Summertime 333

Tucked into my first post this year I spoke about my January-February-March 333 project. It went very well. I had a lot of fun doing it but I ran aground when I tried to pick my 33 pieces of apparel for April-June because of the weather.

The weather was so weird April-May, there was no spring really, then summer came mid June and I had two trips that had very different climates....well the end result was that I could not pick clothing. The battle between long sleeves and short was too much for me this year. My cold weather clothes seemed 'off' but I was freezing a lot. [except when I went to Palm Springs]

Now it is July and it is firmly summer and I find that I can make decisions about clothing easily. For whatever reason I feel like I can handle the weather for the next 3 months and I am able to plan. I also went out last month and got shoes for the summer so that hated task is done. I also realized I was short on plain t-shirts and tanks so I picked up a few at various thrift/consignment stores.

My List [always a work in progress]

1-3 Tan Sandals, Black Sandals, Coral shoes
4-9 Black pants, Slate pants, [2] brown pants, [2] green pants
10  Bronze shorts
11-19 Short sleeve tops: vertical stripes, horizontal stripes, [2] black T, [2] brown T, purple T, [2]print
20  Maroon print skirt
21-25 Sleeveless tops: black, slate, olive, lime, brown
26-27 Blue dress, Wine dress
28-30 Summer sweaters for AC: lime, blue, heather
31  Swimsuit

I am at 31 items including shoes.  I don't count exercise clothing or grubby garden wear or accessories. I have a awol purple tank top and my purple jeans are probably too big but my list may shift a bit.  I see lots of fun outfits in this list. It feels spacious almost too much so. If September turns cold I can swap out a bit but considering how hot it is now it seems silly to worry about it.

It feels good to have that settled.

2013! It's here.

It's 12th night tonight [starting from Solstice] and Yule is almost over. The holidays have been wonderful and my month long bout of the flu is wrapping up and I couldn't be more delighted.  I am looking forward to all the joys and gentle lessons of the new year and thanking 2012 for it's many sweetnesses.

I have been an 'anti-clutter' person since April of 2002 but it's a cycle like so much in life. Right now I am in high gear sorting and giving/throwing out stuff. It may have been prompted by holiday shopping or perhaps by incoming presents. I am having a blast and feeling so much lighter.

Related;  I decided to do Project 333 officially for January - March of this year. This has made my closet so wide open and spacious, I sometimes open the door to gaze in it. I am at 27 pieces but I did not count my snow boots or some of my necessary winter weather accessories. I do not have them by choice after all. There may be something in the laundry that I want to add, so we'll see where I end up for this three month period.

I also did not count my jewelry. I cull my accessories often and only have what fits in my hanging organizer but I don't have an interest in limiting myself to 6 pieces for 3 months. Right now it is a joy to decide which piece I want to wear on a given day with a plain top. Although I have had years where I have worn the same stud earrings for months or limited my choice in some other way so that may happen again in the future.

Also this concentrated decluttering is moving many things onto new homes. I may use the spare room as a meditation space this winter. We'll see how it shakes out.

Austrian plum blazers

Being a big fan of the Winter Olympics [Summer not so much] I am delighted when they start. although I end up seeing very little. This year I may have some time to watch some events. I plan on doing my de-cluttering this month to an Olympic background which should be fun. I love that 'high' I get when I throw stuff away. A huge pile got sorted this afternoon. Olympics are also the perfect background for taxes I think. If I had been organized I might have signed up for the knitting olympics and knitted something for myself [a real challenge for me]. Oh well something to keep in mind for 2014.

I saw some of the opening ceremonies, those guys in suits giving speeches made me feel like I was in a meeting at work. One of my favorite parts, the plum blazers the Austrian team women wore. [can't find a better picture] I would love one. Now I am totally laughing at myself that the clothing stuck in my mind of all things. It looked like a really nice blazer.

Still feeling happy and resilient, totally rocks.

Out it Goes

As some may know, I have a bit of an anti clutter bug. It started in 2002, when I realized my 'stuff' was all too much and I started, systematically, going through everything I owned. The free flylady system was a big part of this. I trimmed down my possessions by 75% and reaped huge benefits from it. There is only one item, an old journal, that at times I wish I still had. Mostly because my memory can be so bad.

For the past year though I have felt like my clutter level was off. I know that clutter is something you have to deal with on an ongoing basis, and I thought I was but I was still feeling bogged down and overwhelmed in many areas of my life. It was a puzzle.

I have largely increased my de-cluttering over the past few days enough so that I am really starting to feel back in balance. I also now realize why I got so off kilter -- it was mostly the wedding.

It seems to be a common thing that weddings involve lot of stuff flowing in and not all that much flowing out. We invited over 100 people to our wedding and that generated a lot of gifts. Also throwing that big of a party took a lot of stuff, even with rentals. I think there were a 6+ months where stuff just kept flowing in and in to our home. We also had weeks of wonderful house guests and that also increased stuff levels. My usual clutter maintenance never got adjusted for this huge influx.

So I spent a year wondering why I felt so out of balance but not realizing what was happening. [Should I feel bummed that it took me that long or just grateful I finely bought a clue?]

Then the holidays rolled around again and yet more stuff in the form of presents came in. Luckily right after my wife went on her first major, throwing things away, getting sorted, binge. It now is so clear to me, I feel like a snake that finally digested a big meal and I don't want to take this metaphor too far but things are now going out in an equally big way.

I have gone through my cd collection and pruned and pruned, at least a third gone. I have gone through my shoes and got rid of a third. I even gave away my wedding shoes and purse which I have no interest in wearing again. I went through my sweater collection and released a third there as well. As well as my clothes closet. I plan on doing more, a bit at a time. There will probably be more sorting updates in the weeks to come.

Winter just seems like the perfect time to me to declutter, I am love, love, loving it. My productivity level is going up and I feel great. I just took my stuff to ARC for donation so it is already out of the house.

There was another two wonderful surprises this week. We got 2 written thank yous in the mail for our dinner party! They are so charming and old fashioned in the nicest way. It's like time-traveling to a more elegant, genteel and idealized time. And how great is it to get something that isn't a bill in your mail?

Now more of my secrets are out, I am that easy. To make me happy just slip me something nice in the mail and help me take out my loads of trash.

The linings of Pitch Black Clouds

So this economic things bites. There how is that for understatement? Since I am decades away from retirement eligibility I don't even look at my 401K statements anymore. It's the same reason why I don't watch sad, intense movies right now -- I really don't need any downers when I feel like I am finally gaining ground again on a positive attitude.

But the shiny lining for us is that we are getting the house refinanced, which is a great thing all by itself. Even better from my point of view is that it is inspiring us to clean and sort areas of our large house that haven't been done in months. Like my office. ahem.
I should take pictures.
oops, there is a should, now I'll have to think about if I even want to take pictures and all, because the motto for this week is 'down with shoulds!'

Then even more better my wife is throwing stuff away!
[I hope you are not here for good grammar]
I love to declutter and throw stuff away and I may love it even more when she does it. Hard to tell, either way though it is excellent.

Our home is so clean, partly due to the people we hired before the appraisal. But who cares? It's a blast to have everything all clean and fresh all at once. I resisted hiring at first then I remembered what a huge mental lift it gives me and the result is I feel terrific. shallow perhaps, but terrific. Oh well, Flylady would understand.

I hope everyone finds a silver or gold lame or sparkly lavender lining to any dark clouds overhead.