In Defense of Brocation: Why I "Let" My Husband Go to Disneyland With His Friends

This year my husband will go to Disneyland with his friends for the fourth year in a row. This event, deemed "Brocation," has become a fun tradition for our whole family - even those of us who aren't tagging a long.

Unfortunately, Brocation is sometimes met with criticism. It's a silly thing for the general public to care about, in my opinion. But we occasionally hear remarks from people that it's inappropriate, frivolous, or just downright stupid. Opinions have been expressed that the men shouldn't be taking time away from their families to go to Disneyland. I can't help but wonder if the same comments would be made if they were going on a mountain biking, backpacking, or golfing trip. There's something about it being a trip to Disneyland that makes people upset. One person, upon learning about Brocation, responded with, "What a bunch of @$$holes!"

The tradition began when, a few years back, we were talking with some other families about possibly doing a couples trip to Disneyland or taking our families all together. The expenses and calendaring quickly brought us back to reality, so we decided that the men should go. 

The number of men going on the trip has fluctuated from year to year. It started with 4, and it has had as many as 12. Some of the men are from our church congregation, but most aren't at this point, as it has extended to brothers, friends, and in one case, even someone's boss! 

The Bros leave on a Wednesday, go to Disneyland Thursday and Friday, and are home on Saturday. They don't miss church, and they make the trip as short and sweet as possible. It's also pretty affordable. In past years they have driven, but this year they found an excellent deal on flights, which means they will spend even less time away from home. They usually take their own food and split the cost of hotel rooms or rentals.

Each of the married bros has the support of his wife. This is the most important part! We've all discussed how our husbands deserve a break once in a while (just like we do), and we have no qualms with them going on a Disneyland trip because most (if not all) of them rarely do something independent of their family, work, and church responsibilities. 

While they are gone, we have a blast sharing pictures and stories through facebook, and we even have some inside jokes involving photos of feet.

During the trip, the Bros share lots of laughs and face the woes of their aging. They come back exhausted, unsure if they can do it again, and then they start planning the next year's trip.

For us, it's been a very positive and uplifting tradition to take part in, so the Bros have my full support, despite the questioning and commentary of others.

FluBritt Goes KonMari - Episode 3

Episode 1
Episode 2

As with any lifestyle or self-help book, there are parts of Marie Kondo's book that I'm not likely to adopt. Some things don't work for me right now, but others I won't adopt ever. Fortunately, Marie is on board with this:

"... automatically following criteria proposed by others and based on their 'know-how' will have  no lasting effect - unless their criteria happens to match your own standards of what feels right."

-Marie Kondo

(I'm just not sure if she knew she would be the one that I would apply this quote toward).

The one thing Marie is adamant about is that you must discard first! But after that, "The rest depends on the level of tidiness you personally want to achieve."

With that said, here are a few KonMari practices I'm not moving forward with:

1. The Folding

Okay, most people love  the folding. I actually do, too, but I don't feel like I can turn my life over to KonMari folding right now. For one thing, I can't get the other five people in my house on board with the folding, especially the 3 and 6 year olds. Actually, you know what? All five of them are equally unlikely to jump on the folding bandwagon - not just the littlest, but I think of them first because they empty their dresser drawers on the closet floor every day. Sometimes more than once. So I pick up the clothes in one big wad and throw them back in the drawers.

I can hear what the KonMari believers are saying... "But if you fold their clothes like Marie Kondo, they'll be able to see what's in their drawer, and they won't throw all the clothes on the floor." That may be true, but I'm not up for the experiment right now. Let's just say that if I go through the work to do the folding, and the clothes still end up on the floor, I'll feel so defeated that I'll have to go to DI on an emotional shopping trip, and I'll probably buy all my old stuff back.

On top of that, I feel like the folding is very time consuming, I don't like using a surface area to fold (I fold in the air), most of our stuff hangs in closets, and our dresser drawers aren't tall enough to store our clothing vertically.

However...

