrolling and then taking myself entirely offline for a while.  Also, I tend to blog about very unimportant things, and that has felt wrong lately.  Recently, my friend at my work showed me where they keep all of their documentation to be here.  I’m not sure what else to call it.  This person legally immigrated here over 30 years ago, has multiple advanced degrees, and works for the government.  (I want to be clear that I am not saying that this person’s degrees or employment status make them more worthy of not being snatched off the street and potentially sent to a concentration camp.  I’m just trying to make the point that plenty of people, regardless of other factors, are living in fear simply because of their skin color.  And that is not OK.)  But, recently, they came to me and said, “Because I’m brown, I want to make sure someone here knows where all of these things are.”  They then showed me where to look in their wallet for various forms of documentation.  On one hand, I’m glad they showed me because, unfortunately, I think it’s good for someone to know.  On the other hand, that is not a conversation we ever should have needed to have.  I hate that they’re in a position to need to pick a person at work to have that conversation with.  It’s hard to come home and write a blog post about groundhogs or flowers after something like that. 

3.    I don’t want to make it sound like it has just been misery that has kept me from blogging,  It hasn’t.  I have a very bad habit of trying to start way too many projects at once.  In April, I decided to start a massive decluttering/organizing project on the whole house, sign up for the A to Z Blogging Challenge, take on a fourth Chemo Angels buddy, start the garden, continue working on our big drainage project, and work on some other projects in the yard.  Some of those things have gone better than others, and some have spilled over and are still going on.

 

4.    On the decluttering/organizing front, we have made tons of progress.  This closet used to have things falling off the shelves.   We didn’t keep track, but between donations and a few things that went to the dump, we got rid of probably dozens of carloads of stuff. 

 

5.    We each got rid of about half of our clothing and reorganized where and how we store a lot of things.  It makes keeping up with laundry, putting away clean laundry, and getting dressed so much easier.  Plus, it makes me ridiculously happy every time I see my shirts organized by style and color.

 

6.    Theodore absolutely loves storage cubes!

 

7.    With our neighbors’ help, we have finished one of the French drains we were working on.   After this project is finished, I will be very happy if I never have to shovel gravel again!

 

8.    We are almost finished with the second French drain.  We just need to add the overflow valve and finish filling in the trench with the pipe. 

 

9.    We haven’t started on the third one yet.  Between heat advisories and storms, it has been hard to do much work outside.  We hoped to be able to hire someone to finish the project and do some grading work, but after the estimate, that’s off the table for a while. 

10. Some parts of the garden are going better than others. 

 

11. The Orange Chef’s Choice tomato plant is doing fairly well.

 

12. The Roma tomato plant is barely hanging on.

 

13. I’m working on catching up on visiting all of your blogs, and hope to “see” you soon.  

KonMari Method

It’s practically impossible to talk about decluttering without talking about the KonMari method.  Between the books and the Netflix series, I think almost everyone has at least heard of it.

I like large parts of the KonMari method, and there are parts of it that I don’t care for.  As always, I prefer to get the negative parts out of the way first. 

To me, the biggest drawback to the KonMari method is the idea that you have to tackle such huge projects at once.  For example, clothing is the first category of items to work through.  The KonMari method calls for removing ALL of your clothing from closets, drawers, etc., and going through every single piece, one item at a time. 

I understand that clothing should be relatively easy, and it makes sense to keep yourself from dealing with the same things over and over again.  But, trying to find the willpower, time, mental fortitude, and physical energy for a task like that can be daunting.  It’s easier to put it off for a weekend, then a long weekend, etc.  It’s also the kind of thing that has made me not want to start another project for a long time. 

If we were to pile all of our clothing on our bed, and it took longer than anticipated to go through it, we would literally have no good place to sleep.  We don’t have a guest room.  And spending the night in a recliner or on an air mattress doesn’t sound appealing. 

So, we broke it down into much smaller steps.  I think it’s important to get some easy wins early on.  So, I started with my socks.  I discarded socks that I couldn’t find mates for and even perfectly good pairs of socks that didn’t spark joy.  (More on that later.)  It was a doable project.  I felt good about it and myself when I was finished, and that gave me the confidence to move on to the next category. 

I’ve seen a lot of memes making fun of the KonMari system and talking about how things like a bottle of aspirin or a vacuum cleaner or broccoli don’t spark joy, so that must mean you need to get rid of them.  But, I think my favorite part of the KonMari system addresses that. 

