Book Review - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying up by Marie Kondo

Both my husband and I are messy people. There I said it.

I used to think it was mostly him, he would think it was mostly me, I would blame it on genetics, or being too busy or having a small house, but there was really no getting away from the fact that we are messy and and things were not getting any better.



Then I came across this book through one of the blogs I follow and it really is life changing.  I have not completed the whole process yet, but we are getting there.  One really important message I got from the book was that if you are a messy person it's not your fault, you aren't lazy, you aren't missing the gene for being tidy, in actual fact you just never learnt how to be tidy.

After reading this it seemed obvious.  My mum won't be offended when I say I grew up in a messy house (though the insides of her cupboards were always immaculate!). Through no fault of my own and no intention of my parents I failed to acquire those skills necessary for keeping my house in the style that I so envy in our friends.

So when I came across a book that not only claimed to be able to teach me how to be tidy, but to be tidy for the rest of my life, I thought I must be onto a winner.

The basic principle in the book is to go through all your things, hold each one in your hand and ask yourself if it sparks joy.  If it does you keep it and if it doesn't you get rid of it thanking if and wishing it well.

Marie Kondo gives you an order in which to go through your things, clothes, books, paper work, miscellaneous items and sentimental items.

I have been through the first three categories, but stuck on the third because it is so vast.  I keep re-addressing the first three categories and getting rid of more things that I felt I needed to keep the first time round.

So far it's been a great experience, I have got rid of almost all my paperwork, including all my notes from my degree and teacher training, I don't know why I thought it would be a good idea to keep them! I also got rid of all my old bank statements and pay slips (keeping anything essential).  I got rid of about two thirds of my clothes so now nearly everything I own is in my wardrobe and three draws, there is one box in the loft with maternity clothes and that is it.  Books was harder but when I stuck to thinking about if it brought joy or not, that made it a lot easier.

I now need to look at DVDs, CDs, craft materials, art materials and toys (eugh), and I will be well on the way to having the house I dream of (in terms of what is achievable in this house)

Here is a before and after of my undies drawer:

Marie Kondo also gives instructions for how to fold your clothes.  At first I thought it was such a waste of time folding all my pants and socks, but now I love it.  Sometimes if I am having a really stressful, chaotic, messy day I'll go up to my bedroom and just take a quick look in my drawers and it just calms me down and gives me a tiny sense of control in the chaos. So I am really glad I do carefully fold all my pants and socks, not just for this reason, but also because it just makes it so much easier to find what I need, I have certainly saved time in looking for things that I may have wasted in folding. 

This is the boy's shelves.  I have done Boris' shelf and in this photo Biscuit's shelf hasn't been done yet.  What I have been doing here is stacking the clothes horizontally instead of vertically as it was before. Storing the clothes this way means we use the clothes we like rather than the ones at the top of the pile. 

Hopefully soon I will have more before and after photos for you, my main challenge is in actually finding the time to get stuck in. Marie Kondo says that once you have compled this process you will never need to tidy again, but I do see myself continually going though things and keeping areas up-to-date, especially as we so frequently have more stuff brought into the house, I have to make culls of the old stuff.   

Book Review - Revolution by Russell Brand

You may remember back in January I made a whole host of ambitions New Years Resolutions, or rather New Years Goals.  One of them was to read one book per month and I am pleased to say that this is one goal that I have actually been able to keep up with.  So I thought I would share with you the books I have read so far this year with a little review of each one.

Revolution by Russell Brand.

Some time ago I was watching some Road Wars type programme and it showed a clip of a car knocking down a cyclist then driving off.  Hit and Run.  It also showed a clip about another driver who had committed some sort of fraud.  At the end of the programme it explained that the hit and run driver had been fined X amount (not very much) of money and given something like three days of community service, for basically nearly killing someone and giving no reason to believe he wouldn't do a similar thing again.  And the fraudster, who hadn't actually physically hurt anyone and was no more liable to after his conviction was given a massive prison sentence.  I was raging afterwards because it was a perfect demonstration of how our society values money over life.
In his book Russell Brand says about Jesus: 'The only time he ever let himself go and knocked over tables was when the financial industry was prioritised over normal people.'  I know there is more to this Bible verse but to me this epitomises the problems we have in our society; the priority of the economy over love.  If only people thought love was the most important thing, the thing everyone wanted more of how different would the world be then?  In his book Russell Brand explores how we the people could make love the thing through activism, standing up to The Man and speaking up for what is right, he talks about a society where 'positive human attributes like altruism and cooperation become ideological pillars for society.'

