KonMari 2016 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

Charis

maddiemay wrote: »

VJsmum thank you for passing on the news. I had missed her posts and hoped that she was OK, but just busy with RL.

I also hoped iQueen was just too busy with RL and I am sad to hear the news. Her posts on the 2015 thread were a real inspiration to many of us. I will take her last wise words to heart. Thank you for passing on the news, VJ's Mum.

Clutterfree

Thanks for letting us know VJs Mum.

To IQueen, hope you've found joy and woo wherever you may be. :beer: xx

3forholidays

Very sorry to hear of the passing of iQueen. Thanks to VJsmum for letting us know.

greent

Thanks for letting us all know the sad news - and I hope that we take note of IQueen's 'Do it now' message - we never know what is just around the corner
x

oceanspirit

Thank you VJsmum for letting us know the sad news about IQueen. I had been hoping she was busy with being a grand IQueen and I'm sad she won't be coming back to join us on the thread.

Love her last message and will be sure to heed it.

VJsmum

greent wrote: »

Thanks for letting us all know the sad news - and I hope that we take note of IQueen's 'Do it now' message - we never know what is just around the corner
x

Absolutely. I only met her once but feel sure she would not want us to be down. So please carry on sharing your kondo journeys and spreading the woo and the joy.

So, GQ, how've you got on?

mavvymoo

I hope the Kondo woo factor brings all of you some special joy soon. Thank you all:


:grouphug:

The late great iQueen says it better than I can


Mav x

GreyQueen

VJsmum wrote: »

Absolutely. I only met her once but feel sure she would not want us to be down. So please carry on sharing your kondo journeys and spreading the woo and the joy.

So, GQ, how've you got on?

Well, I spent some of the afternoon loafing in the back yard watching the cyrils (due to Dad's whimsical sense of humour, the grey squirrels which infest the place are all called Cyril the Squirrel, ages and genders notwithstanding). There are at least three cyrils as we've seen that many at once and they are serial looters of peanuts and breakers of bird-feeders.

The family mogs were loafing around outside, too. They're about twelve now, and pretty small as cats go, and probably would come off worse in a fight with one of the tree-rats, so the species pretend each other doesn't exist and thus save face.

Managed to get all of the bird-feeding supplies which were in The Off Room into the bottom of The Cupboard, where they are tidily in tubs or bags. I reckon my folks' spend more money on feeding the burdies (and the cyrils) than I spend feeding myself, but they are very entertaining and it's not like there's much to watch on telly these days......

But I digress.

I took all the bags off the hooks which were hanging between the bottom of the wall until and the rad (this is the wall of The Off Room opp where the coal-bunker stood, wherein now stands the 1930s sideboard.

Most of them were actually committing bag incest - bags full of bags. There were six separate carrier bags holding little caches of old batteries put aside to go to battery recycling. Plus three brollies, a circular disk of wood about 2 inches thick (woodturning project material), a knackered bungee cord and a carrier bag holding a pkt of werthers originals (I'd found 4 pkts of these in there yesterday, the cyrils aren't the only critters hoarding around here).

The brollies are now in the umbrella stand which holds two golfing type brollies, one still in its wrapper and has never been used, the other may have been used once, as we are a folding-brollie type household but they're being kept for Justin.

The dud batteries I have consolidated into one bag - typically, I found these an hour after we'd come back from the supermarche where there was a recycling point.

There will be some more work in there tomorrow as now I can get the doors to the 1930s sideboard open, I can get into the two drawers inside.

Me: Why do you have these? (holds out opened pkt of long wooden skewers as for kebabs. Hell would freeze over before Mum would do anything like cook with them).

Mum; I must have bought them to poke things with.

Me Quoi?

Mum; You know, like cleaning something?

I suppose there are some important minature cleaning jobs which are too particularly-sized to be covered by cotton buds or cocktail sticks, so you have to have wooden skewers to hand........:p

MMF007

VJsmum, thank you for the post about iQueen. I also very much enjoyed her posts last year. It's a funny thing this KM magic, bringing us together on our virtual journey here on our little forum, everyone with something useful, informative, funny and supportive to say.

I just come back from a really lovely 4.5 day break. DH and I had a couple of days on our own, exploring a lovely part of the UK we'd not prev visited and then we stayed 2 nights with some lovely people we met on a foreign holiday a few years ago. They are much older than us but they embrace life, despite one of them being in constant and severe pain, both having chronic illness and undergoing serious medical treatment.
They live in a large house in tiny village and it is apparent that by hardwork and wisdom they have had a pretty good standard of living but our host said that Every Morning he still looks out of the window and thanks his lucky stars that they have the opportunity to live in their 'ideal home' and enjoy the beautiful view. I think that makes him special, he appreciates what he has and truly
values it.

We were able to offer quite a bit of practical help 'lifting and shifting', they were the perfect hosts and we had plenty of laughs. We feel like we've had a long break, because we packed Lots in!

So, my rambling post gets back to the salient point -
Never was there a truer sentiment than ' Do it NOW, you never know what's round the corner'.
RIP iQueen.

M

greenbee

Sorry to hear about iQueen, but also pleased to hear that she made such good friends through this thread. And that she left such a positive message.

I'm still working on returning my belongings to where they need to live. I have emptied the airing cupboard which was full of dust as a result of all the work, and rationalised the contents. I've also washed pretty much everything that can be washed... the last of the rag rugs is currently in the WM to be dried tomorrow.

There are definitely some storage issues to be resolved:

1. I need more storage in the ensuite. Not sure whether this is shelving, a bathroom cabinet or both. I guess I need to put all the stuff that needs to be in the room in there, and then I'll know what will work.

2. I need a small wardrobe in my bedroom for the everyday clothing that needs hanging space. Work clothes fit in the 'gentleman's wardrobe' I found and put in one of the spare rooms, and the big wardrobe is now in the kids' room and could be used for 'going out' clothes in one side and have the other side shelved.

3. The twin spare room (known round here as 'Granny & Grandpa's bedroom') needs more storage. I'd like to be able to keep the bedding and towels that belong to the room in there, and allow guests to unpack. The twin beds are huge Victorian things, so take up a lot of space.

4. One of the CoDs in my bedroom needs to come out. It's full of running/gym kit so doesn't need to be in there. I'm wondering about putting it into the hall.

5. I still have no clue where I'm going to keep my suitcase collection, but do need to address the fact that there are a number of them I actively avoid using. And a couple need replacing as last year's work travel has clearly taken its toll!

6. I need two of the suitcase stands GQ mentioned earlier to allow guests to unpack easily. Or not unpack if they're only staying briefly.

Getting things back to normal is taking longer than planned (plus I have had visitors two evenings in a row) so tomorrow is going to be busy. I'm still waiting for the corner of the sitting room to dry out properly so I can move furniture/take carpet up/rearrange underlay/put carpet up/dust and rearrange furniture.

Upstairs, despite the mess, is still incredibly joyful. It is light, and airy, and warm and easy to clean. Yes, there is some snagging to do (must make a list) but the contrast between downstairs and upstairs is a great reminder about how much it has changed.