Tag: marie kondo

Wrap Up

Middle Mark | September 2020

bookishluna12 Comments

Hello and welcome to a little reading check in! Every month I do a mid month check in to share what I have finished so far and what I am in the middle of reading. So far, this month is going pretty well, but I entered a bit of a slump, I am hoping it just lasts this week. Fingers crossed! But, on to the books!

Midnight Sun (Twilight, #5)Midnight Sun by Stephenie Meyer
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I got very bored halfway though. The main selling point of this book is seeing more of the Cullens. That is how this book got 2 stars. The rest, really didn’t really keep me engaged and was not really interesting.

View all my reviews The Financial Diet: A Total Beginner's Guide to Getting Good with MoneyThe Financial Diet: A Total Beginner’s Guide to Getting Good with Money by Chelsea Fagan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This was a VERY basic finance book that seems to be only for women. If you know anything about basic budgeting you can skip this. But, this could be good for someone who just graduated and is just starting out.

View all my reviews Shiver: Selected StoriesShiver: Selected Stories by Junji Ito
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As always Junji Ito has an eerie imagination. This is a bind up if twisted tails with curse, monsters, and some out of this world things. Since it was a bind up, I don’t want to say too much other than all were equally creepy and were very distinct. If you like manga and horror I suggest you give it a go. TW for suicide and murder.

View all my reviews One by OneOne by One by Ruth Ware
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

*Book given via netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

Overall, I really enjoyed this thriller. The setting was amazing, the atmosphere was palpable, the characters were interesting as well as their dynamics, and the story fully pulled me in. Once again Ware has proven to be an amazing writer and continues to be one of my auto-buy authors. Even though I received this book for free, I am going to go pick up another on publication day. If you want a good secluded thriller that appears to be a dream come true at first, but turns into a horror, I feel like this is one you should certainly look into.

View all my reviews Tidy the F*ck Up: The American Art of Organizing Your Sh*tTidy the F*ck Up: The American Art of Organizing Your Sh*t by Messie Condo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A hilarious approach to decluttering and getting your space in order. I laughed quite a few times, but it has some great advice as well. It really got me in the right mindset to get cleaning and sorting.

View all my reviews

I am currently reading two tomes, the firs is 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami and I am about 14% through it. From what I have read, I can see why so many people enjoy it and I am actually excited to pick it up again. The reason I have not is because I like sitting for more than an hour with this book. The second book is A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon, I am 36% through this one, I had to stop this one because I was borrowing it from the library. I have it on hold again so as soon as it comes in I will fly through it.

What was the last book you read, did you like it?

How are your reading month coming along? 

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Hauls & Unboxings

Book Unhaul | March 2019

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Hello everyone, since I managed to acquire a ton of books I decided to revise my shelves to see if there were any books I was willing to part with and make room for some new arrivals. I don’t know about you, but I have done quite a bit of unhauls in the past few years. With everyone I do I find that it is harder and harder to get rid of the books on my shelf. I think it is because I have really gotten my reading tastes down and because I have already removed the “easy” books.

This round I found that I was able to still get rid of quite a few, 13 in fact. But, I had to make quite a few hard decisions. Since some of these have great memories attached to them and I did quite enjoy many of these as well. I just had to realize, I was never going to reread any of them.

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-The Books-

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-The Reasons-

The Silent Companions: I was given this book for free from my local indie bookstore, which was really nice of them. I just realized that I was never really going to be in the mood to read it, even though it sounded really interesting. It has made the cut for many unhauls already, but this time I realize that it was always in the maybe pile, but I never picked it up to read.

in a dark, dark wood: I really loved this book and Ruth Ware is one of my auto buy authors. Just for me it is really hard to reread a thriller and I would rather donate this book and allow someone else to experience this wonderful book!

Feminists Don’t Wear Pink: This book was also hard to part with, I really enjoyed reading it, but ultimately I think it would be better passed on to someone else who would love to read it since I would not be rereading it.

Fresh Ink: I am not a big anthology person so I knew I would never reread this. I am going to be passing this on to a friend who loves reading collections from various authors.

Everything’s Eventual: I have so many Stephen King books I love and I would rather just have the ones I love instead of just having all of his books if I am honest.

The Winter People: I loved this book, I just will never reread it in the future. I would rather allow someone else to read it.

East of Eden: I read this and I was eh about it. I will be donating it.

Faithful: Love this author, but I have never really been in the mood to read this book.

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing: I picked this book up for the BN book club, I lost it, found it and realized I didn’t care about it at all. I never finished it and I don’t really care to. It wasn’t a bad book. I just didn’t care.

The Broken Girls: Another amazing books that I want to share with others, I just wont ever reread it.

The Book of Essie: I realized I was more into the idea of this book than actually reading it. Which, is a huge shame.

All the Ugly and Wonderful Things: I think I was not in the right mood to read this book, but I thought it was okay and I am passing it on to my friend Reg!

