Before I suggest an activity today, I want to share this piece of conceptual art my son produced the other day. He is four years old, and as such, poop is one of his favorite things to talk about.
In this masterful drawing, he has combined visual representation of poop with text in a chaotic, yet repetitive way. His innovation in this piece heavily references Jean Michel Basquiat and perhaps even other users of the Fisher Price Magnadoodle
Speaking of things that go down the toilet… My old roommate and I used to have an activity that we called “Liberation through Clothing Donation”. As much as we hated dealing with cleaning out our closets, we loved the feeling of moving that bag of undesirable clothes out of our bedrooms and dropping it off at the GoodWill.
For the past few years, Heather has hosted a Clothing Swap, which enables us to go through each other’s bags before hitting the women’s shelter where we now donate our clothes.
And then, I learned about the 27-Fling Boogie. This is a phrase that comes from the FlyLady, who is an online trainer of housewives and househusbands. If you don’t have a housecleaner or nanny, you should definitely explore her site.
If you just want to feel good in about twenty minutes, try her suggested activity:
As fast as you can, take a garbage bag and walk through your home and throw away 27 items. Do not stop until you have collected all 27 items. Then close the garbage bag and pitch it. DO NOT LOOK IN IT!!! Just do it.
Next, take an empty box and go through your home collecting 27 items to give away. This will change the energy in your home and bring about good feelings. Every time I do this I feel better and my home is becoming decluttered in the process. As soon as you finish filling the box, take it to the car. You are less tempted to rescue the items.
Rule of thumb: if you have two of any item and you only need one, get rid of the least desirable.
Friends, you know this would be a better way to spend a nap than Internetting. And I know where to start with my purging – my makeup bag and jewelry box. What the hell am I storing in there? Quite a few things that qualify as trash.
I usually get stuck after a few items because of the whole reuse/recycle thing. So here’s my updated plan: First, throw 27 things in a bag or laundry basket. Then sit with them and sort them amongst the garbage, recycling, donation piles. You don’t want to lose momentum as you FLING unwanted items into your bag with thoughts of “How can I throw away a perfectly good bottle of lotion that I will never ever use because it smells like grapefruit and I hate grapefruit-smelling things?”
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Do it! I want to know how it goes… or come do it at my house.
As a (trying to reform) crap collector, I love this idea and will try it this weekend.
i’m the biggest horder. not as bad as that one woman on oprah (ok that was nastee) LOL
but…..i think i’ll start with my shoes. holy cow i cannot believe i just wrote that. but…it’s sooo necessary. it’s not funny anylonger i need to do it or do something. i llove your site.
great idea. does the flylady say how to find the time to do it?
Can we start with little toys that are a pain to pick up? Hehe!
I’m pretty sure my own makeup bag is pretty scary. Thanks for the reminder to get rid of stuff. My closet really needs an overhaul!
I LOVE FLylady. I have used her ideas for awhile now. My sister was “down in the dumps” one day and I went over to hang out. She was complaining about her house, specifically her play room. So I got two garbage bags and had her do the 27 fling boogie. We threw an entire bag of trash away, and another to donate. Which I took, so no one could go through it later.
It is amazing how much better she felt after only about 45 minutes, and how much better her play room looked.
Cluttered home, cluttered mind. Cluttered minds will lead to deppressed ones. So get a new attitude, and fling it girl!
I’m so glad to hear that you are also a flylady fan. I’ve been a closet flylady follower for about a year now and it’s really helped my house out. I guess I’ve always been embarresed to admit that I like her because her site is well, so housewife-y, but her system works so well!
Speaking of a 27 fling boogie, my familyroom is driving me nuts it’s so cluttered. I think I’ll go do a quick cleanup while Mr. Rodgers is still on!
I’ll take your grapefruit lotion.
I love the flylady! I just did a 27 fling boogie tonight. I was so tired when I got home, but there was clutter in the living room, so I just grabbed a garbage and threw 27 things away.
Now I need to get better at actually giving away my bags of “give away” clothes. Right now they are cluttering up the garage!
Y’know, I found I was more motivated to actually clean and fling etc once I found a local homeless shelter. Example – when cleaning out my closet of bedding, when I was conflicted on giving something away I’d ask “am I okay that someone is cold/sleeping on a floor and I’m keeping this in my closet?”
Of course – funny how all of hubby’s bachelor bedding went to donate but most of my stuff stayed.
you must be reading my mind. i am so doing this. though i feel guilty throwing things away…
So does this “poop” activity make him stop saying it? If so, i will try it because my 5 and almost 4 year old talk about poop incessantly. I’m so tired of it!