KonMari 2017 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

I've always thought people would kill themselves laughing if they saw me in my jammies. Most of them aren't even in pairs, they were bought as separates secondhand. The ones I'm styling tonight are brushed cotton red, white and grey norwegian-style reindeer print bottoms and a brushed cotton nightshirt top which is a two-shades-of-lilac-and-white plaid.

Both have been mended and are beautifully soft and when they're worn up, I shall thank them and rag-bag them. Cost me 50p each.

I have several mismatched 'pairs' of jammies like this, probably too many, but some of them are on heavy rotation and will be worn out in a few months, so the ongoing inventory will be much smaller.

Dropped in on my pal's juntique shop after w*rk for a chat and assisted someone to spend £100 on various items. I won't say I'm a brilliant saleswoman but I'm friendly and helpful. My reward was a kit-kat and a cuppa and a nice thank-you............ :rotfl:

Fun bit of Kondoing today, going through a shoebox of old costume jewellery. Gosh, the earrings I used to wear! A bagful went off to the CS, along with yet more glasses.

I feel like I'm peeling an onion of "stuff". The obvious layers have gone and now I'm getting to the real nitty gritty of who I am.

ahhh Minnie, that was nice, setting the ashes free

All this talk of kondo, people getting on with it, it is making me think again. I have a tall thin cupboard in my en suite and have decided to make it half full rather than full. Sigh, these bits are not easy but I keep wondering how I would actually downsize, push will come to shove soon, with a bit of luck, if I find a new home. I am going to go through a room at a time, again, starting with en suite, then my bedroom. The upside is that I will be busy all weekend, so it won`t matter if I don`t see anyone. It is nice to have a plan

You are all good examples, it was the toiletries and then the costume jewellery that is helping my mindset move forward

Thanks kittie.yes on a beautiful area of beach that we all loved to go to together and i will continue to enjoy going to with my children and dogs . Some of them have sat in my wardrobe for years finally realised thats no place for my loved ones to be :-) i am ready to move on.

As ive said before i dont deal with bereavement very well but have decided today on the way back that all the things i am holding onto are never going to fulfill their purpose sitting in my cupboard with no one allowed to touch them.if my grandad (my dad to me) was still alive i would be making full use of them.preserving these items does not preserve him no matter how much i try.i even have a random piece of paper with his writing on. So i am going to use these things and enjoy using them

I also have a very beautiful radley handbag that my grandad bought for me that was involved in a horrendous car accident i had it has many scratches in the leather and not looking its best.the accident was before he died but i have other bags so i swapped to another but then after he died i just hold onto it because he bought it. The accident also represents the time i some how didnt die even though i should have and it also represents my brain tumour either growing from the trauma or developing because of the trauma (i rolled the car 4x roof came off and my head was hitting the road every roll) but i have decided to either ditch it or see if i can repair it and kondo it to my friend.

I dont go as far as to thank my house nor do i attend to my possessions as much as Marie does but she has made me view things differently with my house (its not in the best of states its needs a lot of work) and possessions and for that i am grateful.she has come into my life at the right time not had the best of years this year either but now it is going to be the year pf change.although few years earlier would have been great though!!!

Minnie, I empathise so much. That letting go is part of the healing that can come, if we let it, after a period of bereavement and that enables us to move forward. I regard KM as the backbone of my own personal journey. You mentioned lots of momentoes, that was hard but little by little it can be done. If you gather a group of them together, then pick just one small one to represent all the others. Photos were particularly tough but I made sure that everything was copied onto cds and memory sticks, the children each received a cd from me. Then I bought lovely small `industrial` frames from ebay, thin bronze metal edged and they opened wide, like a book. I copied lots of pictures and just cut parts of some to make collages but with spacing in between, I put a little sticky thing on the back of each and closed the frames. I have 5 in different sizes and they give me very great joy. One contains very old sepia and white pictures of my grandparents. So much better than being in a big box, tucked away. They stand on a bookshelf with a bronze resin ammonite lamp and a large bronze resin hare and as a group, well I could not want for more. KM enabled this, saw me through that initially difficult and traumatic process, from grey and sad to sunshine

I am excited today, slept well and woke up excited because there will be very real progress in my en suite and bedroom, this weekend. This is the time, at last, when I will take away good items to make room for energy flow. Things like lovely kipling suitcases stored under the bed and never used.

I keep thinking back to the days when we lived in a very small caravan for 6 months and I also think to the `what if` like when my husband had to do some professional photos in a newly built and lovely supported care campus, I went with him to help. Each person had one tiny bedroom for a single bed, a minute kitchen, tiny weeny living room and small bathroom. Many would have gone there from large houses, imagine having to clear out so suddenly. KM is obviously different for different generations and circumstances but it has a very real place for everyone at any stage of life

Soon I go upstairs, with a lightness in my step, this stage will be mega for me and I will see very real progress on my journey