The Wicked Deep: This is another book I really loved the idea of this book and I read the first few chapters and enjoyed it. I was just never really pulled in enough to keep on reading. I think it was just the mood I was in when I picked it up, but I know I am not going to pick it up again and I would prefer not to waste a good book.

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Those are the books and the reasons why I am unhauling them. Do you agree with my decisions? What is the last book you unhauled?

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DECLUTTERING | Make Up, Hair, and Self Care

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I don’t know about you, but over the years I have subscribed to beauty boxes over the years and have so many samples hidden in my bathroom and in my bedroom. I have often found myself using a product not because I liked it or really wanted to try it, but because I paid for it and I want to get moneys worth of it. Now while reading through Marie Kondo’s book she sights this a large reason why people keep things. She says people feel like they are being wasteful or feel guilty. I fall into the first category, especially when it comes to the hair and makeup categories.

Now before I went though this drawer I wanted to get down to the reason why I felt guilt getting rid of things I don’t like or don’t use. When you think about it is sounds silly. “I feel horrible about getting rid of this thing I don’t like”. If someone said that to me I would be confused. The more I thought about it I realized I hate being wasteful of the product and of money. I feel guilty not using a product because someone else could have used it or needed it. I also feel guilty because I spent money I worked for on something I wasn’t using.

At this point I decided I needed to stop just buying skincare, makeup, hair care, and other beauty and self care product without researching. Also, I needed to stop getting samples to random products and only get samples of products I am very much interested in. I do not wear mascara so why did I need 4 samples of them? So I decided to cancel the my beauty box subscription to avid this problem again.

Before

After

As you can see, I cleared out a lot of this drawer. My massive amount of samples and unused hair products have been removed, I can actually see the bottom of the drawer. I placed all of my skin care and makeup in the galaxy bag to the right and all my hair styling goodies I use everyday or every other day in the middle. It is nice to know exactly where all my things are and not have to dig through a bunch of stuff. Since taking the After picture I put the my clear little hair ties and bobby pins in a small box so they do not spill all over the place. Yay for functional organization and only needing to organize the things you actually use!

What are your can’t live without hair or skin care products and/or makeup products?

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Hauls & Unboxings

Decluttering | My Books

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So this time around I did not take pictures of my declutter for two reasons, I had way to may books to fit in a single picture and the second was, I did not want to look back on some of my unread books and get mad at myself.

Now in the KonMari method you are instructed to get rid of all your unread books and only keep books you have read and spark joy. You are not allowed to read descriptions and you cannot open the book. You can only look at the cover and hold it in your hands. Now as a book worm running a bookblog I obviously love books. I love surrounding my self with them and often buy new ones even though I have some unread ones waiting for me at my house. This category was very difficult for me.

I decided to break this category down into two groups read and unread. I decided to tackle the read ones first then the unread ones, more on that later. I think the longest part was taking all the books off of my shelf. I counted all of my beloved books and it was nearly 200 books. Even though I am a book lover, for some reason this just felt like to much. I knew deep down I was never going to reread 200 books. I knew I had a lot of work ahead of me.

When I finally conquered my read books I took all the unread books off of my shelf and placed them on the floor in front of me. Now, I broke a rule. I kept some of my unread books for a few reasons. The first was I just went on a short vacation with my mom and I bought a few books that I have already started to read so I knew I was going to read them and they filled me with joy. The second reason was even though they were unread they filled me with joy. Now the whole purpose of this method is to surround yourself with things that spark joy, well just because something is unread doesn’t mean it does not spark joy. Even though I broke this rule, I did end up admitting to myself that I was not going to read all the books on my TBR, so they went into the donation bin.

When I finished going through all of my books I went from nearly 200 down to 119. I donated nearly 80 books. Even though I have already done this and all the books have found a new home at my local library I cannot believe I had that many books. I am currently sitting looking at the books I have left and I cannot imagine where those 80 books fit.

Even though I removed 80 books from my collection I am very happy. All the books I have are sitting properly so their binding will not be damaged. I can see each book I own. All the books I have make me happy. As a bookworm it is like a dream come true. My books reflect me, they are well taken care of, and they aren’t crowded or hidden away.

Now that the hard category is finished, on to an easier one!

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Knitting, Crochet, Crafting, Art & More

Decluttering | Daily Clothing

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I have to say over the years I have collected a lot of clothing that at times seems all over the place. I have dress clothes and high heels as well as having t-shirts with skulls and lace up boots covered in studs. I think the main reason for this is because over the last 10 years or so of my life and style has changed considerably. At this point in my life I can no longer wear the clothes I wore 10, 7, or 5 years ago on a daily basis to work. So i have essentially two different wardrobes in my closet. I have work clothes and weekend clothes, but this makes it hard to find clothes to wear. I would like to streamline my clothing and have pieces that work well together.

Now, in no way am I going to give up my leather jackets or my studded boots, but I need to find a balance between these and my work clothing. Now through some research I have come across katberries post on capsule wardrobes and loved the graphic that she

posted. It shows a variety of colors that work together and can be mixed and matched. I used this for a guide while sorting through my clothing. Now, I am not aiming to have a capsule wardrobe, but I want my clothes to work together.

