I picked up a book at the library, entitled “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” by Marie Kondo. She’s an organizational expert with seminars worldwide and waiting lists months long. I’m not exactly sure why I picked it up. Maybe because I’ve gotten tired of cleaning and tidying up after my family everyday that it appealed to me to have less. To have more *time* by having less.

Anyway, I started reading and everything made sense. Well, not everything. She imbibes a lot more feeling and anthropomorphizes items  a lot more than makes sense to me. But her logic in terms of what to keep and what to discard seems sound. She suggests starting with the easiest category – clothes. Which may be easiest for most, but for a fashion blogger, I’ve actually found it quite hard.

Never the less, I have persevered following her rules and instructions. So I started with clothes as she suggested. It was very difficult for me, and I added work by doing my daughter’s clothes as well. But after just doing my dresser, and her dresser, I had three garbage bags full. One for selling, one for donating, and one for garbage. So I’m quite excited to tackle the closets next. Nervous, but excited. I’ll try to chronicle my experiences here. My first forays into a certain form of minimalism where the main question and criterion for keeping something is, “Does it spark joy when you touch it?”

It was very difficult to let certain things go. A lot of guilt about the money spent, and the idea that I should keep it and appreciate it. I have a lot of guilt surrounding money wasted and a fear of going without. It was very hard to get past that and focus on the ‘joy’ the items brought me. And for my daughter, I kept only the things that I see her reach for when she gets dressed. For the things that she jumps around in and smiles her big smiles in. I figured that’s ‘joy.’

Here’s the ‘after’ of my two dresser drawers.

And my belt holders. These were crazy full and overflowing, now there’s one neat box of just my favorites. More to come!