Clothing organization

my clothes are a mess. when i moved in with my boyfriend last august, he got me two tall white ikea shelves on craigslist to put my clothes in. i usually throw the shirts into one cube, underwear in another, pants in another, etc. very messy. a while back i wrote a lesson on home storage and organization, so i should be able to handle this. if you are interested in cleaning out your wardrobe, this is a step-by-step of how i did it.

First, i took everything off every shelf and tried it all on. after the "fits/doesn't fit" evaluation, each time i got done with an article of clothing, i either put it in the goodwill garbage bag, put it in a "sell online" pile or threw it into a pants, shirts, or etc. pile.


Identify your Under-shirts.

i was thinking, undershirts...tank tops...but really it's more than that. i mean the shirts that don't look good on their own, but provide effective cover under a loosely-knit sweater. also longsleeve shirts that are a little too goofy to wear solo but look excellent under certain t-shirts. and basic long-sleeved shirts that are the perfect length to protect my neck and wrists from a super itchy but very warm and/or awesome-looking sweater, but are too boring to wear on their own. Under-shirts.


Start Rolling.
i finally decided to start doing this clothes rolling thing. i'd heard it recommended for packing luggage, and for drawers, and even done it a few times only to go back to folding and eventually tossing things in a pile again. Lay your clothes on a flat surface, fold the sleeves in, then fold them in half and in half again, then take the edge on the right and roll it to the left. you have a nice little rolled bundle of clothing that you can stack or stick  in a drawer. fold t-shirts so part of the logo (if there is one) shows on the outside, so you can identify what shirt it is.

Don't Cry, It May Be Destined for a Higher Purpose.

The old t-shirt that is way too small but still awesome might be the dream of some skinny teenage kid who would love to discover it in a thrift store. if i love it too much to let go i cut the fabric and put it in a picture frame and hang it on my wall.

i stuffed the undershirts together in an ikea clothes organizing box and turned it sideways so i could see the stuff on the shelf. i have a lot of t-shirts so i stacked them in another cube, with the lesser-worn ones in the back row. all the "destined for a better purpose" t-shirts that i'm not ready to cut up yet go in another organizing box and stay on a low shelf i don't look at much, so they're not in the way and if i need them for any reason i'll know where they are. the three pairs of pants that still fit me get a small shelf. the other pants are in limbo. if they don't fit in the next six months they go. i got a diamond organizer from the container store to separate my socks and stood it upright at the back of a shelf so i can see them all at once.

you get the idea. roll up everything into little packages, see where your stuff will fit, and put it there in a way that makes sense. some people organize stuff by color or by purpose or both. keep it up and you'll never have trouble finding your clothes again.

Clothing evaluation: Part 1

upon finding that my jeans don't fit anymore, i realize i've been spending a lot more time with some "(once)-too-large always had a crush on and wished they just fit" brown corduroys in the last couple of weeks.

i remember this "happening to me" one time before, when i had a roommate who let me wear her mavi size 8 jeans one night to a club. after that, i was in love with the jeans. they were too small for her and she let me keep them. i started wearing them more and more, and they started fitting better and better. over time, i grew into them.

When you're a kid and you're actually supposed to be growing, you take what you get as hand-me-downs or what your parents buy you. But in your adult life, don't buy or keep hand-me-down clothes that you love but are too large, unless it is your goal to get to that size. and maybe that was my goal subconsciously. don't buy anything too small either, of course. it will only taunt you.

so i'm now going through my entire wardrobe to see exactly what still fits. it's a good idea to do this every 6 months or so. you've seen the statistics: "we wear 20% of our wardrobe 80% of the time."

try the 80% on that you don't wear that often. sort. some stuff you just know needs to go to goodwill.

when you've found out what really really fits, put that stuff on your shelf and put the stuff that doesn't in a box for later thought.


More to come...

(These are not the pants in question. these are some i "eyeballed" in a mirror and bought at a discount store for $10 without actually trying them on. that's $10 out the window.)

stuff i just learned: don't overfill a top-loading washer

An important thing about laundry: if you're doing a whole lot of laundry in a top-loading washing machine (like at your mom's house), you have to treat the machine a lot more gently than laundromat side-loaders, where you shove all the clothes you can in and hope the door locks when you jam it shut. You aren't supposed to overpack or overfill a top-loader. if you do, it will either be unable to drain or possibly overflow, or something else bad. you should leave the two top rows of the little airholes in the sides of the drum exposed.

waking the hibernating bear

It's the law:
"An object that is not moving will not move until a force acts upon it."-Sir Isaac Newton

My xmas holiday was spent in unbelievable, delicious idleness. Sleeping well past noon, eating cupcakes, cookies, and some heavy leftovers for brunch, sitting around on the couch, taking a mid-afternoon nap, going out to shop for a couple of hours, coming back and eating a delicious, carb-packed meal, taking an after-dinner nap, watching tv, snacking on leftovers and holiday goodies left lying around on the kitchen counter, and then going to sleep for about 12 hours. I went on the elliptical trainer every other day, which is pretty good (for me), but it hardly made a dent given the amount of calories I was consuming. To sum up, I've probably gained about 10lbs since the xmas season started at Thanksgiving.

