Mae Edwards: Former Queen of ‘I May Need It One Day’ Island

I come from very humble beginnings. I was taught the value of our possessions by my working single-mother and Great Depression surviving grandmother. What we possessed was scarce, and there was never an excess of anything. So you can bet that I cut that toothpaste tube open and found the actual last drop.

This life cultivated my resourceful personality, but also gave me a fear of never having enough. The fear manifested in a way that had me unable to get rid of the shirts I had since middle school, and keeping the movie ticket stubs to all the flicks I had been to.

Even as an adult, who no longer rode the struggle bus, I found that letting items go was an insurmountable task.

As a Military spouse, I went through 3 moves in 2 years and I became EXHAUSTED. The constant packing, organizing, and time it took to decide where we were going to store everything was giving me grays. Every time we started to pack, I noticed we never fully unpacked from the prior move. Boxes, piles of clothes and books were strewn about, plus I had laundry to last me until 2057.  I was defeated and thought I was doomed to repeat this dreadful process forever.

Until one glorious day in 2016 when I stumbled across Marie Kondo’s book, 'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing'. I was desperate, the title said there was magic involved, and I was willing to try anything.

When I say this process changed my life, I say it with the same enthusiasm as I do about the day in senior year when I had my first taste of coffee (thank you Maggie, I will never be the same).

After reading, I completed my ‘tidying festival’, I minimized and only kept what felt like joy to me. I organized my home to reflect what my inner self felt like, became a pro at moving, and asked all my friends and family if I could ‘KonMari’ their belongings. They were annoyed with my pestering to tidy but when they finally said yes, they converted to the Joy Side too….get it…..like Star Wars…ahem….I never said I wasn’t going to throw TERRIBLE dad jokes at ‘ya.

I loved it so much I decided to end my corporate career and make organizing my full-time passion. Organizing my home was a healing process, it helped me work through unhealthy attachments and anxieties I haphazardly carried around. It even helped me discover what my favorite color was, a seemingly easy question that throughout my entire life I never had an answer for.

Through my own organizing journey, I know how scary it can be to begin. As a Certified KonMari Consultant, it would be my privilege to guide you through this process and organize your home in a way that maximizes what joy is to you.

Let’s work together and discover the tidy home you’ve always dreamed of.