There are a couple of styles of decluttering, including the originals I used to watch, i.e., hoarders. In this style, you create three piles of throw, sell or keep.
There are many people, like our dear Yam, whose spiritual journey means
neither her mind or her space is cluttered. I admire her. I know I clutter, from my days teaching I never threw anything out as we used toilet paper rolls for crafts, and you never know. I retired in 2007. I finally got rid of my teaching materials I kept for years. I just deleted my teaching and book blogs. It was time.
Marie Kondo is a hoot. She's been on all the talk shows for her #1 New York Times best-selling book, "
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up." First you give thanks to your space. Then you purge your clothes, then your books, papers, and miscellaneous treasures, thanking them for their service. The question is, "
Do they give you joy?" The key feature is not to go room-by-room, as many advocate, attacking them one at a time. Kondo advocated that you declutter by category. She has an interesting style for putting shirts in drawers.
Now, I can see this in Japan. Our kids did an
Around the World Tour and rented an AirBnB apartment there for a week. It was SO small. You have to do this: be conscious of clutter in small spaces. Condo living is different.
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Osaka, hostel
The beds fold up for the daytime. |
The Tokyo AirBnB stove had never been used, the kids thought, and the oven didn't fit anything much larger than Caitlin's passport!
They are all wonderful protocols. I've been working to clean up. I've lacked a certain amount of motivation. It's true that we gardeners and naturalists exploit summer for outdoor play, especially with the recent freeze/thaw and snowstorms. I should have been doing indoor work, but...
I did really well in the basement. We won't be having Gramma Camp for awhile, perhaps until summer. I figured it was a good time to reorganize. We had time around Christmas with all 4 of our granddaughters, the younger two were here for a visit, there was a bit of chaos left.
There are reasons this retired teacher has three antique school desks! Izzy loves playing school.
(You'll note those 6 boxes of books beside the piano, all my books that remain unsold. I've been using them, sans covers, for kindling.)
It's a quirky living room. How many people have a caterpillar in their living room? The cats, over the years, have loved it.
It took me 18 years to change the living room around, but then I lobbied 6 years for a new carpet! My chair used to be in front of the window, but now I can face it and still watch the birds.
Books are Kondo's big deal. We love our books, but do pass them on to the library for their book sales.
How about you? Do you have an urge to purge?!
