Bee my Valentine!

Don't bee shy! (the camera loves ya)

This post will be short and sweet, like its main characters. But it won't bee a quickie.

On our driveway, two bumblebees are celebrating Valentine's Day in the best way they know how: making the bee with two backs.

So as naturally nosy primates, we took some photos. (Also available on video.)

Try another angle - beeautiful.

While Valentine's Day in New Zealand was yesterday, I prefer to beelieve there may have been extended courting - some special nectar and pollen, perhaps - and foreplay.

Clearly they have adopted the theme song "Why don't we do it the road", by the Beetles. A bit of research shows bumblebees mating on the ground is normal, but they can continue for 10 to 80 minutes!  One observer reported mating bumblebees can bee moved, so I did.

While much of the public concern over bee populations highlights honeybees, we need all pollinators much more urgently than honey.

So I hope you'll join me in wishing the happy couple a much longer and fruitful...coupling...beefore they buzz off.

Further bee puns may bee left in the comments.

Decluttering toys for a brand new year

After Christmas is the perfect time to make the New Year's Resolution of decluttering the toys. In our house, we have birthdays early in the New Year - even more motivation to make room for the new favourites.

Since I do regular toy audits, I don't have large dump piles. But my my youngest is now school-age, so there are quite a few toys that will not be missed much.

What's gone

Mr Potato Head and a puzzle or two went to a friend (always my first choice). My favourite charity shop also benefited from my constant search and seizure of tiny unloved treasures. It never stops. I try to remember my own advice on toy decluttering and the Top 10 Toys List.

A small building set went on Trademe - it's a quality set but we got lots more Lego and Brainbox for Christmas, and those are what we'll build on.

A shallow storage tray, reclaimed from wooden puzzles, became the Lego tray - much more accessible and stored under the couch.

Other bulky items on their way to another home...



The biggest win for the big picture was selling the kids' art tables.

My sister had these made and they are great. But kids grow.

It wasn't a large cash payout, but it was like the right move in those sliding number puzzles.

The student desks came downstairs into the office space with us...

The dollhouse moved into the toyroom.

Now the lounge looks one grade clearer and two grades more grownup.

Who am I kidding? I've just cleared space for bigger Lego projects!

What are your New Year decluttering goals?

Giving your way to freedom

Worth selling?

In my decluttering journey, I've sold many nice things.  Recently.....

Chasing value

Around each thing that owns me, I still see a double golden halo:

1. the money I spent on it
2. the money I could get for it

1. Illusion

The money I spent on it is gone. The time to save that money was when I decided to buy the thing - a good lesson for next time.

The thing is no longer my money; it is a thing of some functional worth to me.

Or it is not.

2. Gamble

The money I could get for it seems irresistible. Some of that GONE money could come back!

I'm gambling that the effort of selling will return enough money to be worthwhile.  Of course, from any cash I get, I must subtract all the time it takes to run an amateur secondhand shop. Time to:

• photograph
• advertise
• contact a buyer
• maybe wrap a package, address it, and take it to the post office.

An optimistic figure? 1 hour. How low must I value my time to leave any lovely money in my hand?

And some things didn't sell, so after all the effort, I simply gave them away. Or worse, left them in my house in the hope I could sell them later.

Winning the gamble

Some things can be worth selling. But remember the main benefit is a clearer space, a clearer mind, and a clearer life. So...

1. Be realistic about the money you'll get back
2. Value your time fairly

You'll gradually get a feel for your true profit margin, and when to just let go.

Most of what I showed you earlier in my sold portfolio?  Should have just let 'em go.

Giving away is not throwing away.

Yes, another person might gain from your stuff.  Value that more than the stuff and find freedom.

6 Years of Natural Weaning in 5 Steps

Welcome to the Carnival of Weaning: Weaning - Your Stories
This post was written for inclusion in the Carnival of Weaning hosted by Code Name: Mama and Aha! Parenting. Our participants have shared stories, tips, and struggles about the end of the breastfeeding relationship.

 I breastfed our son, on cue, day and night, from the day after his birth.  (You can read about the unpleasantly exciting birth in my previous Carnival post.

From the start, I stopped everything and responded to his every cue for milk. At one stage, I figured out that he'd figured out that I stopped everything and responded to his every cue for milk. 

When he started signing for milk when he didn't want milk but just wanted me to stop everything, I had to laugh and learn to respond to that a bit differently.

With our son, I learned at La Leche League that breastfeeding is far and away, bar none, no contest, baby, the best and easiest way to ease a growing child's journey through our rough, tough world.

Recipe

1. Take one sad or mad child
2. Fold closely in mother's arms
3. Apply gently to breast
4. Hold until fully done 
5. Repeat as desired
   

Result

• A happier, calmer, more grownup child

Magic like that is worth holding onto.

