In my soul, I am a clutterer. I have never NOT been a clutterer. I have a lot of stuff, and I like having it near me, and I can't always find places to put it, so it just becomes...clutter. And I'm OK with that.
Except, I'm not OK, really. In my heart, I wish to be an unclutterer. I'm sometimes more than a little ashamed by how messy my desk and bedroom are, and I hate the way years go by without my even looking at some of the stuff I claim is so precious to me.
And so every now and then, I'll try to be an unclutterer. I'll go through stuff, and I'll be MERCILESS. Well, merciless for me. Which means throwing three things out from a pile of 57. But hey. That's three less than I started with.
I did that back in September with my 'walk-in' closet (which is only walk-in if you consider scuttling along sideways for about three feet 'walking'). I really needed extra storage space for clothes, so we bought some cool little storage bins from Ikea to put in my side of the closet, and in order to fit them in, I had to get stuff off the floor. Most of which I simply folded and then put into the storage bins, of course. But in my attempt to be a Good Girl and to Unclutter, I did manage to toss a few things into a bag for Goodwill. Like a pair of size 6 pants that I bought THREE YEARS AGO because I thought they were size 12 (no, I don't know how that happened) and never got around to returning. And a linen suit a friend handed down to me that was two sizes too big and wrinkled if you looked at it. And a pair of duck boots that I'd had in college (from which I graduated 22 years ago, people), and which were the size my feet were pre-kids, but nothing vaguely resembling the size they are today.
Yay for me, right?
So we've been getting ready for our annual Trip Up the Mountain with our posse, for three days of snow (except it's 80 degrees here, and maybe as low as 60 up there, so, um, sorry kids) and food and drinking and laughing (all of which can be done in warmer weather, so yay for the adults). And, just in case there actually are a few patches of the white stuff that haven't melted, we've been gathering up cold-weather gear, trying not to spend too much money on stuff that only gets used once a year, and maybe not even this year. I don't DO snow anymore, having had my fill of it in my first 29 years living on the east coast. But the kids live for it.
So, we found a really cute Lakers snow jacket for N (throwing out the one he wore up until last winter, which was a 3T. He's about to turn eight; it was time) and a pair of snow boots he can use for a couple of years, both at a consignment store. Score! Em will use my old winter jacket which is adorable on her, and...whoops. Her old boots don't fit any more? Of course not, she's growing like a weed! And the consignment store only has kids' stuff, and her feet are pretty close to adult size. So, off to Target, except no snow boots there. Or at Ross. Or at Payless.
And then I had a brainstorm. Oh! No problem! Her feet are almost as big as mine were pre-kids, so I'll just go get my old...duck....boots........SHIT.
As god is my witness, I'll never throw anything out again.
3 comments:
Oh, I wish I could send you a cold weather care package. I'm willing to bet that despite their age difference, my son's boots from last year would totally fit your daughter (and no, they no longer fit my son...) But I fear the cost of shipping would be equal to or greater than buying new, as is always the way.
Have you read Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui?
Clutter makes me feel overwhelmed, so I like having lots of floor space and clear countertops, but the book was pretty good (I just skipped over the feng shui shit) and by the middle of it my eyes were darting around my bedroom trying to find more shit I could get rid of.
My mother is the ultimate packrat, having learned at the feet of her mother (we found she had washed and saved paper plates in her cupboard before she died). The only thing in the last decade or two that my mother has gotten rid of were the Corningware coffee cups from her 1970s set (she still has the plates and bowls, of course), because she thought no one used them. Wrong, they were the only cups low enough to use with our espresso machine that we had at her house. Which only reinforced her resolve NEVER to get rid of anything ever again, much like your duck boots :D
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