Last fall, I couldn't look anywhere without seeing a reference to Marie Kondo's book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I finished the book on New Year's Eve and began plotting my own 6-month tidying escapade. You see, after nearly 10 years in this house, we have accumulated so much STUFF. We have far more space than we need to live, and the truth is that much of the extra space is storage for our STUFF. I really like this system, because it is rooted in JOY. The antidote to STUFF is JOY. I can dig.

So, the first phase is all about the closet. Kondo makes a great argument for starting here, and a friend who started instead with her kids' toys (and then succumbed to the emotional attachment of said toys and got nowhere) has confirmed that the closet is a great place to start.

Kondo says to grab all the tops from all the hiding places around your house, put them in one place, and go through them one by one. The key is to only keep the items that bring you JOY. For items that don't bring JOY but still present an emotional challenge, you thank the items for serving their purpose, and send them to the donation bin. I did that twice! Ultimately, I let go of three garbage bags' worth of clothes (two of them only had tops, and the third had random clothing items that I knew I was ready to part with), and I believe it only took me an hour. Already my closet feels lighter, clearer.

There are 11 tops that I made that do not bring me JOY. I will photograph them before I bring them to the donation center. But I am already dreading the day I go through my dresses. I have made so many of them, and will have to work hard to distinguish between the dresses that bring me PRIDE in having made them, and JOY in wearing them.

Although I didn't anticipate making as much headway in January and February, just because I'm working and traveling so much, I see that March will be a huge month for me in making space for JOY.