I have folded Scotty's and my socks and underwear. We are just testing it out - I don't know if we can keep up with it, as it taints our entire laundry routine. Prior to Tuesday of this week, we didn't mate our socks or fold our underwear. We have literally thrown it all in a drawer for the last ten years, so it's going to take a significantly bigger chunk of time to fold and put away laundry if we keep up on it.

It is pretty, though, I will say.

I also folded out pillow cases. My mom has made my kids pillow cases for each holiday, so we have more pillow cases than the average household, and they look lovely folded up all KonMari-like.

2. Shoe storage

I don't think Marie mentioned this in her book, but I recall her saying in one episode of her show that she like shoes to be stored lined up with their mates in a way that allows you to see them all easily.

So she would probably frown at my practice of throwing them all in a laundry basket on a shelf in my closet.

3. Ditching the sweats

"The worst thing you can do is to wear a sloppy sweatsuit. I occasionally meet people who dress like this all the time, whether waking or sleeping. If sweatpants are your everyday attire, you'll end up looking like you belong in them, which is not very attractive."

Hello, Marie, I am one of those people. I love my sweatpants, and I don't care if I look like I just climbed out of a dumpster, I'm not giving up on my sweats. Girl, please. 

I imagine Marie Kondo putting on sweatpants and being like the princesses in Wreck-It Ralph II when they discover lounge wear.

She don't know what she's missing.

4. Keep things out of the bath

Marie Kondo says you should wipe down your bath products after you shower and put them in the cupboard.

5. Piggybanks are disrespectful to small change

Marie thinks putting change in a piggybank is putting it in a place to be ignored and that it's disrespectful to money.

I disagree. I feel that piggybanks are actually very respectful to money because it allows us to save change until we have a large enough amount to do something useful with rather than just spending it at the McDonald's drive thru (which I also do... because I'm all about balance...)

I really enjoy filling up a piggybank and then taking the change to the bank to make a deposit.

6. Empty your bag everyday

Marie wants you to empty your purse (or bag) every day. This means you have to have a place different than your purse to keep your wallet, keys, Carmex, tampons, whatever... at the end of each day.

Apparently "grab and go" isn't her thing, but it is mine! My stuff will stay in my bag.

Snow Day

Yesterday we were surprised when our school district canceled school because of snow. I grew up and worked in our school district, and I only know of one snow day. I think I was in sixth grade, so it was around 1996. And you know what the whole neighborhood did on that snow day? Went sledding! At THE SCHOOL!

Good times.

One of the reasons our district doesn't like to close for snow is because we have a lot of families in our district for whom school is a source of warmth, safety, and food. They want to make sure that the kids who need food are able to go to the school. Our district is good about snow though. Even though they never close the schools, they are lenient with absences and tardies during snow storms, and they always tell us parents that we have the option to keep our kids home without penalty. So regardless of a formal cancellation, I feel I can keep my kids home if I need to on the really bad days.

 

Obligatory snow photo. I didn't want to go outside, and this

was the closest thing covered in snow I could snap a quick 

picture of (KonMari hasn't reached the back patio yet).

In addition to the schools closing, our county libraries and our dance studio closed. Nicky's junior high orientation was canceled, and the dentist office next to my dentist office was closed, but my dentist office was not. And that's relevant because I had three kids with dentist appointments yesterday. I called the office to see if they were postponing or cancelling appointments, and they responded to me like I was an insane person. So I kept our appointments for 10:00 which worked out well because we also had an 8:30 pediatrician appointment that we (and the doctor) didn't make it to. They had a cancellation at 11:00 that we were able to snag, and it's in the same building as the dentist.

 

Elsa takes (non-licensed) Nemo to the dentist.

Follow that up with burgers and courtesy cones from a very empty Arctic Circle, and we were all happy as clams... except for the part where one kid had four cavities, and the dentist told me that I absolutely cannot put off taking my kids to the orthodontist any longer. My vision is suddenly obstructed by dollar signs. Which reminds me... I have a kid who needs glasses.