Weaning process - Step 1: Nature's weaning

So it was all "milk and who cares about honey because hey, there's milk" for the first two years of our son's life.  My pregnancy with our daughter was his first real experience of weaning - he was a few months past two when he noticed:

1. There was less milk
2. It tasted funny
3. Mummy said, "Ouch, time to stop!"

Reportedly, many children fully wean during a pregnancy, but our son simply adapted to all the changes.  Long breastfeeding sessions were too painful for me, but two-year-olds don't have a great need to breastfeed for long either.  He accepted the limitations, learned some manners, and we both just kept on bonding.

Weaning process - Step 2: Night weaning

I knew that I would be too tired with one newborn to also respond to our son at night.  Our son did not like sleeping by himself in a separate room, and he was a frequent waker.  (I moved him from my room due to my hyperalertness from PTSD, and I still can't help wishing it could have been different.)

We had already reached the stage where the breastfeeding response at night was very brief. Now we began Daddy Duty - when our son awoke lonely at night, he was comforted to sleep again by Daddy instead of me.

While our son did not embrace the change with joy, at the age of two he was able to accept it - the level of distress was manageable between him and Daddy.

Weaning process - Step 3: Bedtime

I knew there could be times when the new baby would need me at bedtime.  While our son could go back to sleep during the night with Daddy, I still always breastfed him to sleep at bedtime. I needed to go off duty.

This was probably the roughest toughest weaning we did.  One evening, I breastfed him (now 2y 9m) and then went to visit my sister's house - and only came back when Daddy told me he was now asleep.  It was pretty late.

But I knew he had Daddy with him.  And I knew he was not 3 months old, or 6 months old, but not far off three years old, with years of my love and strength behind him, the communication skills to express his emotions, and the knowledge of other means of comfort.

This isn't to say I never responded to our son at night or fed him to sleep again because of his new sister. But now he and I both knew he could do this without me.

Weaning process - Step 4: New sister

I was again in the hospital for an emergency surgical birth of our second child, so our son had to do without me for a few days. It was brilliant having him visit in those early days of milk engorgement - a newborn hardly makes a dent but a 3 year old?  Bring it on!

Word of warning

It may be that our son broke my waters early because I did not insist that the bouncy boy be super careful with my pregnant body during morning feeding sessions. Undercooked babies are often extra hard work, and if there's any chance that this warning could help someone else, it will be worth it.

He generally understood the new rule of Baby Goes First: he still got to breastfeed but the baby needed milk more as that was her only food.

Sometimes I actually tandem fed - both at once - but it was physically uncomfortable to hold those positions.  And usually at least one of them was wiggly enough to make me nervous about going two directions at once. So normally, he just learned to wait his turn.

Weaning process - Step 5: Life

Age 3, age 4, age 5, still awaiting his short turn at the breast in the morning. Sometimes patiently. Often he would get a short nighttime feed on one side before I took his sister for the long feed to sleep. 

But there were sleepovers at Grandma and Grandpa's or with school friends. He didn't miss me when I wasn't there.

And then he would get up and be more interested in a joke book than whether he got his turn.

And not long after he turned 6, he often complained he couldn't get very much.  With his sister (3) feeding only a few times a day now, I'm sure the leftovers were pretty low.  I told him that it was because he didn't need it very much anymore. I mentioned how lucky he was, and that probably none of his friends had gotten milk for this long.

Soon after that, I asked him if he was OK with not having milk anymore.  No problem.

Was it hard for me to stop after all these years? Well, he was getting pretty big and developing a real big kid attitude.  It was always very quick and even starting to feel not quite right anymore. It really was time.

He has a couple of times wistfully said he wishes he could still have milk. He still loves to get lap time, whenever we can and especially when his sister is getting her short feeds.

Perfect.

Thank you for visiting the Carnival of Weaning hosted by Dionna at Code Name: Mama and Dr. Laura at Aha! Parenting.
Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants (and many thanks to Joni Rae of Tales of a Kitchen Witch for designing our lovely button):

(This list will be live amind updated by afternoon May 21 with all the carnival links.)

