How KonMari Got Charlotte a New Room

Okay so I'm basically outing myself as being in a weird internet cult by admitting this, but I read that Japanese tidying book and... I kind of buy into it.

Disclaimers up front:
-- I know the writing is not good (there is something lost in translation, sure, but also she just isn't a great writer).
-- I know that there is some feng shui hippie crap in there that is full-on nonsense. (I do like drawers that aren't stuffed to the brim. I do not, however, think my socks need to rest at night.)
-- I know that the mentality of "throw it away, you can always buy one later if you need it" only goes so far, and that my urban residential many-bedroom home/lifestyle has space for (and requires) storing more things than this lady in a studio apartment in urban Tokyo would ever dream of.

But.

Those things aside, I sort of really love this KonMari method. Basically it boils down to: keep only items that spark joy. That's it. That's the whole criteria.

Instead of approaching house cleaning and sorting with an eye for what you can get rid of, or what you can live without, she wants you to approach it by being intentional about what you live with, what you keep.

It's better, I promise.

You know how when you first set up a dorm room or a new office or enter a beautiful hotel room, and it all feels so calm and orderly and only your favorite things are there, arranged exactly how you intentionally set them up? That awesome ready feeling? That can be your whole life!

(Well, so she argues. I'm not there yet. But the tiny corners of my life that have achieved this are spectacular so far.)

So anyway she has certain guidelines about how to ask the "sparks joy" question in different categories: clothes, household items, gifts, memorabilia, etc. Some of the guidelines work for me, some of them don't; like with any food recipe, I have sort of adapted her method to make sense in my life and house.

I like that she doesn't make me feel like I have to get rid of things that are perfectly useless yet make me happy (my mom's "I survived the Texas heat wave of 1980" shirt that she wore when she was pregnant with me), or that I'm obligated to keep stuff that could be useful, or once made me happy but doesn't anymore.

So anyway, with her methods and my adaptations, and week upon week of purging, we have gotten rid of so much stuff that we didn't want or need. She argues that the energy it takes to be surrounded by stuff you don't love or like is bigger than the energy it takes to part with it. Even things that are hard to part with.

Case in point: I had been having trouble getting rid of the glider in Charlotte's room, even though it's completely broken and too unstable to sit in, and I haven't needed to rock or nurse a baby there in years. But I got over it, dreamed of a better space, thanked it for its service (OH YES I DID), and we removed it.

And it felt so fantastic we did the same thing with the toddler bed (has served five children well, is now broken to the point of unsafe, also the mattress was cracked in half -- the mattress *I* slept on as a baby) and whoa suddenly Charlotte had space for a whole new room.

So we moved her bookshelf under the window, moved her dresser across the room, kon-mari'd the crap out of miscellaneous stuff from my Grandpa Schnack's house (he died in 2009, his small chest of drawers has been sitting in her room, full of his stuff that we never sorted through, we even moved with it from the old house, whyyyyyyyy), rearranged the art on her walls, hung up a ribbon frame I made months ago, in the hopes of containing her ever-growing bow collection, and...

...got her a BIG GIRL BED.

I have been wanting to get a double bed for one of the kids' rooms for ages nowso we could have an extra space for a guest if we needed to (or a guest that might not want to be in the guest house, or a guest who might come when Mark is on night shift and sleeps out there). I just thought it would be nice to have one more "bigger" bed in the house, somewhere.

I assumed it would be in Anneliese's room, since hers is biggest, but she currently has a rolling trundle that we didn't want to move to Charlotte's room for fear of scratching the floors (Charlotte is the only one with hardwood). So we decided the full would work better for Charlotte than in Nathan (who has slanty ceilings on two sides, not just one, which makes his room feel smaller) and ANYWAY, Charlotte now has the big bed and she picked out owl sheets and I bought a clearance Target quilt and she loves her new room. I love it too.

So. I have KM'd a lot of categories now (the system recommends doing it by category, not location, so that you can actually see everything you have of that category and then decide what to keep): linens, bathroom/toiletry/personal care stuff, our clothes, books, papers/desks stuff, and kid stuff including their clothes and the toys (we have hardly any toys now! it's great! big kids don't need them! We kept trains and cars and blocks and legos and doll/figurine sets, put outside stuff outside, and tossed or donated almost everything else. They actually play with what we have now. I could do a whole separate post about this but I won't).

