My Tidying Project has been done for a couple months.  However, it spawned exciting new things that have kept me happily busy.  Here's the low-down.

Five bins of sentimental items, including 20 years worth of journals,  now fit into the three small boxes pictured above. How?  I shredded 20 years' worth of journals which felt incredibly freeing. The three remaining boxes contain -

• hand made items - including the First Communion dress my grandmother made me, and a few things I made for my own son 
• some paper items, including the deeds to the farm I grew up on (middle box).  
• select photo negatives (top box)

Some sentimental items I sent to other family members around Christmas time because I thought they would mean more to them.  I came across letters from friends which  I copied and sent out as well.  These were very heartwarming projects that inspired me to send out a holiday letter, the first in over ten years.   Letting go of what does not matter helps you focus on what does matter.

Photos were the last subcategory of sentimental items to tidy.  I started with 1 and 1/2 large, daunting totes.  I went through the photos one by one, keeping those that brought me joy.  I already had a couple of albums which I went through again, removing and replacing some photos. 

Then I bought and completed new scrapbooks.  One holds my family and childhood photos, another holds pictures and projects from my son's childhood, and finally one  holds photos from my wedding in 2014.  I am better about not putting projects off as a result of this tidying process.

My artsy photos of nature/architecture bring me joy and help me feel peaceful, so I put them into their own albums. This is what launched me in a new direction but before I tell you about that, let me tidy up this tidying project,

It is a huge relief to be done with this project.  Was it worth it?  Definitely.  There have been some big changes, both obvious and less tangible.

The top visible changes include:

• clear countertops and organized cabinets in the kitchen
• empty shelves and bins in the basement you once could not walk through.  This is huge. 
• the master suite had a total makeover that included creating a built-in dresser, reupholstering furniture and painting everything a lovely calming blue.

The top intangible changes include

• learning that mess = stress for me was helpful.  Main event my job is stressful I need home to be a tidy oasis.  
• emotional housecleaning has left me calmer and made everyone happier.  Mama is happy.
• clarity about what brings me joy has led me in new directions.

Tidying my artsy photos made me remember my desire to learn more about photography.  So I signed up for a photography class at the local community college.  I bought a new (to me) camera and am so excited about finding a new way to express my creativity.  It has been so much fun!  

Tidying up was a lot of work but. has been deeply rewarding.  If you are thinking of doing the same here is what helped me.

• Break bigger tasks down and do one thing are a time. As long as you are doing the thing in front of you, you are advancing towards your goal. Don’t let it overwhelm you. 
• Sometimes tidying creates temporary mess as you move things out of your home. Don't be discouraged.  It's part of the process.
• Persist.  Give yourself time to do the side projects tidying inspires but don't let them sidetrack you completely.
• Take time to admire your work and enjoy its effects.
• Reap the rewards, both expected and unexpected. 

Category 5 in Marie Kondo's method is "Sentimental Items," which means I'm in the home stretch in my Tidying Project.    What's more sentimental than the beloved Teddy Bear of your childhood?  My grandparents gave me this bear when I wasn't much bigger than it is.  I used to drag it around by its left ear, which meant he needed surgery several times.  Eventually my mom made me sew it back on.  

For years he's been in a tote in one basement or other so I had every intention of letting him go. But when I took him out of the tote that became less clear.  Then I hugged him and boy did that spark joy.  It felt incredibly comforting.  He's just the right size for a good hug.  Mmm.

I'm learning more clearly from Marie Kondo's second book that this tidying method is not about getting rid of things.  It's about keeping just the items that bring you joy, curating those items category by category.  I decided to curate Mr. Bear.    

Yesterday I spent about an hour working on cleaning him up.  Research suggested putting the stuffed toy in a garbage bag with a half a cup of baking soda and give it a good shake. Let it rest for 15 minutes and then gentle rub off the baking soda with a damp rag.  That didn't do much on his ancient dirt.

