Tidying Begins

I haven't finished the whole book, The Art of Tidying, but I'm far enough along that I can start to see the bigger picture. There are things I disagree with, which I will enumerate when I provide a review of the book when I'm finished, but, for now, I'm motivated to work through the clothing.

She says to collect all the clothes, every last piece and dump it all into a pile on the floor. Then, you slowly go through the pile, handling each piece and asking yourself if it really is something you'll wear. If I did that, the pile would be there for weeks. I understand the value of doing a program as it's intended, but I have to be realistic about just how much energy I have versus what I'm trying to get done. So, I'm going through the closet.

This side has the work short-sleeved shirts, sweaters and pajamas. I realize that I can move the pjs to a drawer. The sweaters I wear and I have 4 of them. That just leaves the shirts. I pulled 3 white shirts from the closet yesterday. They are "women's cut" which only works if you are a size 2. I could use a white polo shirt but I'm going to make a list of things I could use and then buy them as I have funds and find them on sale.

I looked through my "Hawaiian-style" shirts. I need to try on all of the ones I have and make peace with giving away the ones that don't fit. I have a pattern to make the style of shirt I love so I could do that. I also have a number of hunks of splashy fabric which could be turned into shirts. Pondering this; pondering.

When I remove things from the closet, I stick them in grocery bags. The pile is getting a bit large.

One of the veteran's groups called on Thursday and the gal seemed surprised that I had stuff. It has to be a thankless job, to call lists of people and ask if they have any clothing or household goods for donation. I haven't lately so I tend to ignore the call when I see it come on my caller ID. Perhaps her surprise came from a "yes" after she had had a string of "no's". She was very happy I have stuff.

When it comes time to put this out for pick up, I'll be moving it to a garbage bag for ease of carry. I should make a list of everything donated. In the past, you could just assign an arbitrary monetary amount to your donation and then write it off on your taxes. You can't do that anymore. Because I intend to donate as I clean, I'll need to keep records for next year. I anticipate many more bags going out between now and the end of fall, at least, in my mind's eye, I think there will be.

So, it begins. I have some vintage clothing I'd like to sell as well as my wedding dress. I could probably sell the dress on eBay, but I need a dressmaker's form to take decent photos of it. It feels odd to be looking forward to getting that out of my house. I have no clue how long the motivation will last but I'm going to ride the wave as long as I can. It can only make my life more satisfying to be rid of things I never use.

Beverage:  miscellaneous tea

Deb