Yes I am a fan of Russell Brand, fortunately I am not biased against him having not really ever come across him till watching him on News Night and then following his Trews so I never encountered his sex, drugs and rock and roll persona.  He stands for a lot of things that I believe in and this book spells out his vision for how the world could be.
I enjoyed the book, although initially couldn't stop imagining his voice as I was reading it which was a bit distracting.  It's beautifully written, often sounding like a poem or rap in places, he is a fabulous wordsmith.
This was not an easy book to read, I did have to pay attention and that can be challenging with two children that frequently wake thought the night resulting in me having the concentration span of a knat!  However I did get a lot from it, and will probably read it again.

Brand gives us an insight into his childhood and youth which help us understand some of the more unfortunate parts of his adult life.  He says "When I was piping and chasing and f***ing and faming, what I wanted was a connection, and with no map, no key, no code, I settled for sedation".  As well as how this helps us relate to where he comes from, his world view, I also love the way he uses the words here, the alliteration, the repetition of the same word through out the phrase and the rhythm, it feels good to read and the whole book is like this, it's a pleasure.

Some people might be turned off by Brand's view of religion, he believes in God, but not in a conventional sense, Some people might use this as an excuse to reject his ideas, but I found his views fascinating and inspiring and they helped me learn more about what I believe.  He says "My belief is that we do not currently operate on a frequency of consciousness that is capable of interpreting the information required to understand the great mystery".  I think many people put limits on God, when really it's just that there are aspects of Him that we don't yet understand given our limited senses.

Another thing I like about this book is how Brand isn't afraid to admit that he can let his ego get ahead of him (which is why he wouldn't ever be a politician), he shows he is human and still has weaknesses just like everyone else, he says, 'erring is a daily occurrence.  Each evening when I reflect on the days events...there's usually one or two clips where I wince at my selfishness or missed opportunities to move closer to the source.'.

 He also uses humour to get through to his readers with witty phrases such as:

"Any British politician, like Prime Minister David Cameron, who claims to be a Christian, which means 'to practice the teachings of Jesus Christ', has to, like Jesus, heal the sick, not, like a c**t, sell off the NHS."

It's funny but it's true.

Here are a few paragraphs that really resonated with me and some of my thoughts recently:

"We are living in a zoo, or more accurately a farm, our collective consciousness, our individual consciousness, has been hijacked by a power structure that needs us to remain atomised and disconnected.  We want union, we want connection, we need it the way we need other forms of nutrition, and denied it, we delve into the lower impulses for sanctuary. 

We have been segregated and severed, from each other and even ourselves.  We have been told that freedom is the ability to pursue petty, trivial desires when true freedom is freedom from these petty desires. "

"Science required faith the way religion does.  Science required acceptance of metaphor, just the way religion does.  'Does science cause wars the way religion does?'  you might ask.  I would say those conflicts are actually about territory, either ideological or physical, and that those ideas are materialistic in the same way science is - and the weapons with which those wars are fought, who creates those?"

"Immigrants did not cause the financial crisis. Benefit cheats did not get multi-million-dollar bonuses."

This one might make you chuckle (unless you absolutely adore the royal family, in which case, scroll on):

"..in England we have a Queen for f**k's sake. A Queen! We have to call her things like 'Your Majesty'. YOUR MAJESTY! Like she's all majestic, like an eagle or a mountain.  She's just a person.  A little old lady in a shiny hat - that we paid for.  Or 'Your Highness'! What the f**k is that?!  What, she's high up, above us, at the top of a class pyramid on a shelf of money with her face on it?  We should be calling her Mrs Windsor.  In fact that's not even her real name, they changed it in the war to distract us from the inconvenient fact that they were as German as the enemy that teenage boys were being encouraged, conscripted actually to die fighting.  Her actual name is Mrs Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.  'Mrs Saxe-Coburg-Gotha'!!  No wonder they f***ing changed it.  It's the most German thing I've ever heard - she might as well've been called 'Mrs Bratwurst-Kraut-Nazi'."