• On Breastfeeding, Weaning, and One Mother’s Identity — Jessica at Natural Parents Network has been nursing one or more of her children since 1993 - breastfeeding is wrapped up in her concept of mothering and herself. She shares her thoughts on weaning.
• two tales of weaning — Aspen at Aspen Mama writes about their countdown to wean.
• Wean Me Gently — Tam at Please Send Parenting Books shares a beautiful weaning ceremony.
• You say potato, I say bleeeuuuuch... — Anelie at Mindcradle had read the books and knew just how to introduce her baby son to solids—unfortunately, he had other ideas.
• A Post Called Weaning — (Not) Maud at Awfully Chipper writes about how weaning her son took longer than she expected.
• On Weaning, Pregnancy and Emotion — Shannon at The Artful Mama talks about her mixed emotions as she allows her son, Little Man, to guide her through his weaning process.
• half of her life — Staci at Springpatch Jam looks back on her nursing relationship with her first born.
• Is it just this After Forty Mom or is it harder to wean when its your last? — Amanda of After Forty Mom shares her emotional journey towards the impending self-weaning of her toddler daughter.
• Nursing Limits — Jorje of Momma Jorje shares how she has weaned her toddler down to minimal nursing and her guilt about the decision to do so.
• Weaning Video Series #1: Preparation for the Weaning Process — Why is weaning such a taboo topic? Dionna at Code Name: Mama got mamas from across the blogosphere to start talking about weaning - on video. Come check out the first video in a series of five that she'll be posting this week.
• Weaning due to anxiety — Shannon at Pineapples & Artichokes talks about how she had to wean to preserve her mental health.
• When Will I Wean? A Guest Post — Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama hosts a guest post from a mama who contemplates when her breastfeeding relationship will end.
• On His Own Terms — Momeeezen shares her heartbreak from when her son weaned much earlier than she anticipated.
• Our Weaning Story - Sudden, Surprised, and Embracing a New Season — Weaning doesn't always go how we imagine. That Mama Gretchen shares the story of her daughter's sudden weaning and how she has embraced this new season of motherhood.
• A Tale of Two Weanings — Valerie at Momma in Progress shares the similarities and differences of how her nursing relationships with her now six-year-old and four-year-old daughters came to a close.
• She Doesn't Remember — Alicia at Lactation Narration finds that her 6 year old no longer remembers nursing, only one year after weaning.
• It's The End of the World As We Know It — A story about the end of a tandem nursing relationship on Never Mind The Rain: A toddler moves on to a new phase in her life before mom is fully ready.
• A Natural End To Our Breastfeeding Relationship — With two self-weaning children, Jennifer at Our Muddy Boots does not know when the end will come, but that it will be natural and without regrets.
• Child-Led weaning: It's Not Extreme; It's Biological — Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children explains why child-led weaning is based on biology rather than social constraints.
• 6 Years of Natural Weaning in 5 Steps — Jess at miniMum shares how and why she let her first child stop when he was good and ready.

• Is This Weaning?: A Tandem Nursing Update — Sheila at A Living Family bares all her tandem nursing hopes and fears during what feels like the beginning of the end for her toddler nursing relationship.
• Memories of Weaning: Unique and Gentle — Cynthia at The Hippie Housewife shares her weaning experiences with her two sons, each one unique in how it happened and yet equally gentle in its approach.
• Weaning Aversion' — Gentle Mama Moon shares her experience of nursing and unplanned weaning due to pregnancy-induced 'feeding aversion'.
• Three Months Post-Mup: An Evolution of Thoughts On Weaning — cd at FidgetFace describes a brief look at her planned (but accelerated) weaning, as well as one mamma's evolution on weaning (and extended nursing)
• Weaning my Tandem Nursed Toddler — After tandem nursing for a year, Melissa at Permission to Live felt like weaning her older child would be impossible, but now she shares how gentle weaning worked for her 2 1/2 year old.
• Every Journey Begins with One Step — As Hannabert begins the weaning process, Hannah at Hannah and Horn's super power is diminishing.
• Reflections on Weaning - Love Changes Form — Amy from Presence Parenting (guest posting at Dulce de Leche) shares her experience and approach of embracing weaning as a continual process in parenting, not just breastfeeding.
• Weaning Gently: Three Special Ideas for Success — MudpieMama shares three ideas that help make weaning a gentle and special journey.
• Guest Post: Carnival of Weaning — Emily shares her first weaning experience and her hopes for her second nursling in a guest post on Farmer's Daughter.
• 12 Tips for Gentle Weaning — Dr. Laura at Aha! Parenting describes the process of gentle weaning and gives specific tips to make weaning an organic, joyful ripening.
• Quiz: Should You Wean for Fertility Treatments? — Paige at Baby Dust Diaries talks about the key issues in the difficult decision to wean for infertility treatments.
• I thought about weaning... — Kym at Our Crazy Corner of the World shares her story of how she thought about weaning several times, yet it still happened on its own timeline.
• Celebrating Weaning — Amy at Anktangle reflects on her thoughts and feelings about weaning, and she shares a quick tutorial for one of the ways she celebrated this transition with her son: through a story book with photographs!
• Naturally Weaning Twins — Kristin at Intrepid Murmurings discusses the gradual path to weaning she has taken with her preschool-aged twins.
• Gentle Weaning Means Knowing When to Stop — Claire at The Adventures of Lactating Girl writes about knowing when your child is not ready to wean and taking their feelings into account in the process.
• Weaning, UnWeaning, and ReWeaning — Jennifer at True Confessions of a Real Mommy discovers non-mutal weaning doesn't have to be the end. You can have a do-over.
• Prelude to weaning — Lauren at Hobo Mama talks about a tough tandem nursing period and what path she would like to encourage her older nursling to take.
• Demands of a Nursing Kind — Amy Willa at Me, Mothering, and Making it All Work shares her conflicted feelings about nursing limits and explores different ways to achieve comfort, peace, and bodily integrity as a nursing mother.
• Breastfeeding: If there's one thing I know for sure... — Wendy at ABCs and Garden Peas explores the question: How do you know when it's time to wean?
• Five, Four, Three, Two, One, Two, Three? — Zoie at TouchstoneZ discusses going from 3 nurslings down to 1 and what might happen when her twins arrive.