Next I used a teaspoon of wool wash laundry soap in about a quart of water.  I used this to dampen a white rag and spent quite a while going over him, bit by bit, in circular motions.  I dried him with white rags which quickly became not white.

He definitely looked cleaner but was still a bit matted. So I did something my mom used to clean some "dry clean only" curtains. She'd put the curtains in the dryer along with some wet towels, and set it to air dry for half an hour. The towels would come out filthy and the curtains would be refreshed.  So I tried that with Mr. Bear.  First I did air dry but he was still a bit damp so I used the delicate setting.

Mr. Bear looks quite a bit cleaner and he fluffed up and filled out.  The makeup I put on his nose (beautification project from long ago) will probably never come off and there's a bad patch on his tummy that I'll work at some more.  He needs a new left eye which I'll look for at a crafts store. I'll post an update when he's all the way done.

He's a bit threadbare but that just makes him more real, right Velveteen Rabbit fans?  He was my companion for so long.  He's not going back into the basement.  For now he's resting in my closet.  I may get a display case for him so he doesn't get too dusty.  The display case will have a door so I can hug him whenever I need that comfort and joy.

Last year I was on the road to burnout after three years of hospice chaplaincy.  Something had to change. Fortunately, I knew where to begin - more retreat time and a new spiritual director. During my years as a parish minister and then as a hospital chaplain I always had a spiritual director as part of my own support network. It helped me focus on my own spiritual life, which can get lost in tending those of others.

When my husband and I bought our house it was far away from my former spiritual director and I had not found a new one.  My spiritual life was languishing. So in the summer of 2018 I booked a retreat at a center very near my home and that retreat included an hour with a spiritual director.  I hoped she would become my new director and she did. She has helped me remember to renew myself spiritually.

This year my work with her has dovetailed with my Tidying Project in ways that have led to a great deal of internal growth.  For example, she's always suggesting books for me to read, and I had discovered one way to renew myself is to listen to audiobooks as I'm driving around between visits.  The news is too depressing. This past spring she suggested Dodging Energy Vampires: An Empath's Guide to Evading Relationships that Drain You and Restoring Your Health by Christiane Northrup. 

Previously I had dismissed her as too New Age-y.  However, I trust my spiritual director so found the audiobook and listened to it. Twice.   A lot of what Northrup made sense to me so I started doing some of the meditations in her book.  One of these, a Garden Meditation, helps you deal with early trauma when it is triggered.  

You know something has been triggered when your reaction is out of proportion to whatever has happened. The practice is to ask yourself to think of a number whenever this triggering happens. This often turns out to be the age you were when whatever was triggered happened.  This is where the garden meditation part starts.

You imagine a garden that is totally safe and staffed by angels who help keep it that way.  You imagine going into the garden where you find the child you were at that age.  You imagine interacting with the child, inviting them to come to you if they will.  You assure them they are safe and that you will return every day for 40 days to be with them.  And then you take three deep breaths and bring yourself out of your imagination into the present world.

Remember when I said that going through papers brought up a time when my past was triggered? I asked for a number related to that traumatic event and "fifteen" came up.  There were a few traumatic events that happened to me at that age that related to what was triggered for me at that time.  So I did the garden meditation for forty days, showing up for my fifteen year old self in an imaginary place that could hold her fear, anger, sadness, and pain.  

For the first couple of weeks she was sleeping every time I entered the garden - worn out from the stress of that time and also the relief of finally being in a safe place.  Later she expressed strong emotions - raging, weeping, trembling with fear. Over time she/I felt better.  

By the end of the forty days "we" had a moment of integration where I (in my imagination) embraced her and she entered and became a part of me.  In other words, I accepted that these things had happened to me in the past and released myself of their power over me in the present.  I became more whole. It was a very powerful experience.  I'm not triggered around those issues as often or as strongly.  This  means less stress for me and those close to me.  

