One Thing Leads to Another

As I mentioned in my last blog, we've been doing several projects around the house, lately.  We had some trees trimmed and cut down.  We got new windows.  And now we got our carpets upstairs stretched and cleaned.  We knew it was time, when I was literally sometimes tripping on our bedroom carpet in the middle of the night, because of the buckling that was sticking out so badly.  In order to get our carpets done, we had to move things into either our sunporch or our basement.  It was quite a lot of work, so we decided to do it during the 4th of July break, since that's when Penny and I (Chandra) had more time off.  Below are the pictures of this undertaking.

Because of all of this moving of things, I got motivated to tackle my next Konmari project, as well.  As you may know, the Konmari method is a method for decluttering and organizing.  I was inspired to go through my old cassette tapes.  I can no longer listen to them in my new car, because it has a CD player, rather than a cassette player.  So, I will not likely use them again, or only rarely.  So, I decided to go through each one and try to find it on my Pandora app on my phone. 

In the end, I was able to reduce from four plastic bins, down to just one of the rare albums like foreign albums and ones that they don't have on Pandora.

Because of my empty bins and my empty furniture, I was now inspired to go through Jay's train movies and organize them alphabetically and according to type.  Then I put them back in this storage unit in our living room.

Here is the result of my reorganization........

I also decided that it was time to finally sew the edges of a cloth that I use on that storage unit that had unfinished edges.  After all, I now have a sewing machine ever since our anniversary last  year when Jay gave me one for an anniversary gift.




And here is what it looks like, now...

Finding Inspiration to Create, Again!

I haven't posted in our blog since last August.  At that time I summarized the exciting two-and-a-half week mission trip that we took as a family to Japan.  Since then, I have been very busy working full-time as the lead teacher in my preschool classroom.  I love what I do, but my deepest dream is to do more artwork.  I believe that one of the main gifts that God has given to me is to be artistic.  Ever since I was a child I have loved art.  My mom used to give me a big stack of paper and I would quietly draw for hours.  When I lived in Japan I joined a community art circle.  When I returned to the U.S. I took classes from professional artists at the Loveland Academy of Fine Arts.  I also took art and education courses at Colorado State University.  But, then life got busy with working full-time, becoming a wife and a mother.  I felt like I would never realize my dream.

However, ever since I have started on a tidying journey, inspired by the Japanese organization consultant, Marie Kondo, in her book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, I have begun to get new inspiration to do my creative work, again.  Kondo promises that if you truly do tidy up your life it will bring about more exciting changes to your life.  I have found that to be true.  It's like pushing the reset button on your life.  You begin to look at everything from a fresher point of view.  For me, that means  I have begun to look at every aspect of my life from my artistic bent.  If something is truly beautiful and an important tool that serves me well in my life and, as Kondo describes, "sparks joy", then I will keep such items.  If they do not, then I should thank them for how they have served me in the past and let go of them without feelings of guilt.  As I discard more and more items there is space, again, to figure out what I really want to treasure now in my present life.  I am presently going through "komono" (misc. items).  I had tidied my art supplies.  But, I had not taken a closer look at each of my watercolor paints.  Recently, I pulled them out, as I wanted to use them, again.  That's when I discovered that they were so old that they were all dried out.  I had actually purchased these watercolor paint tubes when I lived in Japan over 15 years ago.

Another person who has inspired me to use my artistic gifts, again, is also Sara Jo, from Bryarton Farm. Check out her amazing feed on Instagram! I have been touched by how she is always seeking to follow Jesus through her life, whether it's in moving forward in faith to adopt a special needs child from India or to be painting for a client, or in homeschooling her beautiful children.  Thanks to people like her and starting on this new reordering of my life, I'm beginning to have a vision of creating a happy space to be my art studio in our office in the basement.  But, even before I have finished fixing up this space, I have begun painting again.