Decluttering: a win-win

Last year I was lucky enough to win a beautiful set of eco-friendly bamboo party ware from Friendlypak in New Zealand. More about eco-friendly packaging...check out the new biodegradable cling wrap!

I had a serious decision to make - these bowls and trays are beautiful, but I already have a set of party bowls.  The prize bowls also needed a home...not the downstairs sofa.  So was their home in my home or someone else's home?

I implemented Workout #4 of my Productive New Year's Workouts and cleaned out all the shelves in my refrigerator, pantry, and other kitchen cupboards. That is a serious workout, and it lasted a couple of days.

Mid-clean

After

Not only did I get clean cupboards, decluttering is a natural side-effect.

I repackaged some food items and threw out some more.  We still have a full pantry, but just better.












 And just look at our wine collection.

We don't drink wine!

It always seemed wrong to just get rid of perfectly good bottles of wine.  So instead, we left them hidden away until they were no longer perfectly good bottles of wine. When the inner hoarder wins, everyone loses.  Those bottles of bubbly are from our engagement and wedding - some 15 years ago!

Out they went, the less antique ones free to friends who were up for a lucky dip, and the antiques down the drain and into the recycling.

And the prize for decluttering? 

A new home for my prize...

Don't they look great at my son's birthday party?

What things do you have hidden away that need a new home?

Co-sleeping Forever, or Why Blame Co-sleeping?

The boys get some rest.

Recently, in Gisborne, New Zealand, a tiny baby died in his mother's bed. 

The death is a tragedy.  Another tragedy is the reporting. 

"The tragic death of a Gisborne baby has highlighted the risks of adults co-sleeping with babies."

We are being instructed to believe co-sleeping is risky.

Not the mother leaving a 1-month old baby illegally with her 12 year old son so she could go drinking (and return to continue parenting drunk). 

Barbara Sturmfels described this media insanity well (commenting on Facebook):

Tragic yes, and tragically avoidable, but once again bed-sharing gets simplistically blamed by the coroner and the media for a baby's death. It's the alcohol that's the risk factor, not the bed-sharing. Bed-sharing is safe if it's done safely.

When a baby dies in a car accident at the hands of a drunk driver, does the news report say "The tragic death of a baby has highlighted the risks of driving with a baby in the car"? It says "... the risks of driving drunk..."

Safe sleeping guidelines are free in public hospitals and Plunket clinics throughout the country. Each misleading story drives some of us to repeat these guidelines as loud as we can without screaming.  The Coroner's Office and the Herald must know it.

Why do they blame co-sleeping?

Because that's the best they can do. 

They can't make irresponsible people into responsible parents. Some will drink, smoke, abuse drugs, and otherwise endanger their children - no matter what.

They can't make sure parents will always have a support person - a caregiver and/or a friend who will say, "Stop drinking, you've got a baby."  (Legend).

Driving drunk is illegal and can ruin your career - and some people still do it. Parenting drunk?  We're an alcohol abuse culture.  It's a growth industry.

Safe sleeping guidelines would not have saved that Gisborne baby.  The news report painted a vivid picture of consistently unsafe parenting.


It takes a village, and there is no village.

At the Coroner's Office

"Another drunk mother smothered her baby in bed."
"Tell them not to co-sleep."
"But you know co-sleeping can be done safely."
"I think they're not reading the pamphlets!  Another baby is dead!  I can't face another family ruined forever!  Tell them not to co-sleep!"

