I’m a possibility person. I love to turn trash into treasure.
Give me a pile of tin cans and I’m using them as building blocks for my kids (I totally love my Pampered Chef Smooth-Edge Can Opener – not an affiliate link). Or we’re bowling in the hallway.
The lids? They’re perfect for making a memory game. Or I’ve seen cute windchimes made with them.
A vinegar jug could be a watering can or a sprinkler or a drip waterer or a self-watering planter. Or I could cut off the bottom and cut holes and weave yarn about it to make a basket.
Those horseradish jars are the most adorable things ever, and someday when I make my own candles, they’d be perfect containers.
That broken toy can totally be fixed or transformed into something else.
The puzzle with pieces missing? Well, there are lots of crafts one can do with puzzle pieces!
Everything sparks joy when I’m thinking about the possibilities for transforming it into something useful.
Which means that KonMari is not exactly the best way for me to declutter.
On the other hand, state licensing surveyors for foster care?
They’re a super-effective way of helping me get rid of several trash bags full of stuff.
Instead of “does this spark joy?”, the question I ask myself when surveyors are on their way out is “is it worth trying to figure out how to store this in a way that doesn’t make me look like a hoarder?” (which, you know, I probably am.)
Annual survey is when those pieces of paper that still have a color-able surface get shredded. When the cereal boxes that still haven’t been used for kids’ painting but don’t fit in the container I store them in get shredded as well. When the loose toys that don’t belong in sets get discarded. When the lids without containers and the containers without lids get tossed. When the just about empty bottle of lotion (that no one uses anyway) gets thrown out.
Marie Kondo has nothing on our annual licensing surveyors.
(We passed, by the way: “No areas of noncompliance noted.”)