I like all mediums.  In fact, oil pastels and oil painting are two of my favorite mediums to work with.  However, for these two paintings, I wanted to do watercolors.  The reason I wanted to do watercolors was because I'm painting them for my laundry room.  I thought that since the laundry room is the place where you use a lot of water, why not decorate with watercolor paintings in that room?  I have recently been doing things to try to beautify this space.  We live in an older home, which is a brick, cottage-style home built in 1970.  I have gradually been working hard to try to transform this little home into a sanctuary.  I don't have a lot of money to do this, since I'm just a preschool teacher.  And when we first moved here I was staying at home and homeschooling my daughter through her high school years.  However, just painting a space can make a huge difference.  So, I've gradually been working at painting nearly every room in the house.  Here are some before and after photos of my ugly laundry room, which a work in progress.

The plan is to frame my watercolor painting and put in up on the top shelf to hide the ugly hole in the wall.  And while I'm at it, I decided to paint a second picture of hydrangeas, to hang on the freshly painted wall to the right of the dryer.  I bought the frames at a thrift shop.  I also bought some chalk paint, which I've never used before.  So, I'm going to try it out on my frames to see how I like it.  If I like it, I might consider using it to paint my china hutch in the future.  Well, here are my paintings that I did this morning around 4 am this morning, since I couldn't sleep due to my cold.

I'll update you, again, once I've finished everything in my laundry room.  What creative projects have you been up to lately?  Here's wishing you a beautiful Sunday!

There is a Season for Everything

I've been thinking about the different seasons and how they affect our lives.  I've especially been reflecting on it since I've gone back to being a preschool teacher, again, and we are teaching the children about different seasons.  As many of you know, I've been going through a season in my personal life in which I'm trying to declutter and come to a better place of understanding what I truly treasure in my life and what I can appreciate, but part ways with.  Thanks to the Marie Kondo book called, "The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up" I've been on this tidying journey for over a year now.  I'm still not finished.  I'm finding that the big category of "komono", or miscellaneous items is a VERY big category and so I'm slowly making my way through it. Since we're on the topic of seasons, let's start with one of the misc. items that begins with the letter "s", "seasonings" or "spices".

Lovely "After" shot of my spices

Since I also read Kondo's second book, "Spark Joy", I was further inspired to revisit a few areas of my kitchen that I felt could be better tidied up.  She suggests keeping as few things on the countertops as possible.  She especially suggests keeping things away from the stove area, since they can be easily splattered with grease and hard to clean up.  So, I took a good look at the items I had on my countertops and thought about how I might move my spice rack so that it's still handy but not right next to the stove.  So, I decided to go through my extra spices that I had stored above the stove and eliminate nearly half of them to make room for our nice spinning spice rack that we got for our wedding.  It was definitely hard to keep it clean when it was next to the stove.

Here are the spices that I got rid of to clear out some space above the stove...

Then I cleaned out what looked like 30 years of grease buildup on that cupboard shelf above the sink before putting new, clean contact paper down.

Next, I placed back one of the little metal shelves I bought several years ago on the left side and placed one box of extra spices on the top of it with my measuring cups on the bottom.  I put my oils, sprays in the middle and put my spinning spice rack on the right side.

Since I no longer needed the other little metal shelf that used to be on the right side above the stove, I decided to re-purpose it and use it on the top shelf where I store my teas.  Of course, it made me clean out some of the old teas that I haven't used for a long time. Here's my newly tidied cupboard where I store my items for things like tea and hot chocolate, etc.

I love how it looks and how it makes it much easier to keep things clean in my kitchen.  Here's what my countertop looks now that there is a little more space on it.

Since we are discussing misc. items that begin with the letter, "S", the second one that I've recently tidied up is my sewing drawer.  I don't do much sewing.  I don't have a sewing machine.  But, once in a while there is something like a button that needs sewing on.  So, I do keep a few basic sewing supplies available.  I've designated one drawer in a table which I bought on my neighbor's garage sale for this purpose.  The table is one that you would normally place in an entryway.  But, since I don't have an entryway in my small cottage-style home, I've placed it next to the door between my sunporch and my garage.  As Kondo recommends, I found small boxes or a lid of a box to corral like items together.  Now my sewing drawer is not a messy mishmash of junk.  But, it sparks joy when I open it and can quickly find the items that I need.