This approach is shortsighted - our families:

•  miss an irreplaceable bonding experience that benefits other cultures
•  risk unsafe co-sleeping due to ignorance and exhaustion

But the approach won't change. The alternative to the blanket ban is blanketing the community with safe-sleeping (and parenting) information and laws like the drink-drive or family violence campaigns.  We're talking about a sweeping culture change from the highest level - which will not happen.

No motivation for change

Even unsafe co-sleeping does not kill very many babies.  Unsafe co-sleeping notably kills very few babies from politically influential families.

And our society prefers to separate child and mother as soon as possible, so the mother can be an income-generator again.

And free pamphlets are not going to stop that.

Educate yourself

Our community must keep spreading the word.  Here are some words to the wise - not soundbites.

• Response statement (to the 2008 blanket ban).
• Co-sleeping truth and lies
• Should babies co-sleep with their parents?

Another myth put to bed

Your offspring may still want to sleep with someone when they're fully grown - but it won't be you. (Thanks Pinky McKay)


Co-sleeping with my kids

Alex started out in bed with me.  My birth trauma meant I couldn't sleep while he was nearby, so he ended up in a separate room.  I remember waking and searching through the covers for my baby.

I wish I could have bedshared longer with Alex.  He was a baby who needed lots of attention night and day. I wish I had tried bedsharing again later instead of walking the halls several times a night for so long.

With Nadia - different birth, different house, different result.  Nadia and I eased naturally into co-sleeping with a crib alongside the bed.  Instead of the traditional nuclear family setup, for more than three years we have had the girls' room and the boys' room.  One parent there for each child.

Independence Day (and night)

Nadia sleeps through pretty well now - I thought we might make changes as a special occasion when she turned 4. 

But discussions about sleepovers had Nadia suddenly putting her hot pink pillow onto her very own bed - the lower bunk that was Daddy's.  She wanted to "giggle all night" with Alex.

She still has company and usually a feed to get to sleep.  And she's always back in our bed by morning.  She is welcome.  Some nights she goes back and forth and back again.  I love this natural transition - she shows her own readiness.

It's nice being able to read myself to sleep in bed again.  I've earned it.  And it was worth it.

Stop the abuse cycle - I want to get off

A supermarket carpark, in a suburb near me. A woman about my age walks away with a knee-high girl.  

As they near the curb, the woman's words blow to me, as sharp as the cold spring wind.  "I told you to hold my hand, you "f*cking c*nt!"

Worlds collide
 
What a slap of reality for a vegan middle-class white mummy blogger among the babble exchanging versions of ideal parenting advice to raise confident children with high self-esteem and compassion for all.

Was this woman the girl's mother, or not?  Which would be worse?

Helping the helpless
 
Could I help that girl?  I am no role model when it comes to anger management.  I have lashed out in anger beyond my own children's capability to cope.  But can I actually reach a woman who delivers obedience and early road safety education to her tiny girl with the most shockingly anti-female obscenities in the English language?

I could have chased after them to deliver my shock and disapproval.  But I can't gift this woman my world view.  She didn't invent these child-rearing weapons -  she was taught them.  Her family probably didn't read the right mummy blogs or books either.

I can't offer that little girl a replacement mother.  I can't offer her legal protection - it's not illegal to swear at your child.  It's only just become illegal to hit them.  Is verbal abuse or physical abuse worse?  (Answer - Yes)

(I have been corrected by Elizabeth Harrop of Motherhood Denied - it IS illegal to swear at your children.  The Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989 covers emotional abuse.  Thank goodness.) 


Children in our care

What happens when this woman gets really angry about something? I worry that this is exactly what people see before the sensational news story breaks - complete with coroner's report.  If you can handle more real life shocks, read New Zealand child abuse statistics and weep.

Perhaps you are lucky enough to live in a country where things are better for your children.

Speaking the language

The problem is so much bigger than one bad mother story. This girl was getting her vocabulary lesson to join the permanent underclass that our "money above all" economy has designed.  Should she be taught "better" - and lose all capacity to communicate with her family and friends?  

Many of my favourite issues - veganism, minimalism, anti-consumerism, breastfeeding, attachment parenting - could help on a global scale, but we are still a world away from that sort of impact.

Apologies in advance, but this blog post contains no answers.

Words Matter

When the song Go the F*ck to Sleep  went viral, I couldn't listen all the way to the end.  Parental frustration is universal.  I have witnessed both "crying it out" and simply growling into the dark at a crying child, "Go to sleep!" As a co-sleeper who practices natural weaning, I do have some extra tools for easing children into sleep, but no method works 100%.

But that song felt like riding along with a wave of parent vs child crashing into verbal abuse and worse.  As a parent, I don't need more of this, and my inner child still trembles at an increasingly angry male voice.

And a little voice kept whispering "some people really talk just like that to their kids"...