Since the kids had an unexpected day off school, I let them stay in their dirty clothes, play video games, "do art," and eat marshmallows for most of the day. 

They also played outside for exactly seven minutes. 

FluBritt Goes KonMari - Episode 2

(Read Episode 1 HERE)

Today I want to share some of my favorite excerpts from The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I have to say, that when I started reading Marie's book, I was very put off by it. I didn't like her voice in the book. In fact, parts of it made me feel the same way I feel when I get stuck in a multi-level marketing presentation. It was hard to imagine that the person in the book was the same quiet, gracious woman in the TV show. Overall, I gave the book 3 out of 5 stars, but these are the five-star gems I took away and have re-read several times:

"When you come across something that you cannot part with, think carefully about its true purpose in your life. You'll be surprised at how many of the things you possess have already fulfilled their role. By acknowledging their contribution and letting them go with gratitude, you will be able to truly put the things you own, and your life, in order. In the end, all that will remain are the things that you really treasure."

This was, perhaps, one of the most profound perspectives I gained from Marie Kondo. As I "tidied" my house, and came across items that I wasn't sure I should keep, I asked myself, "Has it served its purpose?" This made it a lot easier to identify some of the things I no longer need to keep, but it also gave me the chance to recognize the ways my belongings have served me. And of course, I thanked them for that!

This principle helped me to part with:

• My wedding dress
• My blessing dress
• Nicky's blessing outfit
• Scotty's forest animal quilt

"Truly precious memories will never vanish even if you discard the objects associated with them... We live in the present. No matter how wonderful things used to be, we cannot live in the past. The joy and excitement we feel here and now are more important."

This quote helped me with some of my sentimental items. I don't always need the item to maintain the memory. This helped a lot when I went through an old memory box. Therefore, I let go of:

• A box of meaningful children's clothes (hospital outfits. etc)
• Nicky's favorite baby blanket (I took a photo of it and clipped a 4" square to put in his memory box)
• My baby blanket
• Over half our photos 
• My high school Book of Mormon

"It is not our memories but the person we have become because of those past experiences that we should treasure. This is the lesson those keepsakes teach us when we sort them. The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now, not for the person we were in the past."

Because of this, Scotty and I chose to part with:

• Our racing medals

"...don't focus on reducing, or even on efficient storage methods, for that matter. Focus instead on choosing the things that inspire joy and on enjoying life according to your own standards."

During this process, I took a lot of time to consider how we store things. I've been exposed to a lot of messages that proper storage equals organization. Yet, I've spent my entire adult life placing things in labeled bins, and I've never felt like it has solved my clutter problems or made my home orderly.

After two weeks of KonMari, I have emptied:

• Seven large bins
• Four small bins

(These bins held things like blankets, Halloween costumes, holiday decor, things from Church callings I've held, arts and crafts supplies, old video game consoles, etc).

I also got rid of my gift box - the box I kept "go to" gifts in. Gift giving is important to me, and as I looked through the gifts I was storing, I realized, they were things I bought because they were a good deal, not because I personally selected them for people I love. I decided to get rid of the gift box because it's important to me to pick out gifts for people rather than find something random in the box.

"The process of facing and selecting our possessions can be quite painful. It forces us to confront our imperfections and inadequacies and the foolish choices we made in the past."

Boy, does it ever! As Scotty and I sorted through some of our sentimental items, we made the choice to part with:

• Scotty's mission letters

We realized that they had served their purpose (i.e. providing communication while Scotty was serving his two-year Church mission in South Carolina), and we don't feel like we need to re-read them or impose them on our children someday.

So far we have donated six vans full of our belongings, and we have filled our garbage cans four times (not including the things we've recycled), and we still have a huge pile of stuff on our back patio that we need to throw away or recycle. 

(Oh how I wish I had a dumpster for this process!)

I've purged our house many times over the years, but this time it's different. 

