Making Progress in the start of 2018

As many of you know, I've been inspired to begin tidying my home thanks to the inspiration from Marie Kondo in her book, "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up".  I'm not progressing very quickly, but as long as I'm progressing, I'm happy with that.  It seems especially hard since I'm now working full-time and I have been sick with a virus for almost 6 weeks.  But, I'm slowing plowing ahead.  I am now in the category of "komono", or misc. items.  Since that is SUCH a huge category I've been trying to break it down into sub-categories.  First I tackled by CD's.  Next my DVD's.  Third I started on office supplies.  Most recently I went through some of our Christmas items when I got the tree out and just went through our games. Next, I went through my candles, since Jay bought me some new candles for Christmas. Today I also revisited the office supplies, as I still was not satisfied with my previous tidying attempt with that subcategory.  So, here are some photos from my most recent tidying festivals.

Games "Before" Picture

Games "After" Photo

Things to take to the thrift store

Rearranging candles into smaller boxes after picking out which ones really sparked joy

Covering the boxes in contact paper

Trying to figure out where to put the candles

How I finally decided to arrange the things on the shelves in my coat closet

The really fun thing about moving my candles from a large box in the basement utility closet to my shelves in the coat closet is that they are now easier to get to and make the coat closet smell so good!

Below are my photos from the second go at organizing my office supplies.  This time around I did it the right way, without cutting corners, by removing all the contents and literally testing every pencil, pen, marker, highlighter, etc. to see if they all worked.  This really gave me a better idea of what sparked joy and got me to thinking about different storage solutions.  So, I went out to the dollar store to buy a few containers, as well as cutting down and covering boxes, such as a kleenex box, a Turtles candy box and a box that held toothpaste.

Pulling out all of the writing utensils

Emptying all of the drawers in the office.

Here's what it looked like mid-process

Help!  A tornado has hit our office!

Using a Turtles box and toothpaste box to fit inside one of the drawers

All this cleaning inspired me to frame some beautiful nature photos I plan to hang up on the wall soon.

Newly organized desk drawer

Keeping things that spark joy!

Enough room to actually open the small set of drawers within this larger desk drawer.

Newly organized small set of plastic drawers

I can actually see what all is in this drawer now!

The set of drawers I organized that fit where an old-fashioned computer can fit.  Ha!  I just noticed all of the dust on top!

Drawer #1

Drawer #2

Draw #3--Colored Pencils really spark joy!

While printer cartridges don't exactly spark joy, they are definitely useful!

Markers which, naturally, spark joy

Sharp things and clips that I rarely use placed in the bottom drawer

I can see the office floor again!

Much improved office!

What is your latest organization project?  Tomorrow I plan to sort through things like magazines and papers, again, as well as take down my Christmas decorations.  Glad I'm almost over this virus, since I can't wait to get started on more projects!