Does it matter what we say to our kids?  Yeah.  And it's not f*cking funny.

Outsmarting your inner hoarder

You know your decluttering enemy - it's you.  You, and that little whisper in your head as you handle each thing that owns you:

"Keep just this one."

When you hear that whisper, fight with all you've got.  Here's some practice ammunition (see bullets :-)

Enemy Whispers

1. I might use this someday.

• Someone else can use this today.

2. I paid good money for this.

• My good money will be worth it once this gets used.

3. I might miss this if I get rid of it.

• What's the worst thing that would happen if I miss it?

4. If I fixed this, I'd use it.

• I stored this instead of fixing it - I probably won't ever fix it.

5. Oh, the memories!

• I could keep a photo, or a piece, or just one memento, and that would be just as good.

6. I'm going to start doing that again.

• Oh yeah?  When?

7. It's not taking up much room in that box.

• How many storage boxes belong in my life?

8. My kids could use it when they set up their own house. 

• My kids will have the same shops to choose anything they need, when they need it.  I don't need to run an amateur junk shop.

The world is stuffed

Close your eyes and imagine:

...your pile of unused stuff.
...adding the unused stuff from every house in your neighbourhood.  Now your city.  Now your country.
...all the factories producing more stuff every second.
...all the people who don't even have what they need and can't afford to buy new or buy at all.
...being a part of the solution instead of the problem.

It's easy.  Just take a deep breath, and let go.

Someone will thank you for it.  It might even be you.

A utility closet you can use...

There's one nice thing in this picture!

One great improvement

I'm remembering to take Before pictures when the decluttering bug strikes!

Both DH and I hesitate to throw away big bottles... a big case of the Just In Cases.

Would you believe there is a rubbish bin in this laundry room and the recycling bin is but a few steps out door #1 behind the little lady?


























The transformation didn't actually take long and DS and I even wiped down the shelves.

Yes, that's more like the number of items that we need for washing our clothes.  Isn't it astonishing how long we can live with a ridiculous situation?

The recycling bin got several armloads.

Homes for the homeless
I can now store our chilly bins (US translation: ice chests) on that tall bottom shelf instead of stacked next to the spare freezer.

More success for my digging deep method:  target hidden spaces because that's where you hide unused items.  Visible clutter is more often useful things without homes.  Get rid of stored junk and voila!  homes for the visible clutter.

Even extra laundry can be more fun with this sense of accomplishment!

What do you cling to Just In Case?  What busy corners of your house have gotten a bit too busy?

Toys - in with the new, out with the old

After listing our Top 10 Toys, I ruthlessly culled another lot of less-than-loved clothes and toys.

Kids, don't think of this as losing toys.  Think of it as being able to see the rest of your toys!

I made some tough choices here because I've already done so much releasing - some of these are pretty cool.  But I thought about whether a toy entertains either of the kids for as much as five minutes, and that helped.  Some toys (like the black and yellow motorbike which really is Super) just can't compete anymore in the pile of new scooters and real bikes.

So along with Red snail, Blue snail, Yellow snail, and Green snail and other favourites, they can make some other younger children happy now.

I also threw away a magnetic drawing board that was broken but still limping along.  It's quite hard for me to do that but our shelves look better already.

For those who don't have children, this may seem a strange and pitiful activity to brag about.  But life in our house improves with every item that is gone and not missed, and that is truly an art.

Do you discuss it with your children when toys need to go?

Objects of our affection - five relationship rules

1. What would a burglar take from your home?
2. What would you miss?

The answers to these questions may vary depending on whether you can afford good contents insurance.  But it's certainly worth considering what your emotional attachments are to the objects in your home, should they disappear due to burglary, or fire, or some other mishap.

Burglary - a case study

We've never had a houseful of interesting late-model or high-fashion goodies. (A houseful of other stuff, guilty!) When we were burgled several years ago in our previous home, they scored a mixed haul including my husband's work laptop, a knife block with an incomplete set of pretty good knives (!) but only thing they took that I cared about was my good jewelry.

One pair of earrings was a gift from my sister and the rest inherited from our grandmother, including my specially-designed (me and sis) engagement ring with vintage diamonds from her ring that I did not wear all the time...to keep it safer!

These lived in the beautiful wooden jewelry chest my husband bought me as a gift, in the bedside drawer. Beautiful, thoughtful, and for the record for any other innocents out there, obvious target for burglars. It took me a very long time to accept that the ring was really gone forever.  Now, I always wear the replacement ring, and the other good stuff I have is in a small box somewhere else that is less obvious.

Also for the record, handyman DH had our house secure: doors and windows.  The burglars forced the wooden window frames until they broke.  At a certain point, if they want to get in, they will.

