"Swedish Death Cleaning" also known as "Your Kids Don't Want It"

 

Have you heard of “Swedish Death Cleaning”?  If you haven’t, I urge you to do a quick search and read up on it, but basically it is the idea that you go through all the stuff you’ve been holding on to for years so that when you do die, you haven’t left a mess of stuff for your family to sift through.  The process forces you to acknowledge well in advance of your absence that your children aren’t going to want all of your stuff and you have the responsibility (burden? chore?) to dispose of it appropriately.  This is NOT Marie Kondo’s “does it spark joy?”…no, this is, “Will it spark joy for the people who have to deal with it when I’m not here to deal with it myself?”  It’s really a game changer and really can be tackled by anyone, at any stage of life.

 

Let me back up, though.  This journey started BEFORE we became empty nesters.  Our neighbors moved from a home where they’d lived for two decades, where they’d raised their family and, while I expected there to be a lot of stuff, I was actually stunned by the sheer volume of stuff that came out of their house and it just kept coming.  I was simply stunned.  Yes, they’d lived in their house a few years longer than we had lived in our, but still.  Did I have that much stuff filling the unseen corners of my home?  That was the moment I started looking at my own house and the things that filled it through new eyes and started getting rid of stuff.  The question I posed as I looked around a room?  Would I move this stuff?  Seriously, do I like it enough to pack it up and lug it to a new home?  As you might imagine, the number of times my honest answer was,  “Um, no,” was high.

 

We all have so much “stuff” these days and it can easily cross into too much stuff.  Take your kitchen, for example.  How much stuff do you have in your kitchen?  How many appliances do you have that you NEVER use?  I have a milk shake maker…I am lactose-intolerant and I don’t like milk shakes!  (My husband loves milk shakes, however, and won’t let me get rid of it, even though he has never used it…we inherited it and WE HAVE NEVER USED IT!)  Bundt pan, anyone?  And when, exactly, was the last time you made a bundt cake? 

Do you have a springform pan?  When was the last time you actually made a cheesecake?  Also, how many cookbooks do you have?  Do you ever actually open them and look for a new recipe to try?  Do you see where I’m going with this?  Why do we have all of this stuff?  What exactly are we saving it all for?

 

Anyway, I digress.  The point is, watching (and helping) our neighbors move, I was motivated to get rid of a bunch of stuff even before the kids moved out.  But that was only the beginning…

 

We were one of those families that held on to a lot of stuff “for when the kids moved out”. They each took what they wanted and left the rest behind.  Yep, you read that correctly: a bunch of stuff “for the kids” was left behind when the kids moved out BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T ACTUALLY WANT IT.    When they had the option to take it or leave it, they left it.  Your children aren’t going to value the same things you do because, wait for it, they aren’t you.  They grew up in a different era than you did and they have different taste and different priorities.  Think about it.  When was the last time you heard of anyone wanting the family china?  I know of people who are desperate to get someone to take one of the MULTIPLE sets of the china they’ve inherited because they can’t bear to sell it or give it away because it meant so much to Aunt So and So and it was so nice of them to leave it to them.  Their kids don’t want it, their siblings don’t want it.  Life is different now and china doesn’t hold the same significance for this generation that it did for previous generations and all the hoarding in the world isn’t going to change that.  Combine this with the fact that modern households already have so much stuff and you can see the beauty of Swedish Death Cleaning.  With this process, you have to get real and you have to make hard decisions.

 

The questions are:  Why do I have this?  Do I use or do I just want it? Will/do my children want it? If I’m “saving it for them”, why don’t I just give it to them now?  There are no wrong answers.  It’s the process that matters.

 

So, how did it work for me?  (When in doubt, I did double check with my kids before getting rid of something I really thought they could use.)  The easy stuff first:  Firstly, any furniture that the kids didn’t take with them when they moved out and that we didn’t love or have a use for was donated.  This included art that was not currently on the walls and various other decorative items I seem to always have waiting in the wings. 