Now, as a relatively tiny person, I find it weird, uncomfortable, and basically unnecessary to worry about or even discuss my weight. But the undeniable fact is my pants are way too tight now. It's uncomfortable. I bought some new jeans, but they're kind of too big, and rather than growing into them i'd like to get back to where i was so all my current clothes fit right again. Besides that, I know that staying in an idle state for a long time makes you more and more inclined to sleep...until you're sleeping all the time. I've reverted to some bad habits that I maintained for many years, and I want to break them before i'm unable to stay awake for more than a 4-hour stretch.

But this is going to involve a whole lifestyle change. My pattern is to have a feeling of anxiety when I think I might be deprived of sleep. I need it, I say, I need 8 hours every single night in order to function. For a while, I would get so nervous about not falling asleep in time to get my 8 hours, I would be unable to fall asleep at all from the anxiety of thinking I wouldn't get enough sleep. I took Ambien for this for a while, which is some weird shit, then switched to Melatonin, which is much nicer because it's a naturally occurring compound in your body that also helps you wake up, among other great things. But recently my inclination has become, "Sleep all the time!!!" If I get tired during the day, particularly on weekends filled with sitting around, I need a nap. Curses on anyone who tries to get in my way. And when I'm bored, I get an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion. I've been falling asleep at work almost every day for the last two months, even though I get plenty of sleep every night. Cold weather makes me want to hibernate. And inactivity makes you colder...am I seeing a cycle here?

So here comes a practical resolution for the new year:

Exercise for at least 20 minutes a day 6 days a week.

It's been pretty stick-to-able so far. I've been doing it for the last week in the evenings and I'm already feeling more awake, feeling like i need to get up and move around at work rather than just sit in my chair, wanting to run and be active, feeling wakeful at night if i take a nap in the afternoon. Things are starting to right themselves. I'm starting to need activity, the way healthy people do.

Becoming regularly active after years of lethargy is hard. It's hard because sleep is your friend, your cuddlebunny, your lifestyle. The same thing with depression. It becomes so familiar that it's hard to imagine letting go of it. You feel unready for wakefulness, for dealing with the world. Thinking about going to the grocery store exhausts you. Everything seems overwhelming. Time for another nap!

Not this time.

feminism failed me

Growing up, I had fierce, seemingly inborn aversion to the idea of eventually becoming a woman. Just being a girl frustrated me. I felt that it was my mission to fight for feminism, to erase the notion that women and men were different and irreconcilable creatures. I fought a desperate mental battle against the idea of difference for years. I had all sorts of bitter notions in my head about "womanhood." Emotional outbursts, wanting babies, loving to cook and living only to take care of others. How boring! How sad, unrewarding, and unappreciated a role! Then I worried: What if women really were better at some things than men? And men than women? It was the most depressing thought in the world for me, to be limited by one's gender. Biological determinism. Curses! I hated the idea of fate, predestination, anything that would prevent me from doing absolutely everything men did. I was afraid of doing a lot of things I was good at for fear they might highlight my traditionally "womanly" talents, which i had been abundantly schooled in as a child. Praise for success at these activities always rubbed me the wrong way.

It took me 30 years to realize this was all ridiculous. In addition, with an unconscious aim toward rebellion against my ever-vigilant teacher/homemaker mother, I had refused to master any of the basic "domestic" tasks necessary to take care of myself. I refused to cook anything more complicated than mac and cheese. I refused to exercise. I didn't stand up straight. I couldn't stand to make plans in advance of one week.

I now realize that not learning how to cook made me more dependent on prepared food and restaurants, or others who could cook. Not thinking about my future made it easy to put everything off and indulge my procrastinating tendencies, and led me to accomplish very little. Limiting my actions by always comparing my interests to ingrained stereotypes of typically male or female activities kept me from doing what made me happy, or even realizing what that might be. I judged my every thought, I had a chip on my shoulder, something to prove.

Reading the Marianne Williamson statement, "Our Deepest Fear," really affected me:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

This was the message i'd been waiting to hear. All the stereotypes are just there to keep us down, to ridicule our interests, to belittle our accomplishments, whatever they may be. Disregard the negative! This blog is about growing up, realizing that none of that stuff I worried about was worth it. It's also a file of things that relate to the domestic sphere I had so long (and self-destructively) neglected. Pay attention to your goals, your interests, your diet, your physical wellbeing, and your home. All these things affect your mood and happiness. This goes for everyone who wants to be self-sufficient, healthy, and self-aware. Neglecting yourself just to prove a point is a waste of life.

Happy new year!