Closet progress report 1

See that stack of hangers? Before yesterday, every single one of those had a piece of sad, lonely, unwanted clothing on it. Now, the hangers are free. There are 27 in that stack, which means almost a month's worth of clothes are now being donated to a thrift shop. The picture of the clothes hanging is literally my entire professional wardrobe. A few shirts, five pairs of slacks, seven skirts, two suits, one dress. Oh, and those sweaters, which are looking much nicer in my new sweater rack. (I still have a ridiculous amount of sweaters considering I live in Los Angeles, but my husband has this thing about being cold and thinks I need to bundle up when it's sixty degrees out. So he buys me sweaters. And I love each and every one of them because he really is a very good stylist. The man can walk in to a store and buy a pair of jeans for me and when he brings them home they fit perfectly. He once brought home a size six because he said they looked like they would fit. I was, naturally, skeptical since I am a solid 8-10. And I love those size six jeans. Very proud that I have a pair of size six jeans in my drawer and that I can wear them.)

(^Longest parenthesis ever?)

I still don't love the look of that sweater rack there, and I'd love to be all Martha Stewart and put in some fancy shelf dividers to stack my sweaters, but I'm not that good at drilling and getting my husband to do it will be challenging since he's working overtime for two more weeks. So, the rack will have to do.

I'm also down to two weeks worth of undies, which is a drastic improvement. Most of the ones I threw out were uncomfortable anyway, and I just no longer have the will to wear uncomfortable underwear. I also threw out all those evil VS bras and am now down to two nursing bras and four sports bras. I'll be ordering some that actually fit soon. I'll spare you those details, though.

Shoes ... You know, I've never considered myself a shoe person, but I had about three times as many shoes as I need creating traffic jams in my closet. So now I'm down to two pairs of dress sandals, two pairs of dress flats, one pair of Five Fingers, two pairs of hikers (one is Goretex which will only be used in the winter, so it's way back in the corner there), one pair of tennis shoes, one pair of Vans which I can't bear to part with, and my beloved Toms. From 30 pairs down to 10.

So now I've cleared space for my trumpet and music stand (they're hiding there behind the sweater rack) and my file box, which really doesn't belong there in the front but will have a new convenient location soon.

Oh my word, it feels so good to purge all of this from my life. It feels like letting go of a huge burden. I feel like I'm no longer a slave to my possessions. And it feels like I'm finally back in control of my house.

I should be finished in the next couple of days after I clean up that top shelf. I still have no earthly idea where that stuff is going to go. Most of it I'm keeping, so it must find a place to be.

So here are today's photos. A vast improvement from yesterday, I think.