Woman in Real Life

As we attempt to purge our clutter-filled homes of all things ugly, unloved and excess, Marie Kondo advises us to keep only those items that spark joy. My question to you is, what if far too many items spark joy? When it comes to thrifted and inherited dishes and vases, the current state of our dining room clearly demonstrates that you can have too much of a good thing.

I took a bit of a break from blogging this past week, not to soak up the sun in Florida or some other warm destination (although that certainly would have been nice!). Husband and I spent at least 12 hours over three days tidying, sorting and tossing stuff from the basement rec room and storage room. (We signed our daughter up for art camp so she wouldn't be bored and our son hung out with friends and attended a soccer session.)

While it certainly wasn't a relaxing spring break, it was satisfying in a big way. This is the first month of my new 4-month purge (2016 version) and so far it has been going well. (You can follow along on Instagram and share your own de-cluttering sessions using the hashtag #4monthpurge. Let's cheer each other on!)

Given that it's Vintage Bliss Tuesday, I should be writing about my latest thrifty purchase - another vintage dish or a fun thrifted pillow. But it's March 1st and my thoughts have once again turned to purging excess stuff from our home. Today I'm launching another 4-month purge! Will you join me?

Let's get rid of things in our home that clutter, irritate, bother, hide out in boxes and generally just get in our way. They don't bring us joy, they aren't ever going to be useful and their work for us is just done. Let's get rid of stuff in a BIG WAY. My goal is to look around at the end of these four months and have trouble finding anything that could be purged. If you have similar goals, join me in encouraging each other on Instagram using the hashtag #4monthpurge.

In my New Year's Tree post, I talked about the "branches" that are guiding me in these early months of 2016. While these toy snow globes might simply look like a fun little project to do with the kids, they also fit nicely into three of my branches (areas of focus) - order, creativity and family.

In terms of order, I have done a ton of de-cluttering over the last six months but there is still quite a load of stuff in our basement storage room, much of it old toys. Although the kids are 11 and 13 now and rarely use these toys, they have trouble letting go. While most of the small plastic figures they have collected over the years need to be tossed, I thought it would be fun to ask the kids to pick out a few to keep on their dressers inside homemade snow globes. Therein lies the "family" part of the equation - ie. spending time together making snow globes. And the creativity part, well I guess that's obvious!

Some of you may recall that I embarked on a 4-month purge back in May, with a goal of finally weeding out ALL (or most) of the abundance of excess stuff we have in our home. You might well wonder, if this was a "4-month" purge and began back in May, why am I writing about it still? Good question.

I wouldn't want to say that the purge was a failure, because we actually made great strides, getting rid of an unprecedented (for us) amount of stuff - clothing, magazines, papers, VHS tapes, etc. But progress got stalled somewhere along the way (mainly when the kids were home for the summer) and frankly hasn't picked up all that much since. The really good thing is, though, I have more confidence about my ability to toss unneeded items. I saw some real successes and I am ready for a solid phase two. In that spirit, I want to show you the success that my family had in paring down and organizing our books. Books are a tough category for us, because we hold them dearly in our hearts.

One step in my 4-month purge involved opening up boxes of books that had been stowed away in the storage room. (And, by the way, my 4-month purge is about to become a 6-month purge, starting today, because the summer progressed very slowly.)

I was torn about these Creative Hands knitting, dressmaking and needlecraft guides (which took up a whole box). I'm thinking there is a good chance I'm never going to actually make a project from these books, so they really shouldn't be taking up valuable space. But I have a positive reaction to them. They spark joy, which means I get to keep them right? (According to the KonMari method anyway.)

First up, I want to mention that this week's Vintage Bliss Tuesdays linky party will be live for two weeks. Why? Quite frankly, I am having trouble getting ALL THE THINGS done with a couple of oft-bored kids in the house. Who decided against summer camp again? Oh yeah, that was me.

I headed into summer with visions of a sea of free days to spend as we wish - at the beach, sipping Italian sodas at the coffee shop, making vegan ice cream and reading books. And, yes, there have been such days, but I forgot to plan for the days when I have two freelance articles due, a bunch of blog posts to produce and those aforementioned bored kids to contend with.

