The Magic of Tidying Up

About a month ago as I was perusing Pinterest, I happened upon this delightful little book.  It looked cute and was on a subject that I have no fear of....tidying up and purging.  Plus it had the words "magic" and "life changing" in the title.  For only $10 how could I not buy such a book?  With about 3 clicks on Amazon it was mine.  It was only after I read it and googled it online that I realized it is an extremely popular book right now with quite a cult following.

I'll spare you a review on the entire book, but let me tell you what I found life changing and magical.   It's a fairly simple idea.  I have always folded my clothes, stacked them on top of each other and then put them away in either a drawer or shelf.  This method is different.  You roll/fold your clothes in a "special" way and line them up in your drawer so you can see all of your clothes at once.  No more rifling through your drawer trying to see what is in there.  Your drawer stays neat all the time!

Example 1: Chase's shirt drawer.  Before I started rolling his shirts,  his drawers were always messy.  I would put the folded clothes stacked on top of each other in the drawer and by the end of the week they were a mess because he couldn't see all of his shirts.  I have been rolling them like this for about a month now and his drawer stays neat.  All he does is open the drawer and pick out his shirt for the day.  He can see them all at once.  Amazing!  And I can say that for all of my other drawers in the house that I have converted.

"What if I have too many shirts to fit in the drawer?" you ask.  You know the answer to that right? It's really the key to keeping anything tidy. 

 I am seriously blown away by this idea.  How on earth have I never thought of this?

Is it a perfect system?  No.  There are a few things I've had to tweak a bit, but I am completely sold on this idea.  I will not fold and stack anymore.

Although this lady focuses more on drawers, I have a lot of clothes on shelves.  I decided to fold my jeans and sweaters the same special way and line them up.  I know these shelves aren't that bad to start with, but what do you think?  Better?  Yes!  And I don't disturb anything underneath. 

This lady has a very specific way to fold things and there are a multitude of YouTube videos and websites devoted to her method.
Google either of these and you will be overwhelmed by the information out there.  Happy Folding!

The Marie Kondo method
KonMari folding method

Laundry 180

Have you ever done something a certain way, convinced it was absolutely the best way to do it and then all of a sudden you realize maybe it wasn't the best way?   That has happened to me a number of times.

Here is the latest one.  Laundry.  Up until a year ago, I was completely convinced that doing a load of laundry a day was the best way.  I was always caught up and I never had to look at piles of dirty laundry growing almost minute by minute.  In fact I almost felt snobbish at how good I was at doing a load a day and getting that load folded.

But here is the bad part.  I hate putting away clothes.  Hate. It. So. Much.  Although I was great at washing and folding I totally sucked at getting them into the drawers.   Add to that hate was the justification that I was just going to do another load the next day so why bother, the folded clothes would just stay piled up in baskets in the laundry room.  2 things happened.  My laundry room turned into the changing room and every day I was faced with the reminder that the clothes needed to be put away and I didn't want to do it.

Last year on a whim I decided to try a different way.  I picked Monday as my laundry day and I did all of it on this day.  Dreamy I tell you.  It makes for a lot of folding but it gets all done and put away.  I can totally put away clothes (or have my boys do it) once a week, knowing that I won't have to do that awful job for another 7 days.   I don't even think about laundry for the remainder of the week.  I initially thought the piles of dirty clothes would bother me.  Nope not at all.  Couldn't care less.

Now, all those crazy people that do laundry every day.  What are they thinking?  Clearly this is the best way to do laundry!!



 

A punishment

The other night Owen got in trouble and was not allowed to play with friends for the day.  I thought this would be a punishment for him because he loves to play with friends and doesn't seem content if he doesn't have one over. 

After a few minutes of casting about trying to figure out what to do, he decided to look up a Lego gun tutorial on YouTube and build one.  He spent most of the evening building and finished it right before bed.  It's quite an impressive gun.   I don't think that was really a punishment at all.

A much loved recipe

Many years ago, we received a Christmas gift from one of Scott's old mission companions and his wife.  It was a small bag of granola with the recipe attached.  We loved the granola and still make the same recipe to this day.  Can you tell it's been used a lot?  It is such a good basic recipe.  One that you can add things or take things out or exchange one thing for something else if you feel so inclined.  And it always tastes good.  We make it often and have found that we still stick with the original recipe except for a few small changes.  We add 1 C. unsweetened coconut and instead of sliced almonds, I buy whole ones and chop them up.  I love chunks of toasted almonds.

The best part is how easy it is to make.  I buy a lot of the ingredients in bulk and store them in my freezer.  When I'm ready to make some it take me no more than 3 minutes to dump all the ingredients in my kitchen aide and mix it up.  It is on the cookie sheet and ready to go in the oven in 5 minutes.