The third "S" misc. area that I've recently been working on is our Storage area in our utility room.  Let's just say that this is the area of the house that sparks joy the least.  The good part about it is that it has lots of shelving, some of which was already built in when we bought the house.  Others are free standing shelves that we had either purchased or received from others.  But, since we moved in this has just been a holding place for tons of old stuff that I have been unwilling to face.  So, I finally decided to begin to tackle this area.  I first took a closer look at all of the items that were stored on one shelf.  I decided to remove any sentimental items from this area and move them to our guest bedroom, where I've been designating as the holding place for all sentimental items, since that is the last category that Kondo recommends going through.  Then I started going through any boxes of my things and discarded things like old college notebooks and toys that were old and broken.  I couldn't bear to go through my cassette tapes, because I actually still have a cassette tape player in my car that I sometimes use and I love music so much.  So, for now I decided to keep all of the plastic boxes where I'm storing my cassette tapes.  Otherwise, the only boxes I left are all boxes of my husband's things, such as his teaching supplies from his former job.  I'll leave those for him to go through.  At least you can now see under the shelf and things are stacked in an orderly way that I don't fear that they'll come crashing down on our heads.

The next job in the basement storage area/utility room was to remove any boxes of stuff from the floor.  Every time my parents come they keep bringing more boxes of my old stuff, some of which I've yet to sort through.  Perhaps it's because a lot of it includes sentimental items.  So, those have been temporarily moved closer to the guest bedroom until I can go through them.  Next, I thoroughly swept, vacuumed and mopped the floor.  The only problem is that there's still a terrible eyesore running down the middle of our floor.  At one time the previous owners had work down on the pipes down there.  Whoever did the work tried to patch over it with some cement, which is totally breaking up and crumbling.  It's really quite ugly, but we don't have the money to do anything about it for now.  So, I got an idea.  We have some plastic mats, which we bought from the local Asian Lao market.  Since they are long, I decided that they would cover much of the ugly eyesore.  So, here's the before and after photos.

In addition to the one free-standing shelf that I tidied, I also managed to go through at least one box that was on the built-in shelves.  I have not opened this box since we moved 5 years ago!  It was filled with glassware and some old mugs.  I decided to actually pull out the glassware and put some of the pretty vases that still spark joy on the shelves out in our garage.

Kondo recommends trying to get out the items that still spark joy and using them rather than hiding them away from the light of day. Besides, some of our glasses we had received from our wedding and used on a daily basis had broken.  So, I decided that it's time that we also use the vintage glasses that were passed down from either his parents or grandparents.  I felt like they spark joy since they are a family heirloom and they tell the story of Colorado's state history on them, as they are Centennial reminders of the settlers first discovering gold and moving here from 1859 until 1959.

 

The more I tidy up the more I find that it helps my life and brain to feel relaxed and decluttered.  Sometimes, I still feel overwhelmed by how much more I still need to go through.  But, I'm feeling good about the progress that I'm slowly making.  How about you?  Are you finding that you are in a new season of learning to appreciate the gifts that God has given you?

Update on the Flylady Routines Jan. 2018

Well, I have to say that I definitely fell off the wagon with doing all of the Flylady routines ever since I came down with a nasty virus that lasted six weeks!  As I was lying on the couch feeling miserable I couldn't care less about doing anything to clean my house.  My dear husband tried to do all that he could while I was sick.  My lovely daughter came down with the virus right after me and now Jay is sick.  So, I'm just starting to get back into the routine.  At least I have my control journal with my daily routines listed.  I'm back to doing the morning and evening routines.  I'm just starting to do some of the weekly blessings.  But, I've not done much zone cleaning.  Instead, I've just started cleaning a few things, here and there, which seem to have suffered the most since I fell out of routine.  Unfortunately, about the time I went back to work I was starting to get re-motivated since I was almost over my virus.  But, soon after that I came down with another cold.  So, now that my cold is almost over, my energy is coming back and I think I'll be able to do more.  But, at least yesterday I got motivated to clean out the drawer under my oven.  I was noticing more and more crumbs and grime accumulating in there and was getting grossed out by it.  So, I decided that I should just take everything out of the drawer to clean it.  Well, while I was at it, I might as well take the entire drawer out and see what might be lurking in the dark recesses under the oven/stove.  Here was the yucky mess in the Before photos...