Before you even start with tidying or discarding, the KonMari method tells you to envision your ideal lifestyle, what you want your days to look like, and what you want to surround yourself with.  In my opinion, that addresses the “these things that I actually need don’t spark joy” argument.  Personally, my ideal lifestyle doesn’t include a headache (now the aspirin is a keeper), dirty floors or furry furniture (now the vacuum cleaner is a keeper), or never eating healthy foods (the broccoli will never be a keeper, but plenty of other vegetables are, even if ice cream does spark a lot more joy).

Some of the things I picture in my ideal version of life are not being slaves to keeping the house clean, not being stressed out or late because we couldn’t find something we needed, and being able to have people over to the house any time we want.  If we’ve learned anything from COVID, it’s that time and opportunities are precious.  I don’t want to waste those because I don’t want someone to see how messy my house is.  So, with the KonMari method, those are the goals I’m working toward. 

The “spark joy” part of the KonMari method can take a little while to get used to, especially when applying it to ordinary things.  It kind of clicked for me when I was working on sweaters.  Yes, I broke clothing into very small categories; socks, sweaters, tee shirts, other shirts, pants, jeans, shorts, etc.  Anyway, during the sweater process, I had a lightbulb moment with these two sweaters. 

They both fit me, they’re both colors I typically wear, they’re both a brand I like, and there was no damage (stains, tears, etc.) to either one of them.  I almost never wore the teal one.  I still can’t really articulate a reason why.  Maybe the neckline?  I’m not sure.  Anyway, I never really enjoyed wearing it, but I kept it around because it was a perfectly good sweater, and I had it as a backup if I didn’t keep up with the laundry.   I almost never let it get to the point of wearing the sweater, though, because I just didn’t like it.  The argyle plaid one, on the other hand, I wore (and still wear) all of the time.  Argyle plaid always makes me happy!  I feel good wearing that sweater.  I like how it fits, feels, and looks.  I feel confident in it.  Incidentally, it’s what I’m wearing in my work ID photo because it seemed like a great choice for my first day at this job. 

The argyle plaid sweater (and all of the other argyle plaid sweaters I have) spark joy for me.  I feel good wearing them.  The teal one didn’t.  I was never going to feel great about wearing it.  So, it turns out I didn’t need it, even though it was a perfectly good sweater.  That sweater is no longer hanging in my closet, and I don’t have to move it aside to reach a sweater that I’m happy wearing. 

It sounds almost too simple to make a difference, but when you think about applying it to everything, it adds up to a huge change.  When your clothes are all things you enjoy wearing, your cookbooks are all ones you enjoy cooking from, your pots and pans are all ones you use and enjoy using – you can imagine how much the list can go on - it leads to an overall feeling of being happier and not needing to devote so much mental energy to basic things. 

We’re not 100% there yet, and our house definitely doesn’t look like anything you’ll find on Marie Kondo’s website, but it’s so much better than it was.  We’re benefitting from the things we’ve simplified.  Last weekend, we invited our neighbors over to dinner on the spur of the moment.  We were all outside working on various yard projects and started talking.  Everyone was home, and it was the perfect opportunity.  Because the house was in order and I knew what we had in the freezer, it was easy to decide on a last-minute dinner.  I made a huge pot of spaghetti, so we all ate, talked, and played games.  It was a great evening and one we wouldn’t have been able to have if the house had been too messy for us to be comfortable inviting people over.  That sparks joy for both of us.

So what about you?  Have you used the KonMari method?  What sparks joy for you? 

“How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind: Dealing with Your House’s Dirty Little Secrets”

I didn’t choose a theme for this year’s A to Z Challenge.  I signed up on March 31^st, so there wasn’t much time to choose a theme.  I’ve been trying to loosely plan out my posts, though.  Experience has taught me that it’s frustrating to “waste” a post on an easier letter when I could have finagled that post to work for a more difficult letter.  I still don’t have an official theme, but the closest thing to a theme emerging seems to be “things I meant to write a blog post about a while ago.”  I seem to write a lot of catch-up blog posts, so I guess it makes sense to have a month devoted almost entirely to catching up. 

I think the first time I mentioned writing a post about decluttering was back in April of 2019, shortly after we started trying to organize and declutter in earnest.  So, three years later, I’m finally writing one.  We’ve made a lot of progress.  It’s still not perfect, but it’s a lot better. 

