rug « Behind the Willows

There has been a lot of buzzing in the world about the KonMarie method. If you don’t know what that is, that’s alright, the key words are the KonMarie method of tidying up. Honestly I’m not sure exactly what it all entails but getting rid of stuff, particularly stuff that doesn’t bring you joy, seems to be it’s main priority. Now, I’m not a hoarder, I just like to keep things that might one day be useful (Said every hoarder in existence ever). I like to think of it more that I embrace the practicality and frugality of my dairy farming heritage along with a strong urge to reuse items that might have further use (Dang, I still sound like a hoarder don’t I?).

My house is not piled high with old newspapers but I do have a good collection of worn out clothes that some people call rags and others just call garbage. But I just made a pile of them into a rug.

Validation.

I don’t have stacks of things littering my living room but I do have useful odds and ends tucked away in boxes for “someday”, “just in case” and “parts of it are still good.”

Today I used a drawstring out of a pair of shorts I threw out in college (that was before my rag collecting days but I kept the drawstring because it was still good), and one of those plastic doohickey’s you can put on a drawstring to tighten it up and lock it there (salvaged off a defunct Christmas item) to replace the non-existent drawstring on my husband’s sleeping bag stuff-sack (an item that I’m pretty sure was saved by my parents for “just in case”).

Validation.

You can KonMarie all you like, I’m saving my cast off bits and doodads and springs of all shapes and sizes. Those doohickys and rags really do come in useful, eventually, and those springs, well I’m with Marie on that one. They bring me joy.

Disclaimer: I clearly don’t know anything about Marie Kondo or her methodology. I just wanted to write a blog post to brag about the fact that my ferreting away of “useful” things really is useful. Sometimes. And also so that I could photograph a spring. Because I love them.

My mom tells people that her house is decorated in “Early Cottage” style. This is not so secret code for “Yes, our furniture is mostly made up of unwanted pieces from the summer cottages, half of which may border on antique, but that’s merely by happenstance.” The cottages are old.

There was a time in my life when this embarrassed me to no end.

Of course that was during those years where the fact that I had parents that interacted with other people embarrassed me to no end.

Those times are gone.

I now happily go out in public with either of my parents and have a house complete with a few “Early Cottage” touches of it’s own

rug

I love my “Early Cottage” rug and thought it would be a perfect addition to this weeks Mundane Monday even if the clouds did roll in before I caught the beam of sunlight that often falls across it.