"You are enough, you're enough, there's nothing you can buy or try on that's going to make you any better, because you couldn't be any better than you are."

So if you are someone who thinks they heard Russell Brand telling people not to vote and are dismissing everything he has to say based on that, I suggest you have a bit of a re-think, listen to some of his Trews and if you like what you hear have a gander at the book, and let me know what you think.  

If you are thinking on buying the book then it would be really awesome if you clicked on the link because then I get a little bit of dosh for your efforts.  Us full time mums gotta get our tea drinking money from somewhere!!

What I have been reading - Divergent by Veronica Roth

If you liked The Hunger Games, then Divergent might be right up your street.  Based in a futuristic dystopia in which civilisation has been separated into different factions who perform specific tasks and behave in certain ways. Tris, the 16 year old main character feels like she doesn't quite fit in anywhere and so the adventure begins.  Tris is "Divergant" she doesn't fit into any of the factions and as such discovers secrets about how their society works to keep people under control and what might happen if one faction thinks they are more superior than the rest.
I found the book very gripping, an easy read, perhaps not quite challenging enough for me (probably a reflection of the fact that the books is written for teenagers) but still very entertaining, I read it easily in a couple of weeks of just snatching opportunities to read whilst having breakfast, riding as a passenger in the car and a bit at bed time.
What I loved most about this book was how it spoke to me about my life.  I am always looking for messages through the books I read that make meaning in my life, or tell me something important.  In this book I totally related to the idea of being "Divergent".  At my Church study group we have been watching a series by Cris Rogers called The Rebels Guide to the Good News and in the first session he talks about how Jesus is a rebel and how in the world today sinning has become the norm and not sinning is revolutionary. In Divergent, Tris is a rebel too, but ends up doing the right thing through her rebellion even though everyone else is doing something different.  This idea really resonated with me, I am not sure I have the full picture of it in my head yet but it is forming. There is something in there about doing the right thing in spite of ridicule or standing out in a crowd.

Throughout the book I highlighted bits that spoke to me, they are slightly random and probably tell you more about the inner workings of my brain than te actual content of the book, but oh well!:

"It's a raven" - The image of a raven has been with me for a long time and my newest son's name means Raven.  I have been thinking about getting a tattoo of a raven for Biscuit's (not his real) name and a pine cone for Boris' (again, not his) name. So I was intrigued that one of the characters in the book has raven tattoos.

"Human reason can't excuse any evil; that is why it's so important that we don't rely on it" - I liked this sentence, it is Tris quoting her father, it reminded me of WWII and the Nazis, but is also true today and also made me think about how just because things don't have studies, research or evidence to back them doesn't mean they don't work or aren't real or true.  I think people try to use reason to prove to themselves that there is no God or spiritual world.  It reminds me that we can only really rely on God because people get things wrong.

"The best way to help someone is just to be near them" - True of a lot I have learned through my breastfeeding Peer Helper training about listening.

"We just have to let our guilt remind us to do better next time" - I am someone who often feels guilty about things.  I worry a lot about things I have said or haven't said to people and this quote just reminds me that there is no use to feeling guilty if you don't try to improve on yourself.

"I don't understand why we're such a threat to the leaders." "Every faction conditions its members to think and act a certain way. And most people do it.  For most people, it's not hard to learn, to find a pattern of thought that works and stays that way."..."But our minds move in a dozen different directions.  We can't be confined to one way of thinking, and this terrifies our leaders.  It means we can't be controlled.  And it means that no matter what they do, we will always cause trouble for them." - YES, totally agree with this in relation to our culture and being conditioned to like certain things, to behave in certain ways to not upset the status quo.  The government wants us to just sit nice and quietly in our homes watching television, going to work to benefit the economy and shopping in our free time.  The Government doesn't want free thinkers or rebels or people who think outside the box, it wants nice compliant zombies (am I being a bit extreme?).  This quote also resonates with me as a Christian in relation to good and evil. The devil also wants us to follow the common pattern of thinking and acting.

