Tidying Up
Happy Monday!
I hope you had a great weekend. Tj and I had the best day on Saturday even though it was a little cold for a summer day. I actually saw someone wearing a winter jacket with a fur hood! Ok Aussies, I mean it was chilly but not that cold! Haha. Tj spent the morning on the phone with his parents - they are coming to Australia! He is so excited to show them around and eat his mom's cooking.
We spent the rest of our Saturday going out for a nice brunch at a new place and then going to Ikea to return something. I don't know what we were thinking going to Ikea on a Saturday afternoon. It was packed. As usual at Ikea, we left with way more than we were looking for.
We browsed in a few other furniture stores and the best part of my weekend was when we saw an outdoor couch that was exactly what we have been looking for. And it was a floor model sale so we got an amazing deal! It's supposed to be delivered on Monday afternoon, so we are still crossing our fingers that we will be able to get it on the apartment. I can't wait for it to get here.
Saturday evening I decided to finally tackle a nagging task.
If you haven't seen the show Tidying Up on Netflix, you have to watch it. Here is the description of the show:
In a series of inspiring home makeovers, world-renowned tidying expert Marie Kondo helps clients clear out the clutter - and choose joy.
Marie Kondo is a Japanese organizing consultant who has developed the KonMari method of tidying up. She is so much fun to watch on the show and she actually gets so excited when she sees a mess. Part of the process is to go through your clothes, books, paper, and memorabilia and see what sparks joy for you.
I first heard about Marie Kondo a few years ago when we moved to London and I bought her book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.
I started reading this shortly after we moved to London and it wasn't really appropriate because we didn't have that much with us. We had just moved in so things were still very tidy. It actually made me a little anxious thinking about all the stuff I had in storage back home and didn't have time to go through. So I stopped reading it.
Well fast forward a few years and now we are in Melbourne. London was actually a really good life lesson for me in learning to live more minimally. First of all, everything was expensive, so we weren't buying much. Our flat was furnished so we didn't need to get anything. And it was so tiny. I've never had a smaller closet in my life. If I bought anything I'd pretty much have to get rid of something to make space for it.
Through the London experience, I've learned that I love living with less. It feels nice not to have too much stuff. Especially when I know I will eventually have to get it all back to Canada.
Things were starting to feel pretty cluttered around here right around the time this show came out on Netflix. So I was excited to start tidying up!
I was focusing on clothes. My side of the closet was getting so messy. And I knew I wanted to do this organization thing so for the past few weeks I've just been shoving stuff in there.
In the KonMarie method, you have to put all your clothing in one place in a big pile. You go through each item and see if it sparks joy for you. If it doesn't, you say thank you to the item of clothing and place it in a pile.
It's weird to think of clothing sparking joy, but Marie says to start with things you know you love to wear. And that made it easier for me. It also made it easier to get rid of things that don't spark joy. Like that shirt I bought 5 years ago and never wear. If I haven't worn it yet, I'm not going to wear it. Saying thank you gets rid of the guilt for getting rid of a perfectly good item that I'm not using.
In the end, I got rid of a trash bag of stuff.
The best thing I learned was to fold things differently. If you fold them standing up, you can see everything you have. Everything is very organized and easy to find now.
And luckily for me, Tj likes tidying up too! His side of the closet was already very clean, but even he was inspired to do some reorganizing and get rid of stuff he isn't using.
Next up we need to get some little boxes to organize our miscellaneous stuff so I see another Ikea trip in our future haha.
I also love the feeling of not wanting to go shopping. Sometimes I find I'm just wanting to buy everything - more clothes, stuff for the house, makeup, shoes, whatever. And living more minimally reminds me that I don't need 20 pairs of boots because chances are I'm just going to wear my same favourite 2 pairs over and overall season. Going through everything reminds me of what I have.
I was feeling great until Jacob facetimed me and showed me the mountain of stuff I still have in his room in Canada! Yikes. I definitely need to do some more tidying up when I visit Canada in a few weeks!