Losing your stuff

Losing your stuff is actually the least of it.  Far more disturbing is that it changes your viewpoint in a number of unpleasant ways.  I have nightmares where I arrive home and see the strange disarray that means someone has invaded my home and helped themselves.  And after the burglary, I felt silly and naive for using this lovely box and thereby gifting so much so easily to the burglars.  Now I only use it as a decoy for old costume jewelry that I don't wear due to nickel sensitivity.

So neither my husband nor I wear the rings we exchanged at our wedding.  Admittedly, he lost his on our honeymoon, which must be some sort of record!

Lessons?

Should we avoid owning precious items, so they will never be taken?  That is one way of handling the problem, but it won't suit everyone.  You can miss out on some of life's real joys by rejecting attachment entirely.  So remember...

1. Enjoy what you have while you have it
2. Anything you have, you might not have tomorrow
3. Owning more precious items than you can enjoy will make your life less joyful
4. Losing a sentimental item does not mean the memories are also gone
5. People matter.  Actions matter.  Memories matter.  Places matter.  Things... looks like they are at best fifth place.

And one more rule, just for me

• It's dumb to let burglars ruin my enjoyment of a treasured gift, along with their other damage

So I'm going to start using my jewelry box again! But I'm still not ready to put it by the bedside...

Have you any other pearls of wisdom for those of us who really love our stuff?

This post was brought to you courtesy of the letter A, the number 12, and the Everyday Minimalist.

Brand new reality blog - it's Yoyo Day and YOU get to vote!

I have too many yoyos in my house.

What is a yoyo?  
This isn't like my marble collection - I bet you have yoyos in your house too.

Something catches my eye. I pick it up, turn it over in my hands, think "should I keep this?" can't really decide either way or a good way to get rid of it, and then whoops!  Down it goes.  Again.  Bingo, a yoyo!

I need your help!
Each week, on Yoyo Day, I will post a photo and history of a classic yoyo.   And you get to vote on what I should do with it.

Today's Yoyo

This is a really tough one for me.  This china was my grandmother's - it is vintage Royal Albert circa 1930 in OK condition and is probably worth something but I don't know what.  My mother shed it from her cupboards into mine and I have no china collection.  I have struggled with the choices:

1. Post pic and sell on Trademe
2. Donate and let worthy charity pick up whatever bonanza is in store
3. Keep because it is pretty and does have sentimental value

It's in your hands - vote now!

Should it stay or should it go now....?

OK, so you're looking around your house at all the things that got in sometime, somehow, and for some halfway decent reason.  How do you decide what needs to be kindly shown the door?  And my goodness, where do you start?  Everyone has their own methods - and here's mine so far.

It can be very tempting to tackle the obvious: all those ugly piles of clutter.  But I don't start there.  My visible clutter is often full of things I use on a regular basis.  So I could work hard one day every week decluttering and only accomplish pile shrinkage.  That sounds a little biological, and it's even less attractive than it sounds.

You hide your junk

Dig deep first.  Drawers and cupboards are gold mines for things I can release.

If I

• don’t use it 
• don't care about it 

that's great news!  It can go.  I have enough things that I do use or care about.

How do I know I won't use it?

To me, this means: - don't use now, don't foresee any use, and don't try to make one up.  If a use doesn't immediately spring to mind, then most likely, I will never need it.  99.9% of statistics are invented on the spot, but successful unclutterers unanimously report only isolated cases of declutter regret. I would prefer to declutter 100 things from my house even if I later found a use for 1 thing and had to buy it.  Because the charity shop would be stacked with all my "just-in-case" clutter and my house would look great.  Priceless.

• Just in case, if you are releasing something of noticeable monetary value, consider how you might recoup some of that value.  But I don't bother selling any item that won't get me at least $15 - my time and trouble is worth more.  Your arbitrary time value may vary.

I DO care about these things...
This can be very hard; some things I do care about, and some I will keep.  But remember:  "don't care about it" is different from "don't care for it."  I don't have to dislike it;  I might quite like something, but be honest - would I miss it if it weren't in the cupboard the next time around?  Wait, there's more!  "Don't care about it" is also different from "don't care about the person who gave it to me."  A gift is not your friend or your family. I know it is not always that simple: gifts deserve an entire post to themselves.

I then watch the space magically appear in my cupboards, shelves, and drawers.  Really!  Here are pictures of actual empty shelves in my house:

I admit this is not our main bathroom.  But that glass shelf up by the mirror used to be full of clutter.  All tidied or tossed now, and it holds only the toothbrush charger.

This shelf used to hold my icky marble jars and a stack of platters (one now donated, the rest tidied into the lounge cabinet with our good dinner set and why didn't I do that a long time ago?)