Marie says, "Tidying is our opportunity to express our appreciation to our home for all it does for us," and she is so right! My past de-cluttering efforts haven't sparked joy and gratitude like this time has. It's been very spiritual, and it has been such a good thing for me to do emotionally. I didn't even know I needed it!

Things I Spend Way Too Much Time Thinking About

Thing 1: What would it be like to have someone else's mind?

Wouldn't it be fascinating to mind swap with someone for a day? I sure think it would! I would love to experience someone else's processing for a while, just to see how different or similar our minds are. And I bet I can learn a lot about myself from being in someone else's mind. I'd finally have something to compare my "crazy" too.

Thing 2: If I ever write a novel set in modern-day, will my characters use cell phones and/or social media?

Definitely something to consider.

Thing 3: Would I have liked this book more or less if I'd read it in my own voice?

One of my favorite books I "read" last year was The Chilbury Ladies Choir. I listened to the audiobook while I was in Lake Tahoe. The book has several narrators and is one of the only books written in letter/journal format that I've really liked. The readers were fantastic, but they gave completely different voices to the characters than I probably would have in my own head. This made me wonder how different my reading experience would have been if I'd read the actual book. Would I have loved it as much?

Honestly, I'll never know. I can't undo those voices now and give them my own. This is something I think about anytime I choose to listen to an audiobook instead of reading the book myself.

Thing #4: Are the animals acting strange?

Whenever there's a natural disaster, there are anecdotes of animals behaving strangely right before it hits.

When I was in elementary school, I bought a book from the book fair about animals that warned people of danger or saved their lives - dogs that knew their owners were going to have heart attacks and lizards that performed CPR (okay, maybe not... I don't remember the specifics).

It's a habit of mine to watch the animals. So yesterday when hundreds of birds were flying over IHOP in a disorganized frenzy, I couldn't help but think of all the possible disasters they could have been predicting.

FluBritt Goes KonMari - Episode 1

I first heard of Marie Kondo's book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up almost five years ago when a friend reviewed it on Goodreads. I took my friend's review as validation that I didn't need to read it. In fact, the very title of the book repulsed me. Over time, I heard more and more about the book and read more reviews from friends, and most of them found it "meh" or didn't like it at all, so I continued to thrive on the fact that I would never feel pressured to read it.

Over the past few months, in my prayers, I've been asking Heavenly Father what I can do to simplify my life. "Just help me find one, simple way to make my life calmer!" This has been especially important as I've tried to work toward lowering my blood pressure. Whenever my blood pressure tests high (which for the last year has been always), my doctors have asked, "Is there anything you're worried or stressed about right now that could be increasing your blood pressure?" and my answer is always, "There isn't anything specific - I feel pretty normal right now," and then when asked to describe what I feel like, I have to admit that I feel tense and overwhelmed all the time. That's normal to me. It's how I've always felt, even as a child and a teen.

I recall my AP psychology teacher calling me out on this in high school. We took a stress assessment in class, and I scored so high that he kept me after class and asked me why the heck I was so stressed. I said, "I'm not!" because I had no idea I was stressed. It was (and still is) my norm. Now I have a daughter who acts just like me, and I can see it so much clearer now. I'm always on edge! And she is too! Something needs to change!

When Marie Kondo's show came on Netflix at the beginning of the year, it was pretty easy to not pay any attention to it. I'd long ago learned that her "thing" wasn't for me. Then late one night, while Scotty was gone playing basketball, I got this little nudge to watch Marie Kondo.

I made it through about twenty minutes, and frankly, I was a little bored. I didn't have the patience for it, but I thought it was nice to see Marie Kondo in action. She seemed like a sweet lady and not the militant individual I imagined going into houses and demanding that people get rid of their junk and live a minimalist lifestyle. Even though I admired her calmness and her peaceful presence, I was still full of defiance. I watched her make the first couple take all their clothes out and go through them. After that, I stopped the show thinking I wouldn't come back to it. Then I went upstairs and started flipping through my shirts in my closet. I didn't even realize I was doing it. That's how Marie Kondo gets to you!