 

Then, we got rid of “family with kids stuff” that didn’t get taken…board games we weren’t fond of, extra bikes, camping equipment, sports equipment, etc.  My husband even gave away his RC car to a kid who was thrilled to have it.  (During this part of the process, one of my kids did actually want the camping equipment we were getting rid of, so score one for Mom.)  Still, all of this was pretty easy to deal with because we weren’t talking a lot of emotional attachment to the stuff we were going through.  Not really attached to “Disney Monopoly”, you know?  This part of the cleaning was much more a process of considering, “does this serve a function in our current phase of life?”    The same went for a lot of files I had kept over the years.  Stuff like paperwork for the purchase of our first house and tax returns for 30 years…why leave those for anyone to deal with?  Also, I didn’t really need my kids pre- and post-orthodontic photos any more.  Nor did I need their curriculum paperwork (as a homeschooler, I did need this stuff until they transitioned to college and the “official” records would suffice).  I scanned the stuff I wanted to keep and shredded everything.  (My file drawers have so much room!)

 

Next, I tackled my sewing room and this is where it got harder, partly because I still actively sew and partly because, “hey, I might use it!”.  Still, I got rid of patterns I was never going to sew, because I’ve learned more about sewing what I wear since I bought them.  I got rid of sewing books that had disappointed or just weren’t helpful to me.  I even got rid of some fabric that I just didn’t like and knew I wasn’t going to use for anything.  I feel I made some progress here, but I think as long as I am sewing, this room will be a work in progress.

 

Then came the emotional, tug at your heart strings stuff.  The photos and other keepsakes, like stuff animals, yearbooks and various kids’ keepsakes.  Additionally, I had somehow become the repository of a bunch of stuff from various family members and I didn’t want punt it down the road for my kids to deal with, so I dug in.  First things first, I taped up empty boxes for each of the kids and filled them with sentimental items I had saved over the years.  Mickey Mouse ears, check.  Cute baby t-shirt, check.  Art that was sent home from school, check.  Each kid got boxes of varying size, depending upon whether I’d off-loaded any of their stuff to them earlier.  (Charming’s box was pretty small, because as my oldest, I’ve been handing his stuff off to him for years!)  All in all, this was pretty straight forward because I’d been pretty organized throughout the years.  It was time for me to well and truly say goodbye to this stage of life and by handing these items off to the kids, I was doing just that.  So, I packed it all up and shipped it off to the rightful owners.  My children can decide for themselves if some art something or other is still special to them or it isn’t and if it isn’t, then they can get rid of it.

 

Additionally, I have a cousin who does genealogy and I sent stuff to her.  (She was thrilled.)  I have a half-brother who should have all of the stuff associated with his father’s family that had somehow ended up in my house. (Bet he’s not so thrilled, but I’m sure his wife is, so there is that.) This stuff was sent to the people who should be the keepers of their heritage, rather than having it tucked away in boxes in my closet.  It felt so good to send it on its way, knowing it was going where it belonged.

 

Then came the photos.  So many photos.  So many pre-digital camera photos.  Boxes of photos and boxes of negatives.  Here is a painful truth for you:  You know how you’re absolutely in love with your child and you just take photo after photo after photo of the child being absolutely adorable while its sleeping or sitting or eating?  Yeah?  Well, actually, no one is going to want to sift through 600 photos of the same child at the same age doing the same thing (which we know is just sitting there being adorable) in slightly different positions.  Man, I was in love with my kids and when I went through the photos, I was immediately transported back to that time and my heart swelled with the love I have for those children.  But guess what?  Some of them were still crappy photos and we didn’t need 600 of them.  Sooo, I set about the task of curating the photos.  I was brutal.  I didn’t give a photo a second chance.  If it went in the toss pile, it stayed in the toss pile.  I was hard-hearted and I THREW AWAY PHOTOS OF MY PRECIOUS CHILDREN.  There, I said it.  I threw them away!  But the ones I kept were the good photos, the ones my children will be able to show their children someday, the ones that will make THEM smile in remembrance.  I am also doing the hard work of scanning the photos I’ve retained into the computer and labeling them with names and dates so the details won’t be lost.  I’m doing the same with the photos I’ve inherited, while I still remember who the people in them are.  When I’m all done scanning everything into the computer, I will send each child a drive with the complete collection.  Photos of them, their siblings, their ancestors, their previous homes, their fun vacations, the works.  They’ll each have them all and again, they won’t have to try to sort through this stuff on their own.

