Moana and Selling Our Home

We absolutely love the Disney movie Moana! The music, the story, the characters....it's becoming one of our favorite movies very quickly.

The thing that surprises me most about it is how it's helping my kids get ready for house showings.

Say whaaat?

Enter Tamatoa!

If you've seen Moana, you'll know that Tamatoa loves anything shiny, and he also sings a song by the same name. It's slightly addicting and gets stuck in your head really easily, which believe it or not, has been helpful.

When we started the process of getting our house ready to sell, our realtor told the kids to get our house as clean as a bright copper penny. The kids decided that wasn't good enough, so it evolved into a quarter or even a one dollar coin.

But then when I was waxing floors to get them nice and shiny, I got Tamatoa's song stuck in my head...and it spread to the kids. And our thing now is that we have to get our house Tamatoa Shiny. They run around singing the song, picking up and cleaning quickly and efficiently....something that never ever happens.

So thank you Disney for creating a character that makes my life so much easier!!!!

Do you have any tips or tricks for helping you or kids clean up quickly? I'd love to hear them!

House Hunting Update

Many of you have been asking how the house hunt is going, so I figured I'd give a little update:

It's at a standstill.

There isn't much on the market right now in the area we're looking, so we're waiting and attempting patience as we hope and pray that the housing market picks up soon.

In the meantime, it gives us time to work on our ever growing to do list. I swear, every time I cross something off of our list, three more things get added.

We can see the progress, though!

Walls are getting patched and paint touch ups...

...our new front door was installed...

...new counter tops are being planned and hopefully supplies are being purchased soon...

...bathrooms are getting repainted (even though they weren't supposed to *sigh*)...

...closets are getting cleaned out...

...and the house is getting a much needed deep cleaning.

I was really bummed out yesterday. The weather was GORGEOUS and I was going to work on painting the front porch and having the kiddos paint the fence. However, my body thought it would be a GREAT day for a migraine, so I was at home on the couch for most of the day. I apparently needed the rest as I feel so much better, but I did make some super yummy soup for dinner last night!

A few of the rooms are almost finished in the house, so I hope to have some "selling ready" reveals soon :) I'll keep you updated here and on Facebook with house hunting progress, I promise :)

Have you been working on any house projects lately?

The Decluttering Journey

In Mommyland, I spend a lot of time picking up after (and with!) everyone in my family and cleaning. I would much rather spend my time hanging out with my family or working on my business projects than cleaning, but if my house is a mess, my brain feels cluttered.

It's a tiring, endless job.

I've tried Flylady's program to help my house out.

I've done the 40 bags in 40 days challenge. Twice. Last year I got rid of over 200 bags (no, we're not hoarders), and this year my goal was to get rid of 2015 items, and that has long been passed.

Nothing I've done has helped me keep my house feeling picked up or less cluttered for the long term.

And then my dear friend introduced me to a new and popular method of decluttering called the KonMari method. I'd heard about it from a couple Facebook groups I'm part of, but never looked into it. My friend and her husband started the process of going through their things based on this method, and although they just did a major downsize a couple years ago, they were finding so many things to get rid of. I had to know more (I'm an organizing nerd), and began researching it.

I won't get into all of the details about this particular method, but it was started by a woman named Marie Kondo, a professional organizer living in Japan. Her method is drastically different from any other method I've heard of or tried. Many of the other methods say to declutter an item or an area (like a drawer or closet) a day, flip your hangers around in your closet so you know what you wear, or just declutter 15 minutes a day until it's all done. Kondo's method is much bigger and all at once. She has you do all of your clothes at once, then do all of your books at once, then go on to papers, etc. By doing this, you'll snowball your decluttering, gaining momentum along the way, and will have a fully decluttered and tidy house in about 6 months.

Crazy, right?

But her trick is this: if it sparks joy, keep it. If not, out it goes.

The trick makes sense, and seems simple enough.

My disclaimer: I do not agree with everything Kondo says or all of her beliefs. She wants you to "talk" to your belongings, like saying goodbye or thank you to them when putting them away or throwing them out. Now, I do talk to some inanimate objects, but for me, this was over the top different. I'm not saying she's wrong, but it was hard for me to get through the book at times.

So far in our family's KonMari journey my husband and I have both done our clothes and most of our books. I've also done some other areas, like the plastics cupboard in the kitchen or the kid's cubby for art supplies and school work in the dining room. I'll probably show some befores and afters in their own blog posts as I don't want to stretch this post on forever. I think our total is up to 5 bags of garbage, 7 1/2 bags of donations, and a recycling box full of papers....and we had just gone through these areas not that long ago!

But my question is: Is it working? Is this finally going to help my home stay cleaner?

And so far, my answer is YES.

How do I know?

This week has been very busy for us, with volunteering at church doing some painting, meetings for both my husband and I, a day off from school for everyone for Veteran's Day, and me being sick today.

But if you were to come over now, you'd think it was my cleaning day. The coffee table is clear, the floor is toy free, the kitchen counters are clear, and no papers or art supplies are scattered all over my dining room floor. And if things do look messy, it's a fraction of the time to clean it up.

We're all happier. We can find things easier, and it's easier to put things away now.

My husband and I now say "KonMari all the things!!!!" when we've found an area that's messy or needs some work:

A fun meme I found online

We're a long way from being done, but are really enjoying the progress so far. I can't wait to show you the progress we've made, and even the kids are getting excited about it. But we'll see how long that lasts ;)


What is your favorite decluttering tip? Do you have a method or system that you like to follow?