I have donated and thrown away so much stuff, y'all. I got read of well over half of what we owned in each of those categories. I had been feeling so crowded for so long, and I feel so much better now. My whole life feels less chaotic. I know, I know, I am drunk on the kool-aid.

I am not done, though. I still need to do kitchen stuff and outerwear and memorabilia, including a whole mess of Clemson stuff in the guest house, but for now I am done until school starts and I can have the time and space to work on it again.

One of the dreams (since last fall, a bit before I read this book but right in the throes of feeling crowded out of my own space and life and that nothing in my house or time was actually for me) is to make the guest house a sort of grownup/alone retreat when Mark or I need to be away from the chaos of the house, without having to actually flee our home. I'm picturing a big chair and a half, and a pretty lamp, and some pretty shelves of books, and a bed to nap on. Marky is picturing that same comfy chair with a nice tv that can actually hook up to the roku for watching stuff, and a bed for napping. All of this will involve moving the pool table out (no small endeavor, will happen this weekend) and it'll get done bit by bit, but it will happen this year because the Japanese tidying method firmly convinced me that to experience the change in energy and motivation that comes with setting up your home in exactly the order you want, it has to happen all at once.

Anyway, so that's the story of how I fell off the deep end, and how good it feels, and basically go read A'Dell's post on her tidying, she talks about it in better and more hilarious ways than I can. Also read this because it's funny. Mostly I just wanted to post pics of Charlotte's new bed, and it turned into a blog post tangent. You're shocked, I can tell.

My Grandpa B

My Grandpa Bumgarner would have been ninety today. He died several weeks ago, after a very fast illness and an emotional move to a hospice unit, and everyone racing to Charlotte to say goodbye while he was in good spirits. He was, and we did, and I will always be grateful for that; it's something I didn't get with any of my other grandparents.

I have been short on words about all of this in the last few weeks, but some nice things were said on facebook and instagram and at his service. It has been nice to feel close to my family and sit in this together.

Grandpa was special to all of us. He was a get-down-on-the-floor-and-play kind of grandpa, he loved babies (maybe because he couldn't hear well) (ha) (can we joke yet? say yes) and he loved Anneliese especially, because she's the first one who would happily run to him for a hug on request. He always kept a fridge full of mountain dew and he made the best egg salad ever. He ate cookies and ice cream every night. 

He was a kind stand-in grandparent for Marky, who adored him. He read every word of this blog, on paper that my dad printed and brought to his house, and he liked to tell me he never knew what the hell I was talking about. :) He fought at Iwo Jima and lost friends and was brave when he should have still been a child. He was funny and southern and loyal and worked his ass off.

We loved him, and we miss him. Happy birthday, Grandpa.

Marky Day 2015

Last time our anniversary fell on the same day as Father's Day, I proposed that we re-name it Marky Day. Because he's a fantastic husband and a fantastic dad alike.

This year, we celebrated the dad part more than the anniversary part, since I figured he could use a day that's just about him and our anniversary date and feelings could wait a few days. So we took him to a baseball game to see the Durham Bulls play, and get to go onto the field before the game and throw the ball around with the kids.

Real talk: sometimes the picture perfect plans we dream up don't end in perfection.

cherish every moment?

Nathan and Charlotte did have fun throwing the ball around for a few minutes though, and once we got out of the heat and into the shade and found some snacks and drinks, Anneliese perked back up too.

So twelve years and three kids later, I'd say he's still a keeper. We love you, Marky.

Like, really really love you. In a messy, real life, working hard, adoring our kids, crying, sweating, having fun, laughing together at the funny and chaotic things of our life way. I wouldn't want to do this with anyone else but you.

You definitely deserve your own day.

A Concert and a Recital

This one is mostly for the grandparents, right? The end of the school year always means concerts and recitals and things that bring tears to parents' and grandparents' eyes while the rest of the world watches with a resounding meh. But assuming you're a person who is enchanted by baby performers, in particuarly my baby performers, then here, behold!

The girls' dance recital:

They were cute, they matched, they delighted me. This is their tap routine:


(If you can't see the embedded video, click here to watch on YouTube.)

Anneliese has turned into such a leader in the last year. Charlotte is the youngest in the group and is mostly in her own world, but she loves to dance so much.

Ballet routine is here, if you're a person who can't live until you've seen both. :) Charlotte cracks me up; she sort of knows the choreography but she is going to do it in her own time, as the spirit moves her, y'all. Ha.

brb framing this

Nathan's orchestra concert:

Okay so Nathan takes himself very seriously. This is a thing I don't really even need to say, right? If you read this blog, ever, you know this about him. He got rosin and he got tuned and he played and it was super sweet.