 

I still have work to do.   I have tackled the kitchen a few times already…I still have that darned milk shake maker.  I have some children’s books I need to pass along to my youngest.  I still have holiday decorations to go through (seriously…I’m not creating a winter wonderland for my kids at Christmas any longer, so I don’t actually want this many decorations.)  My goal is to make it so that there are no closets full of stuff I haven’t looked at in years, no surprises in trunks or bins, no cupboards I’m afraid to open.  I really want to know exactly what we have and why we have it.  

 

The way I see it, this is not really about preparing for dying, it’s about living deliberately.  There you have it:  my take on “Swedish Death Cleaning” or as I think of it, “Your Kids Really Don’t Want It”.

Making Your Home Sing Monday

If you read my post on Saturday, you understand that I've been feeling frayed at the edges these days. Honestly, I think committing to add exercise every single solitary day was the straw that broke this camel's back. However, since I'm unwilling to give up this commitment, I have to get back to basics in other areas of my life. One way I'm doing this is to jump back on the Making Your Home Sing Monday bandwagon. Nan at Momstheword hosts this each week as a reminder to us all that our choices and attitude will determine the mood of our homes for the day and the week. Obviously, I need this these days.

Look, chaos is always at the edge of our lives and it is my firm belief that only through presence, our presence, that we can keep it at bay and keep our homes tranquil. I shoot for tranquil every day and some days are far better than others. When chaos is seeming to reign, however, and I find myself reacting instead of being proactive, I know it is "time to clean my room". What does this mean? It was something my mom used to help me learn that I was in control of my life. Whenever things would be feeling crazy and out of control, my mom would tell me, "go clean your room, you'll feel better". Of course, I'd grumble and moan and complain, but I'd do it and, darn it, she was right. I always felt better. No, I didn't save my parent's marriage and I didn't get that 16 year old boy to fall in love with me immediately, nor did I get perfect skin and a flat stomach, but I felt more able to cope with my reality when my environment was in order. It is just that simple. So fast forward 30 years and I'm still using this lesson: When life feels like it is coming at your from too many directions, "clean your room".

Reacting doesn't help me live my priorities with any integrity. Reacting gives me built in excuses as to why things I say matter don't get done. I have to be proactive to make sure that I'm living my priorities rather than just paying lip service to them. If I treat my jobs as "oh, yeah, I meant to get to that" kinds of things, how can I expect my children to treat their jobs as important, as priorities?

What does "clean my room" mean these days? Well, here it is 8:30 on Sunday evening and I'm not scrambling to get the kids' syllabus for the week done. It is already done and printed. I'm not going to fly by the seat of my pants for our dinners this week, either, because our menu plan is done. Finally, I'm not going to feel badly about posting in the evenings because I'll be posting early in the game rather than late. Monday chore day? I've gotten a head start and my sheets are changed and already washed and dried and waiting patiently for me to fold them this evening. Valiant's book for the Adolescent Literature Seminar? Already on order at the library; so we'll get that within a day or so, giving him more than a week to read Grapes of Wrath.

So, for this week, we're planning ahead so that next Saturday, I won't be pulling my hair out and holding on for Sunday. We're living our priorities, meeting our commitments and making no excuses. This week our house will be singing Loverboy's Everybody's Working for the Weekend because we're going to be dialed in and on task. (Hey, what can I say? The 80s were my teenage and young adult years!)

So, head over to Momstheword to see what everyone else is doing as we all join in on Making Your Home Sing Monday.

Today feels like a Monday...

After a three-day weekend that included a much anticipated birthday, today is definitely feeling like a Monday. The high point here is that Superman felt the same way, so I got two dates this week, rather than one! (For anyone who's counting, I've now had 16 Egg McMuffins in 2009--I've definitely slowed down since the January feasting!)

Since I homeschool Valiant and Buttercup, I've found Mondays can go one of two ways: 1) If everything stayed relatively calm and relaxed over the the weekend, the kids just sail into their school week; or 2) If everything stayed in a high state of chaos for the weekend (like with a much anticipated birthday), schooling barely gets started, as the chaos of the house must be put in order before their minds (and mine) can be calm and focused. Guess which kind of faux Monday we're having today?