As part of a larger effort at spiritual growth and sustainability in my work, Tidying Up has been about much more than just creating a more orderly house.  It has been about laying painful memories to rest in ways that keep them from intruding on my present life.  It has helped me to sustain myself for me work and for those I love.

Was the yard sale a bust? Well, we didn't sell a single thing. Not. A single. Thing.  It was discouraging.  At noon we put the furniture on the curb, loaded everything else up, and donated it.  We'll be able to take a tax write-off so it wasn't a total failure financially.

Even so, it feels like a success for at least three reasons.
1. All the stuff we didn't want or need will go to people who want and/or need it.
2. Proceeds from the sale of our donated items will go to charity.
3. It's gone!  I feel lighter. The house feels lighter and it is definitely tidier. Those are three reasons right there.

The biggest gift of this Tidying Project for me is the feeling of freedom.  Our house is so much less cluttered, so much more orderly.  Less mess for me means less stress.  The things we have are the things that bring us joy and that we want to have.  

Plus lots of unfinished projects are off the list either because I accepted I wouldn't finish them and let them go, or because I did complete them.  All that remains of my tidying project is going through sentimental items, then spending some time  reflecting on what Tidying Up has changed in me.  

As a child I was always scared of the basement. It was dark and musty and there were mice down there.  We went down there only during bad storms or to store or retrieve canned and frozen goods.  Quickly.  Darting in and out. That's it.  

Until recently I found my current basement scary mostly because of all the stuff I put down there intending to sell at a yard sale.  I procrastinated and didn't have the yard sale.   Part of the dread was the dread of facing an unfinished project.  Besides it is a little musty and there are mice down there.  

​Again, I am determined to tidy the whole house, a project I started in January of this year.  So I girded my loins and...  actually, I didn't.  Girding lions sounds like it would hurt.  Let's say I put on some grubby clothes, took a deep breath and went down into the Dreaded Basement.  Here's what I saw.

I have tidied it in the past but last year our foundation was leaking badly.  My husband pulled all the shelves away from the walls so a contractor could look at them.  This messed up the organization I had tried to impose but to be honest, a lot of the mess came from having too much stuff down there.  

The mess was overwhelming.  One thing I've learned to do when overwhelmed is to find a place to start.  Because I wanted to clean the basement as well as tidy it, the shelves had to come even further from the walls. That way I could clean behind and under them before putting them back.  This meant I needed space in the middle of the floor. This meant getting rid of unwanted stuff.

So I started carrying sellable things up stairs into my recently tidied dining room, as incentive to have the danged yard sale this year.  Before the holidays.  So we can fit people in our dining room. Unsellable things I threw out.  Now having space in the middle of the floor I pulled out all the shelves on one side and cleaned behind them. I cleaned the shelves and was selective about what I put back on them.  One side done.

The other side had no shelves, just a cluttered mess.  I have found that it helps to have designated places for things to land.  Everyone is more likely to put them back there if it's clear where they should go.  So I drug a pallet from the garden down into the basement to hold bags of pellets for our stove.

Then I used scrap wood to make another pallet to hold all the outdoor recreational items like beach chairs, sleds, boogie boards, golf clubs, fishing rods and tackle.  I swept the floor and looked around.  It hardly looks like the same place.  My husband later went down and sorted through some of his things, adding more to the yard sale stuff in the dining room and freeing up room on the shelves. 

​If I had sold all those extraneous items last year, the past twelve months would have been less stressful.  The Dreaded Basement would not have been so dreadful. This weekend we will have a yard sale for all that stuff. All that does not sell will be donated to charity so our basement can remain tidy, no longer a source of stress.

The deep lesson that comes from the basement is about the stress procrastination brings. Setting things aside to deal with Another Day means those things are there causing guilt and stress.  It's better to deal with them in the moment.  This is another lesson of Marie Kondo's.  Deal with it now.  Don't put it off.  Dealing with things as they come up leads to a less stressful, more joyful life.