Despite my Marie Kondo aversion, I have always liked the idea of holding an item and seeing if it sparks joy, so I decided I would do that with my clothes, but I was going to do it my way. Then I thought. "You know what? She has a good point about putting all the clothes in a pile so you can see how much you have. Maybe I'll do that after all."

So pretty soon all my clothes were on my bed and I was holding things and thanking things, and I realized how beautiful it was to express gratitude to the clothing items that had served their purpose. I ended up parting with over half my wardrobe.

As I finished this quick process, I had the impression to keep going with other things. "This is it," my heart spoke to me, "This is the answer to your prayers! It's Marie Kondo! SURPRISE!!!"

So I kept working, and over the course of the past two weeks, I've gone KonMari on most of my house. I continued watching the show, and I even read the book!

I want to write about some of the experiences I've had and some of the things I've learned. I'm not trying to convince anyone to read the book, watch the show, or "tidy up." The reason I want to write about this is because my prayers were answered - not because I want to endorse any particular way of organizing one's living space (in fact, you'll learn very quickly that there are parts of the KonMari method that I am completely ignoring... stay tuned...) I also just want to share my experience with things coming to our lives during the right season. Five years ago, Marie Kondo's principles weren't what I needed, so I'm glad I didn't pick up her book just to hate-read it. It opened my heart to it at the right time!

"You... have been led by fate to read 

[this book], and that probably means

 you have a strong desire to change 

your current situation, to reset your 

life, to improve your lifestyle, 

to gain happiness, and to shine."

-Marie Kondo

Currently {February 2019 Edition}

Reading: Refugee by Alan Gratz (a Beehive Award nominee) and Dare to Lead  by Brene Brown.

Listening to: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Cold.

Watching: Tidying Up with Marie Kondo (like everyone else). I have been saving the last two episodes for when I need motivation.

Craving: Soda. I did very well staying away from soda for a few weeks, but over the past week I've had several tempting moments.

Also Moochies. Always. I ate there last week, and I'm not even kidding when I say that it was so beautiful I almost cried. The fries were so hot and fresh, and the sandwich was perfect.

I can't even.

Singing: "Sugar." I'm blogging fresh off the Super Bowl Half-Time.

Stressing about: The chaos that comes with the first week of the month. I have to do the birthday poster for the school, I'm due for volunteer hours at the school, and I sit in on my girls' dance classes this week (which span three days) so there are extra efforts that need to be made in getting my kids everywhere they need to be. We also need to take Nicky to orientation for junior high, which falls at a time during the week when we have three other places to be (dance, scouts, and Young Men). Tonight during our family council we have to work out all the logistics.

Buying: Hopefully nothing. Our freezer is jam packed, so we really need to spend a few weeks eating what we already have! How do I make myself do it? I kind of rely on grocery shopping as a therapeutic escape. We will need milk, though. Can I make it two weeks with only buying milk? CAN I??? Because I really need to.

Trying: To decide if there's some way I can hold myself accountable and not buy any groceries. Having a blog is a good resource for that, right? Should I commit to documenting all my food preparation and purchases for two weeks? I'm thinking about it...

Missing: Disneyland.

Loving: Having a clean closet. I went KonMari on that thing, and it's so nice.

Frustrated by: My children's inability to keep anything clean and organized. I spent a good chunk of time wiping rocky road ice cream off Wii games this morning.

Looking forward to: Going to see Wicked soon! I bought tickets back in November and then texted Scotty, "Hey, thanks for the birthday present!"

Neglecting: My toenails. I keep them nicely trimmed, but they are still sporting the polish I wore for my brother's wedding.

In July.

Ahem.

Moving on.

Thankful for: My family, my home, my van, and my ability to see, speak, walk, sing, and all the other amazing things I take for granted each day. I also really love that my eyeballs currently have nothing in them and that my nose is currently clear.