Do you know that raspberry vodka tastes good with everything?

Since I was temporarily laid off almost three weeks ago, I’ve been doing a lot of cleaning and organizing around the house. I’d feel like a total failure if I went back to work on July 2 and my house still looked like it did in March. I’ve GOT to show some domestic improvement for all this time off, right? Or is this just my mother-in-law inside my head?

Anyway, I’m sure you’ve all heard of Marie Kondo. Dave read this and told me to change it to: Some of you might have heard of Marie Kondo. Anyway, she wrote a book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. And she has a website: konmari.com. I’m gonna be honest with you. I’ve never read the book or visited the website until about 30 seconds ago when I went to grab the link for this article. I’ve always considered myself a clean freak and a germaphobe. I like organized drawers, cupboards and closets. But the petite and adorable Marie Kondo would have probably shuddered if she’d ever seen my cupboards and closets, now that I’ve seen what she considers clean and organized.

A friend added me to the Marie Kondo – Let’s Tidy Up Facebook page a few weeks ago (I can’t remember who, but thank you). I accepted because, I mean, what else is there to do during lockdown, right? So, I began perusing the posts on Facebook during my hours of when I’d normally been making money for my company.

I scoffed at the group. There’s nothing “life-changing” about tidying up?! What is this, the 50’s?! I have a career, that’s life-changing! My kids are thriving, that’s mind-blowing! Jesus Christ is my Saviour, that’s transformative! Who cares if the clothes in my closet are arranged by colour?! I scoffed at the pictures of neatly folded shirts and pants that Facebookers shared so happily on the group. I laughed when they asked about what to do about their mismatched socks and muttered under my breath that they should just shove them back in the drawer in singles like I did. Life is too short to care about matching socks. That’s what my daughter and I tell ourselves when we proudly wear mismatched socks, which we do all the time, by the way.

But then, on a particularly boring day when the thermometer was below zero , when Dave was working and the kids were online in school and I had nothing to do – the house was clean, dinner was in the Instant Pot, the laundry was done – I went to my room and opened my t-shirt drawer, which was a disaster. After staring at it for a few minutes, I pulled everything out and decided to KonMari the drawer.

I and started folding. And oh, my goodness, I saw the light. People, Marie Kondo is a genius. Tidying up is life-changing.

I was able to objectively go through my drawer and toss out the clothes I didn’t want anymore. It didn’t hurt as much. For the first time EVER. What magic was this? From what I kept, I fit way more t-shirts in the drawer than I had before. Just look at the pic below. I can see everything I have and I pick out what I want in SECONDS. I don’t have to hunt through a horizontal pile for something at the bottom, messing up the entire pile in the process. I can open my sock drawer and pull out exactly what I need. SOCKS! I don’t have to hunt for the socks I want anymore! I can pick out what I want! I don’t have to hunt my favourite yoga pants anymore – I can see all my yoga and sweatpants at a glance and pull out exactly what I need. I do draw the line at folding underwear. 😛

Yes, it does take a bit longer to fold everything after washing, I can’t just shove things back in the drawer. But it is so much easier to just retrieve exactly what I want, and it is SO SATISFYING!

And I know this seems so silly, but it brings me JOY every time I open up the drawer and see everything organized so nicely inside. PURE JOY.

If you have a bit of time on your hands, you should check out Marie Kondo’s methods for folding clothes and tidying up, and I swear to you, it will change your life.

Now, what does this have to do with raspberry vodka? I applied the KonMari method to my whole dang house, which was already clean, but her methods made it all even more tidy. When I tidied up the pantry, I found an unopened bottle of raspberry vodka in the back. I don’t even know when I bought it. Maybe it was left by the previous owners. Good thing it was unopened. Did you know that raspberry vodka tastes good with lemonade, orange juice, cranberry juice, and even vanilla ice cream? I’m sure you knew this. I’m a teetotaller. You’re not. 😀

This bottle will take me YEARS to finish. When this lockdown is over, come over for a glass.

I’m sure I’ll still have most of it left.