One week after I finished tidying the kitchen I started on the dining room which is a bit of a catch-all. There you will find  our dining table and built in china closet, yes, but also most of our  games along with my knitting and crafting supplies.

Let's start with games.  It's a Christmas tradition to add a new game every year so we have quite a few.  Board games used to take up a lot of space in our home until we bought this cute little gaming table at a flea market.  Could all our games fit in there?  Only if I got rid of the space-consuming boxes.  So I recycled them. The boards and card games just fit in the upper, shallow drawer.  All the game pieces are in labelled plastic bags in the larger, oddly-shaped drawer.  Smart, huh?

Nothing to do there except admire my genius, so it was on to the craft supplies.  Years ago I splurged on a lovely cedar chest found on Craigslist to hold them. My sewing machine fits snugly in the main part of the chest, along with my entire yarn stash.  How is it possible for a yarn enthusiast to have so little yarn?  

I'm a realist. My sister who's ten years older than I am can no longer knit because of arthritis, which is starting to bend my fingers, too.  Knowing I have limited knitting years I went through and let go of all but the most joy-inspiring yarns. These I organized by yarn weight (thickness).

At the same time I went through years of knitting magazines and pulled out only the patterns I am likely to knit. These I put into a three-ring binder. Tidying up has pushed me in many ways.  Tidying my knitting supplies pushed me to face the facts of aging and hone my supplies down to what I can realistically accomplish in a joyful fashion.  

The cedar chest has a shallow drawer that has held all the other craft stuff in various states of disarray.  Some of the disorder came from Too Many Things, including what we knitters  call UFOs - UnFinished Objects.  

Again, tidying craft projects requires honesty with one's self.  I looked at embroidery projects, half-done and never started, and realized I don't like embroidering.  Just as I did with books I would never start or finish, I thanked those projects and will send them on to someone else, along with the straight knitting needles I no longer use

The greatest disarray in that drawer comes from the knitting needles. Be they circular, straight, or double pointed no method of organizing them has worked for me.  I gave up on the circular needles and just threw them all in a basket. 

 How to organize them?  By size.  I laid them all out by size to see where I had duplicates.  It turned out I had three size 13 circular needles of the same length. Two are on their way to someone else.  I decided to keep extra double pointed needles because they are easy to lose.  It's good to have backups.  How to hold them together, though?

Thinking of rubber bands and realizing we had none led me to think of the roll of twist tie wire I bought years ago to tidy Christmas lights and garlands.  It has a cutter on it so you can cut the length you need.  It looks like this. Longer lengths tied  around coils of Christmas lights and garlands keep them from becoming tangled.

Shorter lengths worked well to hold the double pointed needles together.  I crafted a container out of a paper-towel roll, cut to size with a pinking sheers and then stapled the ends shut.  This keeps them together but leaves them tidy.

Could it work on circular needles? It held same-sized needles together but they were still springy and unruly.  I was trying different ways to corral them together when I saw a roll of ribbon on my discard pile. Could that spool hold them?  I unwound the ribbon and indeed, the spool works well.  The drawer is now admirably tidy.  Yay!

Whew.  My cedar chest sorted out, I turned to the little sewing cabinet inherited from my mom.  It was also a mess, but I have small plastic organizers that hold thimbles, buttons, hooks and eyes, and other tiny things.    After some careful weeding of redundant and unneeded tchotchkes, the sewing cabinet looks great. Who needs five spools of black thread and a darning egg with no handle?  

The final challenge in the dining room was the wonderful built in china closet.  In the months when I didn't seem to be tidying I had actually tidied the drawer that holds batteries and electric cords (twist ties came to the rescue yet again) as well as the light bulb drawer. The other eight drawers were awful.  

Using Marie Kondo's methods I was able to reduce three drawers of linens to one, two drawers of gift wrapping to one, and two drawers of candles to one. This freed up three drawers to hold plates, cups and saucers and a fourth drawer that now holds my difficult-to-tidy cleaning rags. Putting plates in drawers freed up space in the china closet but I realized after tidying it that I had not winnowed items  that do not spark joy.  I have so now and it is even more tidy.

