Why yes, as it turns out, one can! When I picked up my copy of Marie Kondo's
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, it was idle curiosity more than anything else. I had no intention of jumping on board with the program. After all, I'm already quite good at purging. Just ask my husband! My only closet is 5 ft. wide by 2 ft. deep, and in it I have both my summer and winter clothes, several cowgirl hats, all my purses and underwear, 12 pairs of shoes, two pairs of boots -- with room leftover for an iron and ironing board, a suitcase, a basket for mending and ironing, and all of our boxes of old slides! In other words, I keep just what I need and nothing more. However, as it turns out, purging one's clothes is easy, which is why Kondo makes that the first step in her book. Apparently I'm
not so good at purging everything
else, like books, photos, old journals and papers, art supplies, and especially anything that was gifted to me.
I
thought I was good at purging books. I got rid of a ton of cookbooks when I first started art journaling, so I could use this hutch as my
Wee Little Studio. Then I got rid of a ton of other books when I later created the
Bedroodio, and needed space on my bookshelves to store my ever-growing collection of art supplies. But, just for the fun of it, I did as Kondo advised and pulled every book I owned -- including cookbooks, gardening books, and art books -- off the shelf, and piled them all on my living room floor. Guess who still had over 200 books?
And that's just
my books, not Hubby's!
That number has now been reduced by half. Yep, ten bags holding at least 10 pounds of books each are now on their way to be donated to our library.
Next up?
Papers. This may take a while.
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2 comments:
Papers took forever. Books, I just decided not to open the boxes we moved unless they were marked art books or gardening and just put the whole box in the "got books" bin. Worked marvelously. Mostly all mysteries and fiction. It was funny, my precious books I had carefully marked the boxes anyway, so in a way I presorted as we packed. Still more art supplies to go...and the stuff in the barn, which if I haven't gotten to by the time we side the barn is all going because we obviously don't need it do we? I do think the woman is a bit OCD though, don't you? xox
OCD is putting it mildly! When we sold our house in Houston we bought this one and rented a townhouse in Houston, since we both were still working there. Some of our stuff went in the townhouse, with just enough going in this one to make it a comfortable weekend place. But then a lot of stuff got stashed in this hayloft-like storage space we have over our garage here, which is a separate building. Well, ff 10 years and we have never once ventured into that storage space. For one thing, you have to climb up on a tall extension ladder to get to it. Plus there are probably bats and squirrels and who knows what else living in there now. No one can remember what got stashed in there, but we're pretty sure one thing is the handmade cradle that John's dad made for our kids, and maybe the circus wagon toy box and rocking giraffe. If not for those, I'd call a junk service to come haul it all away. Guess somebody's gonna have to get brave and check it out.
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