{pretty, happy, funny, real}

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

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{pretty, happy, funny, real}

Last week the Chief mentioned that a camera crew would be arriving to interview him for some news show. Usually they go into his study and that works fine — it’s book-lined and oak-desked and generally has the air of respectability in there — enough for head shots with blurry backgrounds, anyway.

But this day he felt that his office was not up to snuff. And believe me when I tell you, that means it was not up to snuff. (I remediated somewhat yesterday.)

So naturally, realizing that a news reporter and a man with an advanced apparatus of moving photography would likely be in the living room, I…

… applied Konmari principles to our dressers and the kitchen island, going through all our things and carefully rolling them vs. stacking?

Yes, yes I did. Two areas of my home that were definitely not going to be featured or broadcast anywhere at all became the intense focus of my laser concentration.

Suddenly, all that really mattered was this video I had seen somewhere (and now I don’t remember which one, but the shirts were definitely rolled) of how Marie Kondo recommends that you roll rather than lay flat.

I haven’t read the book, although I plan to. But the video stuck in my brain. So I pulled out this:

Let me ‘splain it to you.

I have in the kitchen island (including but not limited to) the following:

• Nice kitchen towels

• Okay kitchen towels but really excellent for covering rising bread, as they are the right size and tightly woven, which prevents sticking to the dough (I suddenly realized — the camera crew was about an hour away — that I wanted these particular towels not to be in the towel stack, but elsewhere — they really just aren’t that great for drying your hands, certainly not as good as the others, but I’m not the only person grabbing a towel here)

• Not as nice kitchen towels (I also have those in the pantry — they get demoted and are for sloppy messes)

• Dishcloths

• Real rags (not to be confused with sloppy towels or old dishcloths, because if you use those as rags, they will inevitably get cycled back into the good towels/dishcloth piles, and then a guest will suddenly be washing dishes and drying hands with something embarrassing — instead I favor flannel pjs, shirts, and sheets torn up into rag-sized pieces)

• Cloth napkins

Usually all of this gets folded and stacked, as no doubt you have seen in previous long-winded posts about virtually nothing.

The stacks have been separate and approximate.

But here we go:

 

Yes, even the rags, why not, we are going full-crazy-Japanese-tidiness-guru, and the crew is still 45 minutes away:

 

Here are my secret dough towels. I ended up putting them on the other side of the island (which opens on both sides) so that only I will grab them —

–sparing my family from having to memorize my towel preferences:

(And true Auntie Leila fellow-travelers will remember that one of those was rescued from a mildew-y death — and now you know why I couldn’t, no I just couldn’t, throw it away.)

But I failed to roll up the napkins. I… I like them stacked:

 

I don’t have pictures of my dresser drawers. Maybe next time (oh yay!).

Here are my thoughts so far: It’s one thing to take everything out and roll up and put away what you want to keep. It’s another to do the laundry this way — that is, to take a basket of clothes, sort and roll, and then transfer to drawers.

Rolled things… roll.

They roll while you are rolling them, while you are stacking/sorting them (I do this on the sofa or on my bed usually) in the basket, and while you are putting them away. Thus, the work motions are greatly, greatly increased, or am I just a klutz.

I am having trouble thinking that children will not get frustrated with this method, although I could see 8-12 year-old girls getting obsessed as well. Personally, yesterday when I was folding/rolling two loads of laundry I was getting frustrated. Things kept unrolling.

What do you think?

Because in the drawers and on the shelves, this is very nice.

I did manage to make the living room quite presentable.

Aaaaannnndddd…. the interview took place outside on the deck.

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