Gulp. It's August, which means I'm in the fourth month of my 4-month purge. I expected that July and August would be productive months, seeing as my husband is home to help. But that wasn't the case in July. I got much less accomplished than I had planned. You see, you can't really just leave two kids sitting around "bored" while you tidy the house for hours on end. Probably should have booked some more camp weeks. Anyway, I'm hoping a few productive days in August will make up for my slow progress in July.

I did manage to tackle this antique armoire in my bedroom recently. The middle shelf is my stuff - shirts, exercise clothing and leggings. In about an hour's time, I got rid of about 3/4 of the stuff you see here on the shelf, plus a bunch of clothing from the shelves in my closet too. If you follow the advice in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, then you just keep the items that spark joy. I have to say there are very few items in my wardrobe that still spark joy. I swear some of this stuff is 20 years old.

I am still focusing on purging, rather than buying. As I go through all my stuff bit by bit, I come across some gems that simply must stay in my possession. Like these little goodies from my childhood that I found among the items stuffed into my old jewelry box. Whether valuable or not, I have developed a fondness for these pieces. I remember I was for a time completely enamoured of this sweet cat charm, which I believe has a jade belly. I also loved my Christmas tree pin. (I need to remember to get it out next Christmas!) And the gold cross was a gift from my mother - apparently it was given to her by a suitor long ago.

As I am in the third month of my 4-month purge, the thrift store is probably not the best place for me. But I couldn't resist popping into the Salvation Army this past weekend while visiting my parents. Mom came with me and we both admired this 3-tier silver serving tray. Mom said she has one and has enjoyed using it. It is one of the few vintage serving pieces she hasn't yet passed along to me in fact. (I also picked up five of these little Ikea lidded jars. Because I just know they'll come in handy for something. Are you with me?)

If you follow me on Instagram, you'll know that I suffered a bit of a setback recently in my 4-month purge. I was working on my books category, already a challenge because my husband and I have hundreds of books between us. (I'm doing the kids' books separately later.)

My husband mentioned casually that there were "a couple" of boxes of books under the work table in the storage room. I dug them out and found that there were actually six more boxes full of books! Prior to that moment I thought I had the books well in hand, but this presented a challenge. After a brief moment of despair, I decided that this should prove to be motivation to purge even more freely.

But I digress. I plan to post a separate post about my book organization later. Really I just wanted to show you a few of the vintage books I uncovered in those six boxes.

Recently I told you that I launched a 4-month purge of all things excess in my home - and there are a lot of those things. If emotions hinder you when you attempt to declutter you are certainly not alone. I think most people have some difficulty letting go of at least one category of things - maybe it's books (hello!) or clothing or just about everything (me again!).

I am not the type of person who can just toss things without a thought - I know those people exist because my brother-in-law is one of them. My sister-in-law has to be careful what she leaves lying around because, if the urge strikes him, out it will go. It's probably good to have one person like that in the house...or maybe sort of like that. We don't have anybody like that in my house.

I'm sorry, I'm late with Vintage Bliss Tuesdays today. I didn't get around to setting up the post last night and I was busy this morning. You see, my sister-in-law and I had to buy tickets for our daughters' dance recital. You would have thought we were buying Pearl Jam tickets or something. We had to go right online when the sale started and we still ended up with seats several rows back! Worth the effort though for sure! The dance recital is a highlight of the year for us.

Anyway, I have been hard at work this month with my 4-month purge. I am quite proud of myself because I have never been so successful at discarding/donating items in the past. I am constantly looking for excess items now. You can read the first post in my 4-month purge series to find out more. I'll have an update fairly soon too. In the meantime, I thought it would be appropriate to share a look at this little plate I have in my collection of vintage dishes. I believe this one came from my Nana.

The sun is shining, the windows are finally cracked open and my winter malaise is lifting. I'm pretty sure that means it's spring cleaning and organizing time! And I gotta say I love it. Well, sort of. I'd rather be Samantha and twinkle my nose to get it all done. But, that not being an option, I love the satisfaction of finishing up with refreshed, clean spaces...and less stuff.

I've been looking for some inspiration to kick my spring tidy into gear. Aliya from Penguin Random House (who just did an office purge in preparation for a move herself) was kind enough to send me a copy of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing.