The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

After reading Marie Kondo's book and several accounts of those who put her ideas into practice, I have been itching to get started in my own home.  I want to keep a record of the process here.  Maybe then I won't bore my husband and sisters with all my yammering about this project.

I have always been acquisitive. My natural tendency is to stockpile. Perhaps it is because I come from a large family.  I hate running out of ingredients, for instance. It's far more likely that I have two more jars in the pantry of whatever is required.  I keep a bale of toilet paper in the house at all times.  Now, a certain amount of stockpiling is necessary when you live in the middle of nowhere.  But in her book, Marie Kondo points out that extreme stockpiling of an item that takes months or even years to use up is a terrible waste of space. The pennies saved on the bulk purchase are nothing compared to the inconvenience of living with the excess for so long.  In any case, I realized recently that I have lost all sense of proportion, if I had ever had any to begin with.

Just as I always seem to make enough food for 10, which we then have to eat for several days in a row, I have been living in a house jammed with far more than my small family needs.  Our tiny house has very little storage, which I have bitterly complained about in the past.  Yet as I have begun this process, I have been shocked to discover that it has more than enough room, once I started getting rid of all of the things that don't speak to me.  For years, I have been storing things I don't need or even like.  It stops now.  In the coming weeks, I'd like to share some of the ridiculous things I've excavated.  Stay tuned!