That's it.  The dining room is tidied thanks to honesty with myself about what I can accomplish, thanks to Marie Kondo's methods, and thanks to my own perseverance.  Of course at the moment the dining room is full of stuff from the basement that is going to be sold in a yard sale.  But that's a story for my next blog post.

It all started in yoga class.  I was lying there during the quiet time at the end feeling great and considering how to improve my life. My thoughts turned instantly to the spice cabinet.  

A favorite feature of my new kitchen, the pull-out spice had become a source of stress because the spice bottles were all on the middle shelf.  I'm not sure why I put them there.  It makes no sense now.  It was difficult to retrieve the right spices in the heat of cooking.  Picture bending over and trying to read the labels on the tops of the bottles while your onions are starting to burn.  This is the stress of the privileged, true.  But it's not the stress of too many yachts.

There in my relaxed post-yoga state I had a vision of spice bottles on the top shelf.  The vision had an aura.  And a song.  Back home I emptied out the cabinet, moved the middle shelf to accommodate taller items and put everything back.  My life did improve.  It's easy to find the right spices now. 

Inspired by that success I tackled another problem area in the kitchen - the corner cabinet with those wheelie things.  I won't call them Lazy Susans because that's kind of offensive. Maybe Susan was inventive, not lazy.  The corner cabinet used to hold dry and canned goods but again it was hard to find things in the midst of cooking. I decided to switch that cabinet with the one with pull out drawers that held pans and cooking tools.  

It was so satisfying, doing this.  That's the first thing to say.  It was work, but so satisfying. For me mess=stress so creating order out of these chaotic spaces is highly rewarding.  It is now so easy to see what canned and dry goods I have in stock and to access them. BTW, you'll see some Marie Kondo touches in using boxes to hold smaller items together.

Amazingly, that little corner cabinet with its Inventive Susans held all pans and cooking tools from the pull out cabinet plus things I had stored in the pantry cabinets.  This means happy happy pantries where water bottles no longer bounce out  when you open the door. Now there was room to put my seldom-used mixer in the pantry, which freed up counter space.  Less clutter, less mess, less stress.  Happy happy joy joy.  Yay, me.

So now I was off to the races.  Between Saturday and Sunday I went through every cabinet and drawer in the kitchen, cleaning all of them and reorganizing most.  It's amazing how gunky drawers can become over time.  True? Where does that stuff come from?

Facing the messy freezer drawer I was overcome with exhaustion and had to lie down for a little while. But now it's clean plus neatly organized into meats, veggies, and fruits. 

Before working on the Baking Cabinet of Doom I had to have another little lie-down. Gluten free baking requires many different types of flour which leads to crowded and messy baking cabinets.  I eliminated of it and stored smaller items like molasses in containers.  Now it looks wonderful.  It all looks wonderful. I just want to open all the cabinet doors and drawers and breathe in the tidiness.  I even cleaned the fridge.

It all started yoga class. Thinking about how to improve my life led me to re-order my lovely kitchen so it works even better.  It was a creative and satisfying process that has me determined to finish this Tidying Project.  One room down, a couple more to go then the Dreaded Basement. But guess what?  All my tidying this weekend inspired my son to start tidying his room.  Amazing.

You may have noticed the gap in this blog and thought this project had stalled out.  In fact, the tidying earlier in the year sparked many changes, some concrete and some abstract. Discovering what brought me joy in the realms of clothing and books led me to think about what sparks joy in my surroundings. This led to several projects.

Let me back up.  When we married five years my husband and I bought a house, my first.  It was what we could afford and it was shabby and in need of painting.  We settled on a pale blue, a compromise with my less-color-adventurous husband and stepson but I didn't really like the color.  It felt cold.

