Have you heard of the book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up? It teaches you the KonMari method, which is basically a controlled purge of all your possessions, keeping only the things that “bring you joy.” The KonMari method is difficult for hoarders like Hazy and me, but it also feels really good when executed properly. The degree of difficulty increases exponentially when you are KonMari-ing the toy pit, because of its depths of toy hoarding spaces, and then becomes impossible when you try to include the kids, because they think literally every toy they have (or once had or once saw on TV) brings them joy.

But under my ruthless guidance/doing it myself, we managed to fill one giant contractor bag of toys and one shopping bag of books to donate, plus and one trash bag of trash. I told the kids they could each get a new toy if they got rid of all the old ones they don’t play with and donated them to “kids who don’t have any” (which is the term Matty and I always use for Boomerangs/Goodwill/Savers).

I forgot to place some limits on said toy, and that is how we ended up with this mouthpiece of Satan in our home.

George got a Lego Star Wars sticker book, which was actually pretty cool. Also, I made his dreams come true by finding this:

I also got Matty a mug that says “Communist Party” and has Stalin, Marx, et al doing funnels and wearing lampshades on their heads. Needless to say, it was a very successful shopping trip.

One of Hazy’s chores is setting the dinner table, and last night, she added sunglasses to everyone’s place settings. When questioned, she pointed out the obvious, “because we’re having a cool dinner.”

p.s. We also got those Mad Libs. Yeah!