Am I the only one who tries to find meaning in books that isn't necessarily intended by the author?
What books have you read that have hidden meaning?
Oh and did you know there is a film of this book?!  I have to see it!

What I have been reading - "The Man Who Quit Money" and "Free"

I read these two really interesting books from the library recently, both with a similar ilk, and yet both so different.

Both books are about people who came to choose to live without money, but both for very different reasons.

In "The Man Who Quit Money" the author tells the story of Suelo who commits, over a period of time to live without money.  His motivation is a spiritual one, having studied many of the worlds religions and coming from a Christian background he sees the only way to truly follow the teachings of Christ is to sell everything he has and quit money.  He sees no way of living in the money system which doesn't involve harming others or himself in some way.

The book tracks his remarkable journey through life and shares how he got to be where he is today (living in a cave in the mountains in Utah) it also tells how he lives off food that others have thrown out or don't need and enables us to get to know the man as a friend; humorous, humble, brave, ernest.  The book is very poetic in the way it is written and is very spiritual, it is inspiring but as much as the author tries to show how Suelo doesn't see himself as any kind of guru, it definitely leaves you feeling like he is on a pedestal, doing something totally unachievable to the ordinary person.  However this did not diminish my enjoyment of the book. What is frustrating about borrowing books from the library is you're not supposed to write in them so I have nothing to quote having not underlines any of my favorite passages; so here are a couple of quotes I found online:

“It made Daniel think. The people who had the least were the most willing to share. He outlined a dictum that he would believe the rest of his life: the more people have, the less they give. Similarly, generous cultures produce less waste because excess is shared, whereas stingy nations fill their landfills with leftovers.” 

Chance is God. To know the mind of Chance you must break all attachments (preplanning) and move with chance. Faith = taking a chance."

"I'm realizing that anything motivated by money is tainted, containing the seeds of destruction. That's the struggle - guess that's why Van Gogh couldn't sell his paintings - they had to be pure. There is no honest profession - that's the paradox. The oldest profession [prostitution] is the most honest, for it exposes the bare bones of what civilization is all about. It's the root of all professions." 

Free is the story of one woman's decision to live for a year without money as a personal challenge and to show others that it is possible.  She survives in London by living in a variety of squats and eating food from shop bins.  I enjoyed reading Katherine Hibbert's adventure and learned a lot about squatting and raiding dustbins, it would be a useful read for anyone who is thinking of squatting for whatever reason.  It includes lots of interesting statistics and sometimes surprising and shocking facts about quantities of food discarded and the numbers of uninhabited (but perfectly habitable) properties in the UK.  The marked difference between these two books was the motivation for their situations, Suelo had a deeply spiritual reason for living for free where as Katharine chose to on an apparent whim.   What I found amusing about Katharine's books was that as soon as she was settled in a squat she began gathering possessions, perhaps partly to show the reader how much useful stuff ends up in landfill, but also partly I think because she had some kind of ingrained instinct or desire to gather things.  A strong contrast to Suelo who chose to live with as few possessions as possible. 

In spite of the frivolous nature of Katharine's journey I still enjoyed the book and felt inspired by both of them to live a life with less stuff.

I had already concluded that more stuff just makes you stressed, tired, worried and anxious, but it was good to have this view reaffirmed by two very different books. 

What I am Currently Reading - Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn

This is a fantastic book which turns everything you thought you knew about behaviour managements and discipline on it's head.
It advocated reasoning, love and persuasion as means of working with your children is preference to rewards and punishments, including time-outs and praise. Our society is so used to using these sorts of behaviour management techniques without question thanks to TV programmes such as Super Nanny, that any alternative seems hard to imagine but Kohn puts forward very persuasive arguments in favour of a different approach to working with children which is far more loving, nurturing and caring than the traditional techniques. 
I think there are a lot of misconceptions about this book going round such as that children are allowed to just get away with anything and aren't given any guidance as to how to behave, but it isn't like this it all, it really needs to be read to be fully understood and I think if you do read it you would find it very hard to fall back on the old techniques that are so frequently peddles by "behaviour specialists". 
The only negatives I can say about this book are that it is quite a hard, challenging read, it requires quite a bit of concentration to understand and would probably take several reads for all the information to truly sink in (this is the second time I have read it, although the first time I didn't manage to finish it)  The other thing I didn't like about this book was a small section which had a bit of a Bible bashing feel.  Kohn argues that an authoritarian approach to discipline has it's roots in certain religious belief systems, citing old testament fire and brimstone as proof of conditional love from God.  However I would argue that the Bible is filled with evidence that God loves us unconditionally because of what he did for us through Jesus, I would also argue that Christianity doesn't assume we are innately bad (as Kohn suggests) which is why we need saving and why we must be taught to behave, but that we are innately good but have gone astray.  This is obviously an extremely simplistic explanation which requires much much more that I can write in this book review (if you are interested read Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell), but ultimately I think that in spite of this small section, Unconditional Parenting is still an excellent and extremely useful read.

