here's a few minutes in my head right now.
i'm a self proclaimed hoarder of sorts. it's practically impossible for me to get rid of something once it has made its way into my life. clothing, cookware, home decor items... really anything. lately, i've been feeling a bit like there's just too much stuff. so i decided i needed to be more selective about what i let into our home. but over the past month or so, i've just been feeling claustrophobic in too many areas of my life. my phone is always slow and freezing and running out of memory (although i'm still trying to figure out how that is the case because it doesn't add up) and my laptop is always slow and experiencing difficulties because it's filled to the brim with too many pictures and things. my car feels too full of carseats and toys and my grocery bags (i prefer the reusable ones... but that means i have to keep them in a noticeable place in my car so i remember to use them) and my closet feels full of clothes i don't like or feel guilty for not wearing, and the same story is true for both of my kids' closets, and honey's closet for that matter. and even though we have a large, unfinished basement with tons of empty space, i find myself looking around and wishing there was less. and my kitchen cabinets feel too full of pots and pans and mugs and sippy cups. and my fridge and freezer feel like they're going to burst open at any moment but yet i'm always still trying to figure out what on earth we're going to eat for dinner (ughhhh, why does eating need to happen SO OFTEN?!?!) because we already had eggs for breakfast so i'm basically out of any more ideas for anything edible. and my counter tops... they're not really cluttered but i want there to be less. and my garage... well, actually i'm pretty okay with my garage at the moment. but seriously, i have no idea what is going on with me but i suddenly want to get rid of everything. about a month ago, a very generous friend of mine gave me five large trash bags full of boy clothes. i normally try to go through stuff like that immediately but it was the same day my mom was coming to town and i didn't have time to deal with it... so the bags just went to the basement.
today i was fed up with abigail having all of her drawers and closet space filled with clothes that weren't the right size or season, so i went through everything. i filled a bin with all of the clothes she can wear next summer (good news is that she's 100% ready... depending on what size her foot will be at that point in time) and got out most of her winter stuff (it's been a cold summer and she's already been needing some long sleeve stuff). i thought it was going to be hugely overwhelming for me but it wasn't (even though it was pretty time consuming) because she doesn't have too much stuff that she has yet to grow into. she's got all of her clothes for next summer (at least half are new clothes i purchased at a good price) all in a clearly labeled bin, and other than that, she just has a small amount of hand me down clothes in a different bin that we get out from time to time if there's something random she needs (like stretchy yoga type lounge pants or something that i wouldn't typically have in her designated wardrobe). when i was taking that bin to the basement, i saw the bags of boy clothes and thought i could tackle that in an hour or two. HA. jokes on me because it took forever and was such a painful process. here's the problem. most of the stuff was size 3T and 4T with occasional stuff in larger sizes. brady is still wearing size 12 month pants. they're a little short on him (since it's summer, he's only been wearing pants on sundays for church), but we just put them lower on his hips because i don't know what the deal is but the 18 month pants are all ENORMOUS on the kid. i mean like six inches too long and the crotch is somewhere around his knees. he's got two pairs of casual pants that fit him... the same two pants that fit him six months ago. did he stop growing?! this is going to be an adjustment for us because this summer, he's had a huge wardrobe... which has been great because he's a messy eater and needs fresh clothes throughout the day.
here's what else made today painful for me. i've realized that i'm developing stronger preferences with used clothing. i used to love it all. now i only love some stuff. my friend chelsey gave me boy clothes a while ago and brady wore all of that stuff last winter and this summer. they were super cute and stylish and they fit brady well. it was perfection. i loved having all those clothes handed to me because it was like i had a personal shopper/stylist that did all the hard work for me. but with many other hand me down boy clothes, it's not so easy and the biggest struggle is trying to decide if something will even fit brady when the time comes. he's a petite kid. so those huge cargo pants may be too short on him before he's ever big enough to fill them out enough to stick on his hips. -- should i mention now that those two pairs of pants that fit him so well are both actually just girl's skinnies? -- same with shirts. he's got small shoulders but a big belly. and even though he's not tall for his age, he is skinny. so i don't want to be saving all of these polo shirts that will likely be too short by the time they fit the rest of him. but you just never know. and then i think to myself about how i love picking out new clothes for my kids. is it really worth it to save all of these clothes when i can get shirts and pants at old navy for $2 and $5. and kids really don't need that many clothes. but then i go back the other way and think about what a pain it is to go shopping and how time consuming it is to go through the clearance racks and how hit and miss it can be. buying just a couple full price items to fill in the gaps totally blows your savings out the window. spending $20 on a full price item kills me. but last year i was loving life when i got two swim shirts and two swim trunks for brady for $.78 a piece when they were regularly $13 a piece.
and just because i'm going off on all of this anyways, i'll go ahead and say that i'm going to severely pare down on the kid clothes i save when they're outgrown. we will hopefully have several more children but i'm struggling to see the likelihood of me having another girl in the same seasons as abigail and that i'll still like the clothes the second time around. abigail had tons of great clothes as a baby and toddler, but she also had tons of clothes that didn't fit her well/were never worn/didn't look very cute that i saved anyways thinking that maybe they'll work for our next girl if we have another. i'm definitely still saving the nice stuff that i love, but i don't want to hang onto stuff that other people could be using. like how when abigail was brady's age she only had one pair of little skinny jean leggings that fit her. so even though she had at least a dozen pairs of little flair jeans, she never wore them, because they fell off her hips and then when she grew more, they were just too short.
and perhaps i've been reading too many minimalist blog posts lately, but my real dream would be to start eliminating stuff from around the house that i don't love or use. i go back and forth because, for example, i have a bin of stuff in the basement of extra "kitchen stuff" that i inherited from roommates in college. it's second hand and i currently have no use for it. but i keep it on hand because it's easier than not. i know that if i was in the kitchen and suddenly i found a need for a certain kind of spoon/spatula/serving utensil/whatever, i could go buy one... but it's infinitely easier for me to just run to the basement to see if there's one in the bin. and also, i'm getting annoyed at the mental clutter everything creates for me. i think most people see stuff and forget about it in real time. if they look in a drawer for a serving spoon, they're only thinking about that drawer in the moment they're looking at it. that's not the case for me though... the stuff lingers on my mind. i'm not even kidding when i say that those things keep me awake at night. i can think about cookie cutters and be all "ugh, i never use those... i should just get rid of them so they stop getting stuck every time i try to open and shut that drawer" while also thinking "i need to be the kind of person that uses cookie cutters... why can't i be one of those people that's making a plate of fall sugar cookies in the shapes of pumpkins and acorns and delivering them to friends and neighbors?! i'm such a failure for not ever making sugar cookies with cookie cutters" and it just goes back and forth and on and on. yes, i know, i totally need counseling. ; )
for the record, i did finally get the boy clothes all sorted out (and filled two large trash bags with clothes to donate/give away) and i think it's in a way that will work well and be simple to "shop" from when... and if... brady ever grows big enough. it feels good to be able to celebrate that i like the clothes i've chosen to keep and that i can feel good about giving away the other clothes to someone who will actually use them. now really, i just need someone to coach me through everything in my house and tell me what i need to keep/get rid of. i'm really good at organizing but not so much at making these kinds of decisions. i'm thinking my dad would be perfect for the job... i wonder how soon i could get him to come back to help me...
or maybe my mother will when she comes back in town next month. because woohoo! only four more weeks!
No comments:
Post a Comment