tidying up: part 4

Purge, part 2:  pants, skirts and dresses

As I pulled these items out of my closet and dresser, I thought, oh, this isn’t that much…. then I’d remember another stash of items.  Some are in the “too small but I LOVE them” stash, some are in the laundry, some were in the workout clothes box…  I’m worried that NONE of my pants fit right now.  The pile is larger than I thought it would be (again).  We’ll see how small it gets….

Afterwards:

okay.  interesting. We purged three plastic tubs worth of stuff. now I have 2 pairs of jeans, two pairs of leggings (sort of three, but only two of them could also be pants), two pairs of corduroys and two pairs of colored jean-weight pants. Listing it all out like that sort of sounds like a lot of pants, but that is WAY fewer pants than I have ever owned before.  (oh, and i guess I still have some work-out/PJ pants and some summer capris/shorts if we’re listing everything)  And Mo says I can’t buy more pants without also weeding a pair.  But honestly, unlike with the tops, I don’t feel like there are any gaping holes in my pants wardrobe that need to be filled with new purchases.  weird.  We’ll see how I feel about it in two weeks.  We also sorted through skirts and dresses and I feel like I did pretty well with decreasing those.  Most of my skirts ended up in the summer box (I have only one tailored skirt for professional wear that is still in my closet) and my dresses are only the ones I REALLY love (we even got rid of two that I thought I loved, but when I tried them on, I realized that they didn’t fit me as well as I’d thought they had).

here are all of my pants, folded in the “konmari” method.

Thought-provoking quotes from Mo this time —

“if you spend less time shopping for clothes, maybe you’ll have more time to do other stuff.”

“There are enough other things in life that we can feel guilty about.  Our clothes (or other belongings) shouldn’t cause us to feel guilt.”  [so if you’re feeling guilty about not fitting into that pair of pants, get rid of them!]

“If you’re only buying one, favorite best of something (like a cozy all-the-time sweater), you can afford to spend more and get one that is fair trade or hand made where you know that the person who made it isn’t getting taken advantage of.”

Thoughts 5 days later:

will it REALLY mean I can shop less?  I mean, yes it SHOULD me I spend less time shopping, but at least for now, when I feel like there are active HOLES in my wardrobe (still don’t have a cozy but not worn out sweater to throw on for just around the house), I’m finding myself obsessing about shopping everywhere to find the exact perfect thing instead of just finding one at a thrift store that’s “pretty much” what I want.  This mindset will take awhile to shift, won’t it?

One other realization– since I didn’t actually try on EVERY pair of pants as I was sorting them, I discovered that of the two pairs of corduroy pants that I kept, one pair is a little long and the other pair is a little short.  Yes, I realize I can hem the long ones (and I might, or I might just keep stepping on them–it’s not THAT bad), but the short ones are tragic.  I love the way they fit other than the length.  sigh.  Adding corduroys to my “look for ones I really love” list.

Weird side effect: aprons!

Since I didn’t save a lot of my scruffy clothes, I’m often still wearing favorites when I cook dinner. I really don’t want to get grease stains on my faves. My first instinct was to consider grabbing something back out of the box to wear for cooking. Then I remembered–I own aprons! That I actually like! (Also, I took this opportunity to purge my apron/oven mitt/dishcloth drawer.  It’s so much nicer to open now!  And I don’t have the grubby dishrags and hotpads anymore!)

Before:

After: