KonMari 2016 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

WeeMidgie

A wee update on the reduction to one of everything for crockery and cutlery. I'm reducing again to one wide pasta bowl and one mug, one knife, one fork, one spoon, one teaspoon. The dinner plate, side plate and cereal bowl are joining their mates in the storage box.

This is partly for simplicity and partly for portion control. My dinner plate is wide, and holds more than the pasta bowl. The side plate is too small to be multipurpose. The cereal bowl just adds to the washing up. I had kept two spare mugs in case of visitors, but they are now at the top of the storage box, easy to find when needed.

The mug I've kept out has a beautiful painting of a stargazer Lily on the side. This definitely sparks joy, and is particularly lovely to look at as I have a cat, therefore can't have lilies in the house or garden.

Fen1

Floss: for the womens refuge, Google Caroline Hirons refuge .
http://www.carolinehirons.com/page-give-and-makeup

I'm putting all of my stuff together to send, but as my Kondoing keeps stalling it might be a while before I send my box to them. I have lots of face and body lotion to donate. My skin is sensitive: I trry something new, it disagrees with me, then I end up with an opened bottle but hardly any used. It should go to someone who can use it.

Lessonlearned, my condolences. Take your time.

Siebrie

Lessonlearned, my condolences.

Our Christmas tree is back in the attic, as are most of the decorations. I kept a few of the decorations apart to be donated to the secondhand store in September or October.

DH has ordered a rectangular storage box-!!!-pouffe for dds' toys. I tried to dissuade him, telling him that it's not the storage that is the problem, but the amount of toys, but no joy. I have sorted through the girls' things, and thrown away lots, but there still is soooo much, and they do play with everything. I put stuff in the attic at times (for instance everything 'barbie' is in its box in the attic at the moment and will come out when they get tired of 'little pet shop'). I have over the Christmas break given them their colouring books and felt tip pens, so that at least a few books and pens have finished.

Eldest dd has some problems with maths, and we are working through her math books from her first year, filling out the exercises for 'advanced' students (but then from two classes ago) that she did not do. And then putting the workbooks in the paper recycling. Slowly slowly.....

The discarding bit definitely sparks joy

short_bird

The precis of the Simpsons new episode, aired last night in the US:
"Pork and Burns – Marge’s obsession with a Japanese-style of living requires the family to ditch items that no longer bring them joy, including Lisa’s beloved saxophone, and forcing Homer to find a home for the family pig."
:rotfl:

Karmacat

Lesson Learned, so sorry to hear about your dad - that sense of now needing to clear the household is an additional "expected shock", or it was for me, at any rate. Hope you and your sister are taking care of yourselves and one another.

Karmacat

GreyQueen wrote: »

Have decided pal's shop needs a dedicated tool box, so will add the new-bought hammer to a box with the various random other tools which seem to be distributed throughout the building, and hopefully any future projects will be handled easily.

You know what, in the depths of my sister's garage we discovered more duplicates from her husband, who died in 2009 - five toolboxes! So now her daughter, who moved into her new flat last week, has one, and I have one too My sister uses one, so the charity shop gets two.

bumblebeany wrote: »

Reading some of the comments about bereavement (hugs) links to some of the reasons I want to get organised. I am currently and for the foreseeable future a carer for my parents. They have lived in the same house for 50 years and it is full of everything under the sun. My home is my refuge from my caring role.