So, while little schoolwork has been completed, the bathrooms are scrubbed, the bedrooms cleaned, Valentine's day decorations are removed, three loads of laundry have been done, Valiant (oops, excuse me!), the Red Fox and I have exercised, the dishwasher is unloaded, the furniture has been put back in position after some much needed carpet cleaning got done before bedtime last night, and we are all finding our groove.

Because it is, in fact, Tuesday, this is going to make for a tough week...I don't modify the weeks based on decisions like this...the schoolwork still gets done, just at a different pace. (No matter how busy Superman's weekend was, his work has to get done, so the kids might as well get used to those expectations for them now.)

Since I'm playing household clean-up, I though you might enjoy some interesting posts from some blogs I read. Go check out Lara's post at The Lazy Organizer...she's made some interesting changes in her diet and shares her results with us all. I admit to being intrigued. She's also the one who gave us all the link to this amazing (cautionary?) story about plastic from Discover Magazine's May 2009 issue: The Dirty Truth About Plastic. Pretty Organizer at Pretty Organized Palace has some terrific tips to get a lot done with minimal effort in this post. Finally, Mary at Owlhaven.net saw her first child married on Saturday and has a post about the clever things they did to make it special and frugal at the same time. The real value in the post, though, is the love you "hear" as you read her description of her daughter's wedding day. It will bring tears to your eyes (in a good way!).

For now I'll leave you all with that, while I continue to restore order and harmony to my home. (But I'll be back later tonight to show you Valiant's birthday cake...I tried something new and exciting and it actually turned out well!) Until then, have a terrific Tuesday-that-feels-like-a-Monday!

Being Mindful...

I've been thinking a lot about living life in a mindful fashion these days. Maybe it is my growing awareness that the time has been passing as I acknowledge my children aren't babies anymore or maybe it is the thought I've been putting into my own life as I talk with others about their lives, but whatever its source, the word that I keep coming back to is : Mindful.

Quite simply, being mindful means being deliberate and conscious of our actions and choices and owning those actions and choices, even when the results aren't ideal. Whether we're talking about spending money, caring for our physical bodies, caring for our spiritual selves, finding balance in our home lives, keeping the house, raising children, working, or whatever, I think we must be mindful of our actions.

To me, living in a mindful way means taking the time to think about what I am doing and why I am doing it and what I hope to accomplish from doing whatever it is I choose to do. Being mindful means I can't do things just because I've always done them that way. Being mindful means I must do status checks on the various aspects of my life to make sure that I am on the track to accomplish my goals. Being mindful means I take the time to balance out conflicting wants and needs and come to some compromise deliberately, having taken into account as many factors as I can. Finally, being mindful means that I recognize "stress" is simply an indication that change is required somewhere.

Momstheword posted today about balancing work/chore/family needs and how everyone comes up with a different balance. While her post was directed more towards parenting goals, the idea of balance is universally applicable. To me, the best balance is the one that you've come by mindfully, deliberately, where you've acknowledged that you can't do everything you'd like and you prioritize the things you want and need to do and cobble them together to make a life that works for you. It is when we feel overwhelmed by demands that we know we're out of balance and not being mindful and we need to revisit the way we do things to regain that balance.

Being mindful allows us to translate stress into change and, ultimately, peace and balance.

Stress is just an indicaton that something needs to change. Being mindful means I don't just throw my hands up in despair and let things remain stressful. If something has become a source of stress, then I need to be mindful to determine how my life has gotten out of balance and make changes to address that change.

There is no one-size-fits-all lifestyle or formula. We all have different needs and wants that must mesh with the other members of our lives. It is only by honest assessment that we can keep things in balance.

One bloggy friend admits that she's going to cut back (by one day) the number of days a week she works because she's discovered adding that one day this year threw everything out of balance. Yes, I'm certain the extra money was good, but the price has been too high for her and her family.

Another friend is changing the way she manages her household because the stay-at-home patterns don't work for a now-working-out-of-the-home mom. Maybe she'll have to compromise on cleaning standards or maybe she'll need to cook a little less from scratch. All these areas will need to be tweaked until she gets it right.