The kitchen and downstairs bathroom were poorly laid out as well as unattractive.   In 2018 I used some of my inheritance and to renovate those two rooms.  The contractor stripped everything to the studs, taking down an unused chimney that took up lots of floor space. My kitchen is beautiful and functional, a joyful place for someone who loves to cook.  I am thankful for it every day.  The bathroom is elegant and warm.

Now the living and dining rooms literally paled in comparison. After many rejected paint samples, the Ace Hardware paint lady helped me find the perfect color (Dorset Gold by Benjamin Moore).  With the kitchen I had learned to paint the ceiling first, then the trim and finally the walls and decided these others rooms deserved the full treatment.  It took a while.  I found a chandelier and dining set on Craigslist and treated myself to a lovely area rug for my birthday.  To my eyes the whole downstairs is now warm, welcoming, and beautiful.

I had also painted the master bedroom a disappointing color a few years back but was living with it until I started Tiding Up.  Going through my clothes I realized how much it was not working for me plus I hated the day bed and needed new, more attractive storage for my husband's clothes.  

On Craigslist I found a dresser we could turn into a "built in" for the nook in the corner.  I sanded and painted it then added some blingy knobs. My husband helped me frame it in so it looks like it's always been there. Voila!  Storage that sparks joy.  After he tidied his clothes they all (winter and summer) fit into the built in.  This whole project took several weeks.  I had already bought a new loveseat and re-upholstered our ratty ottoman. 

Those projects completed, I started painting. I hated the highly textured ceiling but couldn't change it.  It was awful to paint.  Then came miles of trim.  It turns out I hate painting trim.  Finally I painted the walls a lovely grayish blue that goes with everything in the room.  I took all of our newly tidied clothes out of the closet and painted it. That was a pain because both ceiling and walls had that same texture.  I painted our en suite bathroom as well.  

Now it looks harmonious, calm, warm and cozy.  I wake up to beauty every morning.  It sparks joy.  I had not expected Tidying Up to lead to yet more painting this soon. Reconnecting with what brings me joy pushed me to change my surroundings so that every room in my house now sparks joy.  

That may seem like a small thing but my work as a hospice chaplain is very stressful.  Anything I can do to make my home more serene helps reduce the stress.  Mess is stress for me so tidying up has helped. Calm surroundings help.  Beauty feeds my spirit which needs feeding at the end of the day.   Order and beauty are part of the daily bread of my soul requires.   This Tidying Project has spawned many other projects but the end result is less stress and more serenity. 

Last week I found a loveseat to replace an uncomfortable, ugly, and cumbersome daybed.  Last weekend I reupholstered a solid but damaged and unappealing storage ottoman, then added new legs that coordinate with the loveseat.  Joy!  Bonuses - learning to reupholster and saving the ottoman from a landfill.  

Pictured here are over eighty journals representing 21 years of my life. I am going through them as continue to tidy paper, saving important pages and burning the rest. So far I have gone through the first, which is from the year my ex and I were working up to and going through a divorce.  

It all started as a gratitude journal as recommended in Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach.  Mom had given it to me. Each day during that tough year I wrote at least five things for which I was grateful. Some days they were basics like a roof over my head, clothes on my back, food on the table, my son's health, and my own.  

Other days I wrote more than five.  My son was a preschooler at the time so many of my "gratitudes" were about him.  It's delightful to read them.   There is so much that is precious that I had forgotten.  That gratitude journal is part of what helped me through that year. Thanks, Mom.

Joy and woe were the theme of the Easter Service that year.  At that service we sang a hymn with words by the poet and printmaker William Blake.  Those words hit me so hard I remember crying as we sang these truths...

Joy and woe are woven fine,
clothing for the soul divine;
under every grief and pine
runs a joy with silken twine.

It is right it should be so:
We are made for joy and woe;
and when this we rightly know,
safely through the world we go.
- William Blake

Joy and woe are indeed woven fine in my journals and in my life.  I look forward to finding more joy as I read on.