Lots of storage is not always good!

Here is a work in progress:

A bit of history:  We have 50? 100? of those groovy cubes in various stylish pastel colours, formed into a groovy pyramidal cube stack shelf.  That wasn't as useful as we thought, so instead we have them in various places where they have been useful.  Cool.  When I got a hankering for some extra junk shelves in the kitchen, I commanded my handy dandy DH to slap some of these pretty cubes up there.  For telephone books and stuff.

OK, I'm still convinced they could have been secured invisibly just by their backs or something.  Antigravity generator, maybe?  But nooooo, DH mumbles something pointless about wall studs and weight bearing and the next thing I know, my beautiful dream is surrounded by naked wood braces and visible screws.  And I'm too vertically challenged to use the top row, much less the top top.  I know how Alex got those dinosaurs up on the top top, but I don't want anyone calling child services on us.

My point (and I do have one) is that I have these shelves in my sights.  Look how empty they are.  All I have to do is hide DH's belt bag and they could be (like the dinosaurs) history.  Wish me luck!

Results

So, I've cleared shelf and cupboard space.  Now is the it's time to look at those clutter piles.  Once the rubbish is sorted out, maybe there is a home for the rest, beautifully tidied away somewhere.

I then watch the space magically appear on my flat surfaces.  Aaahhhhhhhh!

So why is this process so complicated and difficult?  Many reasons.  But it really is, otherwise, everybody would have already accomplished it without talking about it.  It's not just you and me.

What are your projects and processes?

Some other great posts on this topic: A Thing A Day and Mind Over Clutter.  And don't miss 101 things to reduce.

Living the life you have...

I would claim not to be a collector or hoarder, but I've just discovered I have a very large collection indeed.  Of marbles.  How can this be?

My mother was quite the marble champeen in her day.  This is not hereditary, so I'm not pointing fingers.  But there was a collection of marbles (in a blue metal tin) from my parents when I was growing up .  I like marbles (what's not to like?) so when I had my own home, I put them into pretty glass jars by color and displayed them on windowsills as suncatchers.  Pretty.

Pausing for true confessions - I admit that for all my air of puzzlement and wonder, I do have a magpie sparkly acquisitive streak a mile wide.  Despite having such severe shortsightedness that the New Zealand taxpayer funds my contact lenses in the infrequent intervals they need replacing, I have in a tiny little bag one tiny little cubic zirconia and one great hurking 1 carat plus CZ.  Both of these I spotted on the street and my little beady eye somehow processed them as not just random glass cracklings.  You explain it, I can't.  I also always find coins on the road.  In one moment too unlikely to invent, my husband once gleefully pounced on a nearby coin, only to have me stroll over and pick up the $2 one not far away.

Fast forward to our current house, which has wooden Venetian blinds everywhere.  Bye bye windowsill displays.  With nowhere to put my precious pretties, I naturally... put them back into a box for years.  I took out one jar because my son likes marbles, but I doled them out super carefully (I'm sure I had a great reason for this that escapes me now.)

With the large collection stored out of mind, and with both children enjoying the feel of marbles and other smooth glass objects during their preschool activities, I started buying bags of marbles when they appeared at my favourite secondhand shop.  $2 for a big bag of marbles and glass treasures, hooray!  Tuck that away for next birthday... oh, the cleverness of me.

In my grand decluttering effort, I have rediscovered my marble display jars, much the worse for wear from storage.  Still nowhere to put them even if I wanted to display icky jars.  But with my new mindset, of course I decanted them all into the current marble collection.   And thus I have an embarrassment of marbles.

At two litres or so, I have exceeded any possible normal fondness for marbles.  I admit enjoying plunging my hand into the bucket and rolling them around, but you can only do that so many times.  The kids look a bit confused, play with a few of the cool ones, and eventually dump them all over the floor.

This chronicle is the longhand history of only one lot of unnecessary stuff that's innocently taken over my life, simply because I didn't bother to acknowledge that certain things I owned no longer had a home in our new home.

We have kitchen things committing the same crime - our new house has an insanely small oven which can't even take a standard cookie tray.  Yet we still have large expensive roasting pans from the days of yesteryore when our oven was from the good old days and could roast the Christmas turkey.   The only way we can use these pans is with a kitchen remodel.  Yet they are only now appearing on the "begone" list.

And hands up anyone else who has stacks of clothes for the size they want to be again?  I admit I'm still not giving up on this one!

How much of your clutter is from places you used to live, or for the home you wish you were in, or for the  person you wish you were?

I assure you, I will be working very hard to lose my marbles.  And what would you make of two wildly mismatched cubic zirconias?