“I need to buy more hangers.” I said to myself while surveying the pile of clean clothes on my bed recently.
And then it occurred to me. It was so obvious.
My problem wasn’t in not having enough hangers, but rather, having waaaaay more clothes than I need.
If you’ve been reading this blog for long you know that we are moving soon, and that before then, I have committed myself to getting rid of roughly 1/3 of our belongings. It’s not that our new home is too small, because it’s actually significantly larger, but rather that I feel a strong desire to learn to live with less.
{check out these gorgeous roses from my Mom’s garden! I can’t wait to have a cutting garden of my own soon!}
I’ve been really inspired by a few friends and bloggers who live this {healthier} lifestyle and so I’m taking steps in that direction. The benefits we are experiencing already are so encouraging!
Our master bedroom tends to be the “catch all” for unorganized piles of junk from around the house. But when our landlords sprung a surprise house showing (against our wishes, I might add, but that’s neither here nor there…) Hank and I were eh, inspired to tidy up our room. We tossed junk, organized, unpacked tour bags, etc. Our room was ultra clean and void of almost anything except our bed, furniture, and a few packing boxes.
We slept better that night than we have in recent memory.
I don’t think this was a coincidence. The more I learn about minimalism the more I am convinced that the less things we have, the more at peace our subconscious can be. The more at peace our minds are, the healthier our nervous systems are. What a key to overall health that I had never previously considered!!
So, back to my closet. With the exception of the clothes in the dirty laundry (because my rational assumption would be that those clothes are ones that I like and wear often) I had in my possession:
- 99 tops
- 5 skirts
- 20 dresses
- 10 pairs of pants.
The OCD part of my brain nearly exploded to the point that I considered stealing a shirt from my husband just in the name of symmetry.
I pulled my Type-A self together and by the end of the evening my total was:
- 63 tops
- 4 skirts
- 13 dresses
- 5 pairs of pants
That’s a 37% reduction! Yay! I also bought nice velvet-covered hangers from Costco (35 of ‘em for $10!) that hold onto the clothes better, so it keeps things from stretching out and falling onto the floor.
I naturally just planned to sell the clothes at my garage sale, but changed my mind when my sweet friend Jenny, who helps me clean every other week, came over. In the past month she has had 2 siblings move in with her with literally only the clothes on their backs. As in, her brother didn’t even have a change of clothes and was wearing a towel around himself after his shower until she could go to the store to get him some!
So, this inspired my dear husband to clean out his closet as well. Jenny was sent home with a load of clothes and we were left with more room in our closets, yet still, way more than we need. She’s much smaller than me, but her sister is, as Jenny put it, “Big, like you Lindsay!” Love her.
My new philosophy for my closet is: one in, one out, so as to keep tabs on my new “less is more” approach to my closet. I kept only the clothes that I have worn recently, and that I really love. I’m also going to be purchasing only nice, quality crafted items instead of cheaply constructed clothes with the hope that they will wear better and last longer.
I also got rid of those size 24 designer jeans that I know I will never fit into again…goodbye pre-baby hips. (no, seriously, my hip bones moved!)
As far as the rest of the house, every evening after the kids are in bed, I get out three boxes. I label 2 with the contents that we are taking to the new house, and one is labeled “garage sale”. I don’t let myself get a new “keep” box until the garage sale one is full. We move in a little over two weeks!!
This is actually a ton of fun!
PS – my new appliances are being delivered TUESDAY! AND a local antique store where we have purchased a few things for the new house just asked if they could feature us and our home in their design book that they are releasing later this year! Eeep! Stay tuned!