I’ve tried and abandoned a lot of decluttering and cleaning methods.  I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no perfect system, at least not for me.  I have, however, found three that I like bits and pieces of and have combined into one sort of system/method that seems to work for me.  Even though this is the one I’m sharing first, it’s the one I found last and probably use the least from.  Just to be honest, I’ve only skimmed the book and read a few chapters.   But I still think it’s worth sharing.

“How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind:  Dealing with Your House’s Dirty LittleSecrets” is a book by Dana K. White.  She also has a blog; A Slob Comes Clean, and a podcast. 

I’d rather end on a positive note (remember I said I only used bits and pieces from each system), so I’ll start with what I don’t like. 

The parts I don’t like are that the tone can seem a little bit goofy, and there seems to be a degree of “oh, look how cute and funny it is that I can’t get my act together.  Isn’t it hilarious that I’m a grown woman who’s embarrassed to let anyone in her house?!?”  I realize this is 100% my issue, but I HATE everything about being disorganized.  It stresses me out when things aren’t put away, we can’t find what we need when we need it, or if I feel like things are too messy to have people over to the house.  It’s humiliating and makes me feel like the person who never gets anything right.  I see zero humor in it.  That’s me and my issues, though.  I’m sure for plenty of people, the humor works.  The other thing I’m not crazy about is the podcast.  I’ve listened to two episodes, and they both seemed very rambling and disorganized to me.  Again, for some people, the less formal approach may be more appealing. 

Now that the negatives are out of the way, here are the things I love about it. 

She focuses a lot on letting go of the fantasy and embracing reality or not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.  This is something I’ve struggled with.  For example, for years, our spice cabinet was an absolute disaster.  Finding spices was an exercise in frustration because everything was just crammed in there, and jars and pouches would come tumbling out more often than not when you opened the door. 

I put off organizing the spice cabinet because I thought it would be just perfect to buy identical jars with cute little labels and put all of the spices in those and then organize them alphabetically.  It was part of my perfect kitchen fantasy.  I did have enough sense to know that it was going to be a very time-consuming project, so I kept putting it off.  Life kept happening.  I kept not buying the jars, not implementing my “perfect” spice cabinet system, and getting frustrated every time I cooked or baked and it was an ordeal to find what I wanted. 

I wasn't able to find a picture of what it looked like before.  Believe me when I say it was very, very bad. 

Finally, I got fed up and decided that good enough might work.  I combined all of the spices that I had duplicates or even triplicates of because I bought more when I couldn’t find them and grouped them mostly by cuisine in baskets, with the most commonly used ones being on the counter in a spinning spice rack. 

My system is this:

The ones I use daily or almost daily are in the spinning spice rack.  The baskets have spices usually used together; for example, spices used in baking are in a basket, spices used in Indian-style food are in a basket, etc. 

Is it perfect?   Nope.  It’s definitely not a Pinterest-worthy “look how beautifully arranged my spices are” setup.  Is it better than it was before?  About a million times better!  I can find what I need when I need it.  Bottles and jars aren’t falling out of the cabinet, and I don’t feel like a disorganized failure every time I need a spice.

The other thing I really like about this system is decluttering without making a bigger mess.  It seems like projects always take longer than I think they’re going to.  I don’t know how many times I’ve started a massive decluttering project on a Saturday morning, being perfectly willing to spend the whole morning and even part of the afternoon on it.  I drag everything out, make an absolute mess, get in way over my head, and that becomes the entire weekend.  This means I’m not about to try to declutter anything for the next few weekends because I don’t want to give up an entire weekend again. 

So I finally decided to try doing the really obvious parts of a decluttering project first.  Our shed was the perfect place to implement this.  Normally, I would have hauled everything out, had it all over the carport and the driveway, and we would have been stuck dealing with it all weekend.  

This time, I started small.  There were lots of rusty old paint cans from before we even bought the house.  Those were easy.  We definitely weren’t keeping them, so I was able to get rid of them.  I didn’t have to find a place for them, and getting rid of them gave me a little more space to work.  

Next was getting rid of a few broken tools, then hanging the good tools up.  

It took some time, but I didn’t hate the process.  Now it looks like this.

Is it perfect?  No.  There's definitely still room for progress.  But it’s so much easier to find the yard tools we need when we need them, and it’s so much easier to put the lawnmower away, which, in a weird way, makes it a little easier to cut the grass. 

So those are the two systems/methods I found to be most useful from “How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind:  Dealing with Your House’s Dirty LittleSecrets.”

What about you?  Have you read the book?  Do you have a favorite organizational or cleaning method?  Is it a struggle for you to stay organized?