When I began reading I was furiously underlining sections with a pencil for future reference, but fell behind when I didn't have a pencil handy, so here are a few quotes,, but they are mostly from the beginning of the book:

"What counts is not just that we believe we love [our children] unconditionally, but that they feel loved in that way.

"This approach (unconditional parenting)  offers a vote of confidence in children, a challenge to the assumption that they'll derive the wrong lesson from affection, or that they'd always want to act badly if they thought they could get away with it.

"That's an argument not for more discipline, but for grown-ups to spend more time with kids, to give them more guidance, and to treat them with more respect."

"On balance, the kids who do what they're told are likely to be those whose parents don't rely on power and instead have developed a warm and secure relationship with them. They have parents who treat them with respect, minimise the use of control, and make a point of offering reasons and explanations for what they ask."

An extremely good book for anyone who is interested in gentle parenting, gently discipline and building a strong, respectful relationship with their children.

What I am currently (re) reading - Remotely Controlled by Aric Sigman

I think this might be the third of forth time I have read this book.  The book is about how watching TV could be, no, IS damaging our health and our lives.  I am reading it again because I often find myself slipping back into old habits of coming home and immediately putting the TV on as a default form of entertainment.  When I read through the facts, research and studies on the effects of television on the body and mind it makes me re-address what I am doing and work harder at resisting the temptation to put the TV on yet again.
Another reason I am re-reading this book is because of Boris, (not his real name) my one-and-a-half year old son.  This is the first time I have read the book since he was born and I had been putting the TV on during breakfast, lunch and dinner as a habit.  Remembering how damaging this can be has helped me get us eating at the dinner table and interacting more, rather than sitting in silence staring at a box.  And more importantly resisting the urge to use TV as an cheap and easy babysitter when there are things that I want to do for myself.

 

If you like being outraged then this is definitely a book for you, there are lots of shocking statistics and information to make you angry about television producers, advertisers and the government, and what makes it a really good read is that you can feel empowered at the end of it because all you have to do in protest is turn off the TV! 

Here are a few of the shocking facts that Sigman includes:

 We spend on average four hours a day doing nothing but watching television - that's more than one full 24-hour day a week.  By the age of 75, most of us will have spent more than 12-and-a-half years of 24 hour days doing nothing but watching pure television.

Children who watch television at ages one and three have a significantly increased risk of developing such attentional problems [ADHD] by the time they are seven.  For every hour of television a child watches per day, there is a nine per cent increase in attentional damage. 

The more TV children view, the more likely they are to be overweight.  Reduction in TV viewing constitutes the single most effective way for children to lose weight. 

A study on suicidal behaviour and "self-harm" at the Warneford Hospital, Oxford recently found that children learn about the act of suicide and form concepts surrounding it following exposure to television.

I could go on for ages because there are so many fascinating facts that simply blow the "everything in moderation" view out of the water.  I highly recommend this book if you want to get more free time for yourself and your children and be a healthier, happier person!  What have you got to lose? Actually you don't need to read the book, just turn off the TV!

What are you reading right now?  Have you read "Remotely Controlled"? What did you think of it?

What I am Currently Reading: Revolution in a Bottle by Tom Szaky

I recently borrowed this book from my local library more for the green credentials that the business advice.   I found it a really enjoyable book and would recommend it to anyone interested in "green" businesses.