I really maintain that learning music and an instrument is so good for kids (and not optional in our house) and it's so cool to see how much Nathan has learned in just a year. I hope he loves playing for a long time to come.


(If you can't see the embedded video, click here to watch on YouTube.)

My dad came too and he was legit impressed with some of the older groups. Our elementary school does an incredible job with this orchestra program, and I'm so glad our kid(s) can be in it.

Okay that's all.

This ends today's episode of special snowflakes. We shall return to our normal programming momentarily.

Lasts and Library and Church and Feelings: Summer Begins!

Occupying my brain space this week:

1.) Nathan has learned to do some farting noise thing with his hand and his knee-pit, and it is making me batty.

2.) Mark and the girls have been doing random dance parties in the living room the last couple evenings, and the most recent version seemed to be Ace of Base. Everyone should be so lucky as to have a co-parent who helps teach children the important things in life. (I'm being absolutely sincere.) (Picture me with heart shapes in my eyes.)

3.) Our public library has had a long-standing policy that your fines will max out at $10. Like, however much you owe, $10 will clear it all out. So for years, I have just... left it at $10. I don't pay it, they never ask, and it never gets higher, even when I keep books out overdue. (Yes, I know, I am terrible, shut up.) So anyway they just re-did their website, and I logged in to request a book, and suddenly I owe like... a lot more than $10. What happened? Did the policy change, or just the website? I'm skeered. (Update: just the website changed. I paid the whole giant debt with $10. And yes I paid it because I decided I feel bad about it.)

4.) I have hard church feelings. There's not a one-sentence way to boil it down, but maybe... feeling unsettled in what place I have right now? Anyway. I am taking a tiny break from choir, partly to avoid some toxic people and feelings (which usually I am great at avoiding and handing out grace as I pass by, but these days feels hard), but mostly so I can go worship with my family, in the pews, without dragging them into the chancel with me (which they do, gladly, but it has started to feel complicated) -- and thus try to reframe church from being a thing that mom and dad need to go to, where they get dragged along, and back into a place that's also for them, where they are wanted and needed and valued and belong in their own right. It has gotten out of balance.

5.) Last week was a horrible sad time with my family, and we will be burying my Grandpa this weekend. He was old but it was also fast, and I feel exhausted of the emails and planning and I need some room for my sadness, and I will have more to say about him and his life later, but now I don't have the bandwidth for real words about it. We miss him. It sucks. He was wonderful. He was my last surviving grandparent. He was a good man, in the least trite way one could possible use those words.

6.) Last week I had my last day with Ali. (Well, not my last day. She is still my niece and she better come over here and swim every weekend so I can see her.) But my last day as her daytime caregiver. It has been a heck of a year juggling four kids but most days I think I did it well, and I will have a bond with her forever because of it, I hope. She is a funny sweet energetic bright-eyed little girl, and it has been an honor to be amongst the first humans on earth to truly know her, and love her. I am also glad for the empty summer stretching before us, with lots of time for the kids before Anneliese starts her school years and I go back to work. It's both/and.

7.) Speaking of last days, Nathan had his last day of school yesterday and he is done with second grade and he is still so tiny and still my baby and what is even happening?? On Friday they did a "wax museum" biography project where they dressed up as a person from history and gave little prepared speech about them. Nathan was Walt Disney and he was ADORABLE.

Walt Disney and George Washington were great friends, didn't you know?

Seattle Blathering

Remember how we all used to do some wild and fun thing, or some new and bland thing, but.. some Thing, and then somehow still had the bandwidth to blog about it, that day? Or that week? Or that month? How did we do that, y'all?

So, I went to Seattle. In April.

Part, the First: The Blathering

My trip was to meet up with internet friends, who aren't even "internet friends" at this point anymore, but just friends (thanks Hillary) who have an annual ladies weekend, and it has become a highlight of my year. It's a "conference" in the sense that it involves meeting people and having dinners and drinks and shopping and hanging out, so, that's to say, not a conference at all. Just a fun weekend with friends.

I roomed with Hillary and Sarah, both of whom I adore. They are smart and funny and wise and easy, which, for me these days, is about the best thing someone can be. A group of us rode the ferris wheel and looked at the seattle waterfront and I didn't even panic at all because I am a super cool and collected person in all situations.

