KonMari 2018 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

Siebrie

In the children's corner I have swapped the books (2 cubbyholes) and the boardgames (3 cubbuholes) around. The boardgames in their old place were hard to reach and often fell down unto the desk. Why didn't I think if this before? Because my idea of dds did not match reality; they are much more into games than into reading, and mostly read library books anyway, which have a cubbyhole all of their own.

DD1 has sorted through her pile of books and another 15 can go! I am holding back three, as they are part of our culture's children's library (you know, the books every child is supposed to have read; the books that were awarded literary prizes).

C_J

Marie Kondo was even mentioned on Coronation Street last night! They got it slightly wrong though, Ken Barlow was told things had to "bring joy" whereas I thought they had to "spark joy".

Slinky

Drat, I spotted another rat. It was quite a small one, OH says the one he saw was bigger than the one we caught, so there's at least 3 of them. I've checked the trap again and we didn't catch it, so have moved the trap. It had been in the same place since Sunday when we found the other one. It's more in the open where it is now, but is on a route I've seen them on twice.

Siebrie

Good luck catching those rats, Slinky. I have heard they are very smart. So far, I only have to deal with mice, which are (luckily) not so smart; I have caught another one today.

We packed husband's second suitcase last night; it's 21kg and full to the brim. Lots of clothes he will wear and leave behind. Also, gifts for family and friends. He has bought these as cheaply as possible, but was still a few gifts short, so I managed to persuade him (only took five days...) to look in our 'Africa' box in the attic. He was thrilled to find old electronics he could give away! Out: a home security system, an old tablet, a discman (yes, really), a simple digital camera, all with accompanying chargers and instruction leaflets :T

I used an old photophrame, a piece of fabric (ikea sample) and three school pictures (2 of them solo, 1 of them together) to make a small collage of dds for their African grandma. We always have leftover school pictures, what do you do with them?

Slinky

Blasted rats. Yesterday evening I spotted one looking in the trap, then going round the side of it. We've bought 2 more to position in other areas, and also upped the bait to include peanut butter.



Had hoped we would have dealt with them by the time we let the cat start to go outside, but we're planning on doing this on Sunday. She's so bored with being stuck inside bless her. We'll let her out of the door further away from the area we've seen the rats. I'm worried about her being bitten, or bringing one in. Cat flap has been ordered, should be arriving Monday.

Slinky

Yukka has been removed from behind the pond. Looking much better along there already, will have to take the main branches, of which there were 8, to the tip on Tuesday as they are thicker than the council will allow in our garden bin. Plus they are so big it would take several weeks to get rid of them.

Slinky

Yukka has been taken out entirely, trunks loaded up ready for taking to the tip this week. We go every week at the moment, Tuesday afternoons are usually quite quiet.


OH also drained the pond, 6 inches of black water, and then dug out about 18 inches of rotted plant material into a wheelbarrow. I dumped this at the bottom of the garden to drain down, we will dig it into the veg patch to improve the soil which is quite sandy and dry. Once drained, he whacked some holes in it so that it can't fill up again. We will remove it at some point, but not at the moment.


Today we let our cat out in the back garden for the first time. She was very good, was out there for most of the day, came in a couple of times for food and is now crashed out sleeping. She spent a lot of time sniffing about and staring under bushes. Whether she is smelling rats I don't know. I hope that her presence scares them off.


At some point we'll have to let her out the front of the house as well, which is much scarier as it's all open plan so she could go anywhere...

Siebrie

In the kitchen, I suddenly had a brainwave: we use a 2x2 ikea cubbyhole as a sideboard, and store the coffee machine, fruitbowl and airfryer on top. In that order, which is actually weird and takes up more space than necessary with the size of the fruitbowl. I have rearranged them to fruitbowl, airfryer, coffee machine (highest item against the wall) and it is much more visually pleasing! This only took 5 years!

The fruitbowl is a very large North African dish that we used to serve food at our diy wedding, so I like to keep it in sight

Igamogam

A neighbour kondoed the internet for me on Friday.....cut through our telephone line with a hedge trimmer:mad: Cant say we communicate with them and BT engineer was of the opinion they wouldn't own up so he put it down to wear and tear...so no charge!

I was amazed then concerned just how much 'on line' dominates and controls our lives! I was annoying for the first couple of hours but then it was strangely liberating. I didnt feel I 'gained' time or found new things to do I just didnt feel beholden to looking at emails and checking bank accounts etc and I enjoyed the "four days off" and intend to cut down how much I use it.....however no getting away from it....I need to list on Eb*y and today seems as good as any!

3 bin bags to CS and 2 smaller bags - clothes books CDs shoes. I have a bag of 'rags' on the go and must remember to ask in CS if they will take them otherwise I am not sure what to do with them. More paper into recycling and a few large cardboard boxes ready to go to recycle centre. Half dozen large plastic storage boxes gone via f**gle and a small box of books and cds to go to z!ffit....all sounds like a lot then I turn round and it looks like I have not touched anything *sigh*

Slinky

Igamogan check with your local Age UK, ours took rags to sell the ragman. I gave them in a bag labelled as clean rags so they wouldn't need sorting again.