After cleaning up, it was much improved.  Now I actually want to open the drawer.  I even found one lone cooking chopstick under there.  So, that's where the missing pair ended up!  I had thrown away the one lone chopstick that had been left in the container on the counter months ago.

Do you have any cleaning battles you are facing?  I am going to try to do a better job of staying on the wagon of doing my Flylady cleaning routines (so long as I'm healthy enough to have the energy).  That's what I like about her book, she emphasizes having grace for yourself and to truly F.L.Y. (Finally Love Yourself).  And in the recent Marie Kondo book I'm reading she suggests that after you finish your tidying marathons you should then focus on keeping your house clean.  So, since I'm not all the way through with the Konmari method, I'm giving myself grace in that I can't always keep up with the cleaning routines as well as I would like to.  After all, it's not about perfection, but being present and enjoying the life and the things that God has blessed you with!

Tidying "Komono" Items in the Bedroom

As you know, I've been slowing progressing through the Konmari method of tidying my home.  I'm in that big, long tidying marathon section called, "komono" (misc. things), which is such a broad category that you must break it up into smaller sub-categories.  The last time I blogged I had revisited my office supplies and done a better job of tidying them.  Yesterday, I decided to also revisit my things in my dresser drawers and on top of my dresser, night stand,  and the shelf in my bedroom.  Now that I've been tidying longer, I am beginning to hone my skills at figuring out how to determine which items truly spark joy or not.  The more I exercise this intuitive muscle, the easier it becomes and I discover that my first go-around usually wasn't enough, especially since I did a little fudging on the order of all of the tidying categories at the beginning of the process.  Here are some photos from the final results.

Here are some close-ups of my newly tidied surfaces in the bedroom...

And here is the second book from Marie Kondo, entitled "Spark Joy," which I've checked out from the library.  The thing that I like about this book is that there are many cute illustrations and she goes into more detail, especially about all of the many sub-categories for the "komono" category of tidying.

By choosing only those items that truly sparked joy and looked beautiful for my surfaces, I had to either get rid of items or else find new homes for the items which I wanted to keep, but which just made my surfaces look too cluttered.  So, this caused me to look inside my dresser drawers to reevaluate the items which I was keeping in there and to decide if all of those items were truly sparking joy or if I was just hanging on to them for the wrong reasons.  I found it much easier this time around to discard old things which I no longer use and are not a part of the present life that I want to live right now.  This made space for those items which do spark joy and gave them nice, new cozy homes to rest in.

I use fishing tackle boxes to house my earrings and hair accessories.

It also prompted me to clean out a bottom drawer in a plastic set of drawers in the bathroom to make more space for items such as a tin of buttons and items that I use to clean jewelry.  So, I moved them from my bedroom dresser drawer to the bathroom, which is really a better place for cleaning my jewelry, anyway.  It also motivated me to use one of those extra buttons to sew a button on a pair of jeans for Jay.

I was left with two tiny items which I was trying hard to decide where to keep, because they did spark joy for me, but they were so small and I just wasn't sure where to keep them.  Then I got an idea.  I remembered Kondo mentioning that it's okay to make your closet a special sanctuary where you keep special things that inspire joy for you when you open up your closet doors.  While my closet is not a huge, walk-in closet, I decided that these two items were small enough that they would fit and now they bring a smile to my face when I open up my closet doors.  One was a small teddy bear, which was handmade for me by a Japanese friend.  He is now perched on the bar where I hang my clothes.

 

The other was a framed picture of my cat. He now looks up at me from the top of the plastic drawers that are in the center of my closet.

So, here's my happy closet that sparks joy for me when I open up the closet doors.

Now that my bedroom feels more tidied and uncluttered I can breathe a little sigh of relief, as it gives me a feeling of being in a peaceful oasis.  And I am being careful to leave Jay's side of the bedroom and his closet alone, as Kondo talks in her book about how it's very important to allow your family members to have their own space and to allow them to keep their own space how they like it and not to push them into tidying, just because you are feeling enthusiastic about it.  As I am feeling more peaceful, I think the feeling is permeating the room and making our kitty, Jenny, also feel relaxed, too.