We had a dinner party at Maggie's house and ate delicious food and had blathering signature cocktails and I spent some quality time with Elizabeth on the bathroom floor, not in a college drunk way but in a solid friendship Feelings way because hello, we are in our thirties. I am sad to say I did not exit Maggie's deck on the slide, because dat ass.

We rode a party bus called I Have a Woody or something equally phallic-and-trying-too-hard (I looked it up. Big Woody's. I juuuuuust realized the interior of the bus has wood paneling, and now I appreciate that this is a legit pun.

We ate dim sum (legit! I have never done that before) and had a wonderful hilarious talk about the ages of blogging gone by (ages of yore!) and laughed til we cried and also I would like to eat a whole plate of bbq pork buns right now, please and thanks.

We also went up into a skyscraper and looked down on the city, and look at that space needle down there! Can't you imagine how tall and futuristic it must have seemed in the sixties?

From up here it mostly looks adorable. I have a soft spot for that tower and I don't even know why. (It's probably Frasier-related. Shut up.)

We had a farewell dinner with the most bizarre pie situation that has ever pie'd: pie by the slice, one per plate, served four at a time to a table of ten, with question marks on our faces. And then repeated ten minutes later. And then again ten minutes after that. And then I laughed so hard I cried. And I could write a whole post of just the pie, playing it out moment by moment, yet I still don't think any words could accurately convey the insanity.

Pie. If you say it enough times it gets really funny again, even months later. PIE.

And then everyone left town, and I had a day of quiet, which was lovely, and then Another Nathan landed.

Part, the Second: Another Nathan 

A year ago when Nathan was in the throes of making a job decision, and I was signing up for the blathering, we loved the idea of a friendcation in Seattle, no matter where he was living come spring, and it turns out we actually made it happen! It worked great for him to fly out after church on Sunday right as my ladies weekend was ending, and we had a fantastic time together.

We had a foodie dinner with his favorite aunt (who lives in Olympia), we had top pot donuts for our coffee dates (more than once), we drank ginger beer, we walked through a sculpture park, we rode the monorail, and I told him a thousand more stories about Frasier than he actually wanted to hear.

And! We wandered through Pike Place market and made our pilgrimage to the original Starbucks.

We also went into this wonderful paper store, and I got lost in there for quite some time picking out letterpress cards and hand-bound books and notepads.

We had lunch in the revolving tower restaurant at the top of the space needle which was surprisingly kind of awesome in its cheesiness. We got to walk around outside (that viewing area at the top is outside, y'all) and then eat spendy cheeseburgers while spinning in a circle and reading post-it notes left on the window from other tables who had passed by. Pure tourist delightfulness.

We took a ferry out to Bainbridge Island and took a thousand pics of the skyline, including this wavy one Nathan took because panoramic pics are hard to do on a moving boat, yo.

oh, it makes me laugh

Okay we actually got some for real pics, too.

And Bainbridge was lovely and calm and pretty, walked through town and down by the water and thoroughly enjoyed the walk and the boat ride alike.

One of my favorite things we did was take an Uber (ask me how many days it took Nathan to get over his Uber-cringing and concede that it's way awesomer than using a taxi) (all the days, is the answer) allll the way across downtown Seattle to the edge of Lake Washington, and into this tiny little glass-blowing store that Nathan'a aunt told us about, called Glassy Baby.

They make pretty jars for burning tealights, and they come out with new colors for different events and seasons, and they partner with a crap ton of charities and various cancer research fund, and the whole thing was very touchy feely fun and beautiful to see them blowing the glass and then light a bunch of jars to see which one makes you feeeeel what you want to feeeeel and then buy just the right ones for ourselves and for gifts and oh man it was just a lovely little shop and we had a delightful time, and they are such beautiful and warm souvenirs.

One of those things that makes me happy every time I look at it. Which is every day, even months later. I am watching it burn next to my computer as I type this, actually. Also, there is wine. That seems relevant, yes?

Anyway.

So it was a wonderful trip, and so great to be away from being a mom and a wife for a week. It was an awful trip home, a sleepless night by the Minneapolis airport before an early connection back, and a canceled flight, and so tired so many feelings much tears. But instead of dwelling on that I will just say that I've decided Seattle rain is a myth; it was sunny and gorgeous every day we were there until the last night, and then even the wet  night was beautiful.

As Frasier would say: goodnight Seattle, we love you.

(Oh yes I did.)