On the flip side, my sister is still defining her goals as a stay-at-home because she's never had the luxury to be home before. She doesn't actually have a fully-formed picture of her well-cared-for home because she's almost always put her compromises in the home category. Last year, however, it all became too out of balance for her to live with and home needed to be tended to and work had to move to the back burner. While I have no idea what her well-cared-for-home looks like, I am certain that before she's done, she'll try and discard many combinations of priorities before she settles on the one that brings balance to her and her family.

As for me, when I decided to homeschool my children, our homelife was turned upside down and every single thing I did had to be reconsidered. I was never alone...it was like having toddlers again. Suddenly, instead of a few solitary hours every day to get the house clean and the chores and errands done, I had to schedule it around the homeschooling. Exercising? I had to do it when the kids are doing their computer work. Errands? Done after the kids were done with their work. Like shaking a sand sculpture, its taken adjustment to get it just right and even "just right" only lasts for a little while and a new pattern emerges. There is no perfect pattern...there is only what works. Now that Valiant (oops, I mean the Red Fox) exercises with me, I have to make certain the time we spend exercising doesn't interfere with his schooling. As their interests change and the demands on our time changes, I am constantly making adjustments.

The one thing these women (and I) all have in common is that they are being mindful of their lives, aware of the influences at work, and figuring out how to balance everything in a world where nothing stays the same.

Are you mindful? How do you decide how things get done? or NOT done?

Being organized did not come naturally to me!

For all of you who think that being organized comes naturally to me, you have to read my post to my sister at 365 Things You Didn't Know About Me. There is photographic evidence of my messy past! To amuse you even further, I am reminded of the story of the burglary my family experienced when I was a teenager. Upon entering my room, the police were stunned by how much damage the burglars had done, to which my parents replied, "Oh, no, they didn't touch this room. " True story, cross my heart! (Tell them, Dad!)

It is Organizing Season...

I read that tag line at Jane's Apron and loved it (and told her so). The Christmas tree is down, the decorations are put away, and I am feeling light and free.

So, here it is New Year's Eve. I don't make resolutions, but the airy feel that comes from rediscovering all the space my home really has inspires me to keep going. I get our files in order, shredding the old, cleaning out drawers that have gotten disorganized with the lack of attention I've given them over the past few months. After feeling almost disconnected to my home by the change the holidays bring, I feel rooted again. I'm ready to get us all back on track, keep to our routines, and get things back to normal. Obviously, I'm not the only one, because people are writing about the same thing all over the blogosphere.

Like Jane, I signed up for Martha Stewart's Organizing Tip of the Day. (Do I think I want to be Martha Stewart? No, no, no...but I do like help staying on track.) Melissa, at the Inspired Room, posted her 4 Best Tips for Creating Order Every Day at Blissfully Domestic and I agreed with them all. Now that the holidays are over, I'll be back to my morning laundry routine, which sets the whole day on the right track. Pretty Organized Palace has 5 Quick things to organize right now to help us get started feeling light and in control as we go into 2009.

I'm ready to clean out closets, get back to sewing, and start planning our spring garden. The post-Christmas doldrums have passed and I'm ready to go.

Do you like to start fresh after the holidays? What do you do?

It is always the same...

at this time of year. I'd have to say this is my favorite time of year, but... by the time Christmas has been put to bed, I am feeling so overwhelmed by the "things" we have, that I am chomping at the bit to clear them out. Superman and the children have put their feet down and the Christmas tree MUST stay up until New Year's Day. So that means my furniture is rearranged and normal is not yet attainable. Instead, Christmas decorations disappear a little bit at a time...slowly, slowly, so I don't get caught and accused of "not being in the spirit". The stockings and holders are put away, the singing angels in Buttercup's room are put away, the Advent Christmas tree that was in Valiant's room is packed up, as are almost all the kitchen decorations. Christmas music isn't playing all the time and the tree is not lit.

Like this post from Generations Gone By, I'm trying to get back to normal, predictable, even routine and pedestrian are fine! So, the sheets are in the dryer, another load is in the washer, the bathrooms have been cleaned, and Superman is back in the garage doing some amazing garage thing. It is back to paying bills and thinking about groceries. I'm wrapping up year end paperwork, getting things cleaned out and decluttered for the new year.

Yes, we have two birthdays in February, as well as Valentine's Day to think of, but for now, we're back to being just us with a Christmas tree.