I want to be in a position to help get everyones house in order as and when needed so need to start with my own first. I like to plan ahead for any eventuality as know from experience you never know what is around the corner. To this end my KM experience is also going to include a planning ahead to do section including things like living will, general will, pre paid funeral, long term budgeting etc (for me).

bumblebeany (love the name!) I picked up on this as I'm one of the ones with a recent bereavement - I really don't think pre paid funeral plans are a good idea any more. The big bill with the funeral director - my sister was prepared to cover that, I could have done it on a credit card, but they gave us 60 day terms, and the "estate of" bank account was up and running in much less than that, so we paid with that. If there isn't the money available, then maybe prepaid is the way to go, but personally I'd have gone for credit card and then transferred to a 0% as per mse practices. Horse for courses, of course.

short_bird wrote: »

The precis of the Simpsons new episode, aired last night in the US:
"Pork and Burns – Marge’s obsession with a Japanese-style of living requires the family to ditch items that no longer bring them joy, including Lisa’s beloved saxophone, and forcing Homer to find a home for the family pig."
:rotfl:

:j:j:j

tibawo

I start later at work on a Monday and a few months ago I would look at the house and what needed tidying and because there was no way I'd even make a dent in the place I would sit down with a cup of coffee and veg in front of tv.


Today was completed different I sat on the vibro plate as I folded some clean clothes. Put a load of washing on, washing up done, made the beds and did ten minutes of 'pottering' tidying. I also made my weekly to do list e.g. hours of work, things to remember etc. It is nice to know that when I get home I can focus on bringing the cds down to put in the drawer ready to sort.

greenbee

Karmacat wrote: »

bumblebeany (love the name!) I picked up on this as I'm one of the ones with a recent bereavement - I really don't think pre paid funeral plans are a good idea any more. The big bill with the funeral director - my sister was prepared to cover that, I could have done it on a credit card, but they gave us 60 day terms, and the "estate of" bank account was up and running in much less than that, so we paid with that. If there isn't the money available, then maybe prepaid is the way to go, but personally I'd have gone for credit card and then transferred to a 0% as per mse practices. Horse for courses, of course.


:j:j:j

We still haven't had the funeral director's bill. We were told that they don't invoice immediately. We knew roughly what the costs would be. My dad had warned me when he told me which papers he wanted the notice in, which funeral director he wanted and dictated the order of service... so I knew that 2 x national, 1 x regional and 1 x local paper would be about £1k, funeral director £2k plus disbursements (crem is £700, not sure about the vicar), wake £1-1.5k. Order of service we had printed ourselves (£175) after a relative who is a professional graphics guy created the file, organist was a friend, flowers we did ourselves.

I think if possible, as savings account rather than a pre-paid plan is a good idea. Unless you have a lot of debt.

PollyWollyDoodle

Lessonlearned, I'm sorry to hear about your dad.

In most cases, funeral directors will give you time to pay, and banks will usually release funds for the funeral directly to the Funeral Directors) on production of the invoice and a death certificate.

The advantage of a pre-paid plan is firstly, as noted above, if you have a lot of debt then that money is secured. The other advantage is that if you are in receipt of any means-tested benefits it is a legitimate expense. If you look after someone whose capital is near the point at which it might affect their entitlement to benefits, buying a pre-paid plan will reduce it without them being viewed as having spent it unreasonably. And of course - none of us want to think it but it could happen- if you end up in residential care, then all your savings could be spent on that, so a plan means it's taken care of.

Most current plans are ok but you need to read the small print, and I agree that for many people a savings account is just as good.

luxor4t

Lessonlearned, my condolences.

I'm having radiators replaced in 3 rooms and the hall today. Getting each room ready only took a few minutes after all the kondo'ing last year :T We should be a bit warmer with modern rads, these that are going must be 30+ years old and cranky. We've been in the house 27 years this year.

The scrap man 'happened' to come past at an opportune moment and will return for the rest of the ancient radiators, so just the packaging to recycle when they finish.

As I am more or less confined to one room I have been going through the desk area and have got lots of paperwork sorted, a small bag for the CS and various items in the 'right' place.

Amongst other items, I have recycled the diary I started the year DS1 was born. One entry made me smile - I spent ages decorating the Christmas tree, then turned the lights on, expecting to see huge smiles but DS1 (8 months old) burst into tears! Most of the entries made me so sad: poor DH found parenthood hard and confusing and I seemed to be in tears most of the time or slogging round to the launderette. I didn't read all of the entries, just glad that time has passed!