I did not discard clothes if the color was not on this palette but I did discard them if I was iffy and they were not on this palette. Since I am aiming to mesh my personal style and my work clothes together I though it was most important to remove things I was iffy about and did not help me in this venture.

I will say that I do have some clothing in storage that I cannot get to at this point in time, but I am going to sort through it as soon as I can get access to them. Trust me, if I could go through them I would have. Anyway, I will stop my rambling and get to showing you my before and after for my closet.

Before

After


I stunned myself with this process. In the first picture you can see my closet is jammed packed with clothes, shoes, and other odds and ends. I hated opening my closet, I usually had  trouble finding things and when I went to take a shirt out a few more usually came with it. I ended up getting rid of 5 bags worth of clothing and shoes. All of which I donated right away since 99% of it was in good condition. Plus a lot of it was work clothing I did not really enjoy anymore and I know work or professional clothing is much needed.

My closet is now more open at the bottom, I can actually see the back wall! Plus, my clothes aren’t as jam packed. Also, my shoes now all fit in my vertical shoe organizer and I was able to get rid of my floor one, which never did much good for me honestly. I am very happy with this outcome. I cannot wait to do the next category, although I am a bit worried because it is books. Ekk!

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Knitting, Crochet, Crafting, Art & More

Decluttering | Workout Clothing

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I don’t know about you, but over the years I have collected a full drawer of workout clothes. I personally go through workout phases. I go from walking, workout videos, going to the gym, to running outside. Through the years I have realized that the gym is not really for me and don’t need all of the “coolest” workout gear to have a good workout.  So for my first category I am going to go through for my  KonMari experiment is my workout clothing. Here goes nothing!

Before

After

Discarded

I have to say the most irritating part of this was realizing I had forgotten about half of the workout clothing I own. Even though I was so irritated with myself for not knowing the things I owned, just in this small category, it felt good to go through them. I now know what I have and know that I will be comfortable and joyful while wearing it. I also am happy that I am able to donate a lot of this clothing to a local charity so it will no longer sit in the bottom of my drawer unused and forgotten.

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Wrap Up

JULY 2017 | Wrap Up

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Wrap Up

5 STARS:

The Way Back to Florence  by Glenn Haybittle

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I really enjoyed this book if you could not tell from my 5 stars. I did a review of this book, you can find it here: Review | The Way Back to Florence by Glenn Haybittle

The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up: A Magical Story by Marie Kondō

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This is the first book I read by Marie Kondo and I had to go to the library right away and get the first book she wrote right away.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondō

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I loved this book and the manga version of the book very much. I even decided to give KonMari method a try. I started a short series on this. You can find the first post I wrote on the book and my experience here: Decluttering | The Start of it All

4 STARS:

Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King

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I have to say I enjoyed this book much more that I anticipated. Don’t get me wrong Stephen King is my favorite author, but I love him for his horror. This series isn’t horror, but it gets you freaked out and on edge anyway. I would say it is more suspense.

Voyager by Diana Gabaldon

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This was better than the last book in the series, I have to say while I enjoyed this I had to push myself through the book. At times it just felt too long.

Drums of Autumn byDiana Gabaldon

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Another good edition to this series, there were definitely  a few turns in the story I was not expecting to happen. While I enjoyed it I might not read the next one in the series for some time because I think it put me into a bit of a book slump.

The Smell of Other People’s Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock

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This was a cute read that I got through very quickly. It tugged at my heart strings and took a look at human nature and family dynamics.

BINGO UPDATE:

I have not had a single bingo yet, but I have set myself up to get quite a few during the month of August. If you have any recommendations for the squares that are not open please share them with me in the comments.

WHAT DID YOU READ THIS MONTH?

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Reviews

Decluttering | The Start of it All

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A year or so ago a lot of people I knew started to read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondō. I have been intrigued about the idea ever since, but for some reason never took the initiative to read the book or declutter.

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Well, for the past month I have started to really feel cluttered by my stuff. I was sticking things in placed that made no sense I had piles of books and papers everywhere. My room was beginning to feel uncomfortable and overwhelming. So I started to watch some youtube videos to actually see what this book was about. Through this little bit of research I decided to get the book from my local library and give it a try. I also bought her Manga called The LifeChanging Manga of Tidying Up: A Magical Story by Marie Kondō, which I already read and loved! Then I ended up coming across a blog called http://makinglemonadeblog.com, which is run by Carrie. I ended up finding this awesome checklist to go with the book.

With all of these tools, I am going to try to take control of my space again. I know I do not use a ton of the things I have. Old textbooks, boxes, books I did not enjoy, and knickknacks I have not been able to part with. So to keep myself accountable I am going to share my little decluttering journey with you all. I am still not sure if I am going to follow this plan to a T or use it as a guide, but either way I am very excited.

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