When I was little my mom would make us clean our rooms. It was a bitter wind that blew on room cleaning days because… how dare she? She taught us life skills and we wept bitterly.
Now I have kids of my own and I’ve taken room cleaning to a whole new level. It’s a level born of necessity. It’s a level born of not doing a thorough cleaning or decluttering in the nine years we’ve lived in this house. It’s a level that combines the Grinch with Dr. Robin Zasio from Hoarders. On their walls I left nothing but hooks and some wire.
I recently read an AWESOME book about decluttering, nay THE awesome book about decluttering, I’ve read a few and this one is true. What I like so much about her approach is that it’s less about getting rid of stuff and more about choosing to keep the things that bring you joy and only the things that bring you joy. You can have something and it can be nice or useful but if it doesn’t spark joy, you don’t need it. She also talks about how to let go of things with gratitude once they’ve fulfilled their purpose in your life. It’s very Zen.
Thank you for being such a fun pair of socks and fulfilling your purpose by being on sale for a dollar. I had so much fun purchasing you and wearing you once. Goodbye.
Thank you for being a fun scarf that I received as a gift. I felt very loved and surprised when I received you. That feeling of love and surprise were your reason for existing. But that doesn’t mean I have to like you or feel guilty for not wearing you every time I walk past you in my closet. Farewell.
So, I’ve been decluttering for weeks, prepping for spring break when the real fun would start. And it started today. All of these steps are to be accomplished with the kids’ assistance.
Step one. Wash all the laundry in the entire world so we’d know what clothes we had.
Step two. Remove everything from my children’s rooms but their furniture and their clothes, which we heaped up on their beds. Books are lined up along the walls in the hall to be sorted later. Everything else is staged in various rooms throughout the house by category.
Step three. Deep clean every crevice and baseboard and vacuum under the furniture.
Step four. While moving furniture to clean, agree that the kids can put their furniture anywhere they want it, even if, especially if, that furniture placement is completely an ordinance of crazy town.
Step five. Sort their clothes one piece at a time, donating anything that doesn’t fit, doesn’t look good, or doesn’t make us feel happy.
This is where we stopped tonight after working pretty much solid from 9am to 9pm.
Steps six through a billion. Repeat the sorting process with one category per day throughout spring break, taking time each afternoon to do something fabulous as a reward. By fabulous I mean getting a free ice cream cone at Ben and Jerry’s on the 14th because it’s free ice cream day or buying new bedroom curtains at IKEA on Friday if we’ve gotten all of our cleaning done.
The trick here is that they love their newly cleaned and stripped rooms so much that I’m hoping they will be loath to add too much junk back into them and I think it’s working. A few choice quotes from today:
Wanda – “Hey mom. It’s weird. I actually like cleaning.”
Laylee – When asked to choose one thing she’s thankful for to add to our family prayer, she said, “I’m thankful for cleaning.”
Yes. That happened. I did not faint or cry. I didn’t even twirl my mustache or cackle with glee. I just added it to the ever-living prayer. We are thankful for cleaning. Yep. Because that’s a thing that average 12-year-olds say all the time.
Magoo – I want to add as few things back to my room as possible because it’s awesome right now.
To my credit, I was DJ-ing some wicked sick tunes while we cleaned and I let the level of silliness climb about 86.3% higher than I’m generally comfortable with. I also helped them move their furniture into (and I cannot emphasize this enough) possibly the weirdest and most-likely-to-make-Feng-Shui-certified-home-decorators-bludgeon-themselves-with-their-own-energy-cures configurations possible. Because I am the nicest and most chill mom ever and because I had the nicest and most chill mom ever who let me do wickedly stupid things with my furniture when I was a kid and because Laylee said moving things around would make it feel like a whole new room and I could not argue with that.
Twelve hours and one category in and we’ve gathered 2 big black garbage bags of trash and 3 big black garbage bags of donations. And Laylee is thankful for cleaning. So basically the apocalypse is nigh. Stock up on wheat and ammunition.
Of course they like cleaning when they do it with you. You make everything more awesome. 🙂
Kisses!
Love It! I hope you took some before pics! I’m so excited to hear/see the outcome. Nice going mom and kids, you rock!!
I was just telling Laylee I wished we’d taken before pictures. I will post pictures of what we got rid of in the garage. It is impressive.
I read that book! I love the way she talks to her things, although it is a little odd, and thanks them for doing what they do for her and doesn’t feel bad if they aren’t fulfilling their purpose anymore and then gets rid of them!
I hope that your kids continue to enjoy cleaning and keeping their rooms up.
It is odd! But I’ve totally caught myself doing it and it really makes me more grateful and mindful.
You made me laugh out loud at work AND want to read that book AND want to declutter my own apartment. I might need your playlist.
And I am TOTALLY IMPRESSED that you got all that done in one day, with GRATITUDE at the end of it. Seriously, bucket of awesome.
Thanks, Margaret! Day two was awesome as well. The house is looking uber crazy right now but it feels like we’re headed in the right direction. And my kids? Amazing.
I don’t know if this would work with my kids. We de-clutter a minimum of twice a year and it takes less than a month for my kids closets and under their beds to look like they are foaming at the mouth. But I am excited that you got those words out of your kids’ mouths. And that they want it to stick.
I love a good purge! We were fortunate enough to do it twice in this house because we had to get EVERYTHING out of the basement for our remodel. We got rid of a ton of stuff then, and when it was time to put everything back, we got rid of more when we found we didn’t miss it while it was boxed up.
I’d love to do another purge, because a year and a half later-it seems like we have as much stuff as we did before the remodel.
Read the book. Enjoyed it.
Here’s my problem: The things that Spark Joy for my kids? I swear, it’s EVERTHING. They do not have discriminating tastes. That said, we did one of the rooms this weekend and my oldest was game. We got rid of a fair amount of stuff. I do have (and I know this is against the rules) a holding box: Things she can’t bear to rid herself of, but I think are cluttering her room and she doesn’t insist on keeping them in plain sight. So. Oh well.
Still, I feel good. It’s a compromise.
Next goal after the kids’ rooms? Getting Ben to read the book. He said he would. We’ll see. 🙂
I want to come clean at your house! What a great idea to let the kids rearrange their furniture how they want. I’m gonna have to try that. Thanks for the laughs and the motivation this morning!
How did all of this turn out? I have put the book on hold at the library…. this post inspired the spark that had gone out, it seems to be lit rather well now. My kids are happy…. and not. haha I have a 17 year old who will be a senior next year (blink and you will too) She and I did her room, it was NOT EASY…. she felt like Wendy in Peter Pan, so many emotions about growing up and leaving someday and getting rid of things just because. She hold sentimental value to almost every object she comes in contact with. sheesh. Lots of tears, good and sad. Thank you for helping us get going again!
I just adore your blog!
Thanks, Aubrey! I think I may have unfriended you on Facebook. Do you have a profile that looks like a bot? I was torn.
The project went/ is going well. Their rooms are done but I’m only about half done the rest of the house so things keep creeping in. Slow and steady and all that. I feel really good about it.
And yes, I have one who won’t let go of anything and the rest of us have a hard time too. It’s so painful but so worth it!
I left facebook but we were friends on it. 🙂
My most memorable profile pic was a zombie chia pet head I painted. I had to many friends request that one come down. 😉 A dear friend of mine in our ward used to know you in another life time, Jessica Vance. When I told her I have followed your blog from nearly the beginning she loved me all the more!
If you ever make it to pageant, we live in Palmyra. I would feed your family dinner in a heart beat! 😀
Aubrey
P.S. Fight the good fight, clutter never gives up!