 

This easy to read book tracks the exciting adventure of the author from broke student to successful business man.  I found the story entertaining and enlightening.  He includes all sorts of facts about recycling, rubbish and waste and comes across as a very likable person.  I liked his passion for creating a product with low impact on the environment and his ingenuity at making it into a financial success.  I did feel slightly uncomfortable with the way he got-into-bed so to speak with large corporations such a coca cola, but I could see his reasoning because although he was sleeping with the enemy (the rubbish producers) he was creating a positive outcome for the environment.  Perhaps this is the way more "green" companies should go instead of fighting against the big businesses?  I am not cure, but it certainly got me thinking.

The only chapter of this book that I didn't like was the last one where he talks about how to run a successful business.  I felt like if I had wanted to know how to start a business I would have bought a proper business manual not a personal success story, I was much more interested in HIS story than his tips for starting and running a successful business. 

Having said that I did find reading about his experience inspiring and it did make me fantasise a little about starting my own "green" or "eco" business. It is that sort of book, it gets you excited.

I would highly recommend this book as an interesting, entertaining and captivating read (I read it in about a week!) but not as a business advice manual. 

What I am currently Reading - Simplicity Parenting

As you may have gathered from reading my first post, I practise alternative parenting, that is alternative to mainstream parenting techniques advocated by the likes of Gina Ford and Jo Frost.  From the moment Boris (not his real name!) was born I felt compelled to be gentle towards him, respond immediately to his needs and generally act in a loving way, I scoured the Internet for parenting techniques that matched with the way I felt and came across Attachment Parenting.  I bought a few books and knew straight away that this was how I wanted to parent, reading the books gave me the confidence to follow my instincts rather than following the well meaning, though often misdirected advice of some family and friends.

I have continued to follow the parenting principles that I learnt at the beginning, adapting them to my feelings and my son's responses.

More recently I have been feeling overwhelmed with elements of chaos that have crept into our lives.  A messy, disorganised house, a weekly routine that goes from manic busyness one day to chronic boredom the next and chaotic mealtimes.  I felt like I needed some respite and a fresh insight into parenting (I need this every now and again to refresh my thinking and to remind me what I want from life and where I want our family to go).  For sometime I had had "Simplicity Parenting" by Kim John Payne on my Amazon wish list, I think I saw it somewhere or someone recommended it to me but I had never taken the plunge and actually bought it, until recently. So I took the plunge and downloaded it onto my Kindle.

I love it.  It is making me feel ok about wanting order and structure to our lives where before I felt like I was being a stuck-in-the-mud and oh so unspontaneous.  It is saying that it is ok to want less toys in the house, it is ok to get rid of books your child has that you don't like (even if they were a gift) it is ok to want the same meals week after week for the sake of routine and order.  It teaches how things like routine, order and structure help a child feel grounded, and I feel might just help my sanity a little!

Some of my favourite quotes from the book so far are:

"I've found that the simplest path to real and lasting change is through the imagination.  "Nothing happens unless first a dream..."  When you create a mental image of your hopes, you can chart a course.  You create a picture that you can step into.  Like a lasso thrown around a star your imagination navigates the surest path to your goal"

"Nature is a warm sensory bath that can counterbalance the cold overwhelm of too much activity, information, or "stuff".

"When your child seems to deserve affection least, that's when they need it most"

"As children reach school age, they can begin some simple crafts.  Whittling and knitting for example develop graphomotor skills just as children are beginning to write.  Beadwork and sewing, woodwork and candlemaking, papier-mache and ceramics.  Especially when schools are dedicating less time to art, parents can make sure that art, play and crafts are richly valued at home"

"By limiting choices in the early years you give children the time and freedom to develop their inner voice."

"Too many smells.  All of these competing, chemical perfumes get the amygdala firing, and cortisol and adrenaline pumping."

I could go on, I highlighted so many sentences and paragraphs throughout the book so far.  It is well worth a read to give you a contrast to the popular way of parenting by pushing children to do more and more, and working harder and harder to get more money to buy children more and mores stuff that they don't need.  The book is a relaxing, easy read, you can relate to the author who speaks on a level that an ordinary person can understand.

Have you read this book?  What did you think?  What parenting books are you reading?  What do you recommend?  I wan to know what to read next!!