clothes shopping

Yikes! After all this talk abut frugal living, I went clothes shopping.
A good friend who loves to thrift shop invited me to meet her at a 50% off sale at a very nice, slightly upscale second-hand clothing store. I went intending to spend no more than $10 and hoping to find a pair of dark jeans that are presentable enough to wear to work on Fridays.

I had recently noticed that my favorite black pair of work pants, a uniform if you will, was showing serious signs of wear (not surprising given being worn at least three times weekly for the last four years, and purchased second hand! Those were amazing pants. No ironing required.) The hem was fraying, the inseam was ripping, and they were starting to look a little faded. Boo. I also noticed that my beloved black Dansko clogs were cracking and the heels were getting very worn. Again, these have been my daily shoes since fall of 2008. The cracks started while wearing them biking in the rain--not a good idea with leather shoes. The dress code (unofficial) where I work is quite casual, but looking professional is still appreciated, and I knew it was time to retire the clogs and black pants soon. I was thinking, though, that I would try to last until spring--just a few more months.

Long story short, I had no luck with jeans (always challenging for Pears with Curves), but did find two other pairs of pants, an REI grey casual one and a well-fitting replacement black pair, new with the tag on. The total for the two after the discount was $18. I also found a new-but-gently-used pair of Danskos with a little heel--a narrower, dressier, look and more height than I am accustomed to, but just my size, very comfortable and a good price at $16 on sale (they would be over $100 new). I was hesitating, but bought them after I noticed that my tan socks were visible through the cracks in my black everyday shoes! (I usually wear black socks, so I hadn't noticed. My friend's husband later asked, "Didn't you try duct tape on the inside? That's what I would have done.")

What do you think--was this a good investment in my professional wardrobe?
Or should I have gone for the duct tape and waited until spring?

shoe fly, don't bother me

Shoes!

Enormous, smelly, muddy, sweaty, clean, dirty...Piled in the entry way, tucked under the backpack hooks, trippable objects on the mat in front of the front door, and sometimes even (thanks to Guess Who 15) on the couch, they seem to be everywhere except where they are meant to live. Which in our house is in two official places.

One is this old tulip bulb box that I love. It lived for a long time in the front entry, and recently was exiled to the downstairs bathroom where it was a little too out of the way. It was found sitting empty. Our home is supposedly a shoes-off zone, so shoes should be coming off in the entry way. Back it comes to the entry. The original idea was that each family member has two slots for their "most active shoewear".

The other shoe home is a folding shelf in the front hall closet, where Minou and Mama Minou's shoes are rumored to live. This closet is also where we keep the giant dogfood bag and the shredding bag and my stash of items on their way out, as well as the more standard coats and jackets and board games and sleeping bags, so the shoes were forever falling off the shelf and having to be retrieved from the depths of who-knows-what. Not working. Out it goes! (this folding table was a free one I found curbside near the university and brought home, despite the suspicious burn marks)

Can you see the hiding shoes?

Minou has created his own shoe stash in his closet area in the downstairs bathroom, so his limited collection can just live there (he likes to keep the shoe boxes, so the shoes might as well live in the boxes and take up less space).

And what will I do with my own eight pairs...sigh. As I said before, for the family member who preaches minimalism, I also have the greatest number of personal clothing items. Well, jogging and gardening shoes live outside due to their yucky factor (these are the ones piled in fromt of the front door), and slippers migrate around with me. My new plan is to seasonally rotate. Sandals (3) now go to the attic, leaving me with just two pairs of everyday shoes...which will fit in the tulip box! Hooray. Space problem solved. At least for now.

clear & clear some more

Somewhere, and I can't remember where, I read a blog post or a blog post response about Uncluttering by a mother. This mother said that when her children were small, every day she cleared out 10 things from her home to create a more serene, functional and peaceful space. It could be big things, furniture or clothing or books, or it could be 10 broken pens from the random pen drawer. It didn't matter. Just 10 things.

That's my goal right now, fast-tracking the 365 Less Things. And if I find I can't do 10, well, I'll step it back down. I'm also trying to do the 10 first thing in the morning, because if I do this before bed, I end up staying up too late, mooning around the random pen drawer feeling confused.

Today: clothes. I'm frustrated with P'tit Minou Deux's sartorial selection. Despite his closet full of a resonable number of clothing changes, he has one preferred outfit that he would like to wear daily. My requests for clean and varied clothing are met with "You can't tell me what to do". Ah, 13.

So why keep all those hopefully selected (by me) items in the closet that are met with daily rejection? Why, indeed? If a "How about this?" has been met with an emphatic "Ugh!" at least 5 times, no let's make it 10, I see no reason why said item needs to remain on his closet shelf. Let's clear it out. As he commented the other day, it's true that most of his clothing consists of hand-me-downs (I personally love that frugal solution!). Which does mean that they may not really be to his taste and were not of his choosing. So by making the space in his closet, we will see what he really "needs" and have more room to boot. And hand these clothes along to another friend.

sorting shoes

How does one minimalist-leaning woman manage to amass so many pairs of shoes?
And how many is too many?
Here's what I have currently. When I put them all together, it was more than I expected.

I think it's too many. But I do wear almost all of them often. The ones I don't wear as often are the fancier sandals that would cost a lot to replace for the few occasions I would want them.

Brown Keen boots-fall/winter/spring
Black Dansko clogs-daily work (beloved by nurses and teachers everywhere, so comfortable)
Brown Keens-summer sandals and walking shoes
Brown Italian leather sandals-had for 18 years! Rarely wear, but still nice.
Black flat sandals-black summer shoes
Slippers-home, cold tile floors in the winter
Blue plastic clogs-gardening and chicken tending
Nike running shoes-handmedown from P'tit Minou 1, worn out
Trail running shoes-see above

Yikes! One place I think I could trim down is by sticking to either brown or black and not having two sets of colors. I actually tried this--choosing black because it seemed the more basic--but truth be told, I missed brown (I had hung onto the shoes to see how it went). I'm an earth-tone kind of gal. I also have two nice brown skirts that were given to me that I'm reluctant to part with, so I figured I will hold on to them until...?

So how can I trim? This is too much shoe volume in a small home. Also, I preach minimalism at home, but I have more pairs of shoes than anyone else in my household. Ahem. Though my feet have stopped growing, unlike some!

Here are P'tit Minou Deux's pairs:

 He loves the black leather ones (which are falling apart). Summer sandal season will soon be over.
The two pairs of running shoes above were inherited from P'tit Minou 1 (who was the other runner in the family until being sidelined by a knee injury--don't let your early teens run half-marathons, even if they want to!). P'tit Minou 2 is not a fan of running shoes and never wants to wear those.

So I think that I will get rid of my two worn-through pairs of running shoes (after today's long run: 10 miles!) and instead adopt G2's darker pair. Which leaves each of us with one less pair of shoes. His leather ones will need to be replaced soon, but we will throw away the older one.

As I write all this I can't help thinking about what a first-world problem I am having. My friend S., when leaving her Peace Corps stint in Guatemala, collected money from friends at home because she wanted to leave each woman and child she had worked with on a garden project with at least one pair of shoes. One.

This is my life now. Aiming to simplify and finding it a struggle, while others in the world struggle to meet basic needs.
It's not right or fair.

I still have more shoes than anyone else in the family, though. Ideas? I want to trim down!

the organizing itch

Tonight my Mom returns from her longer trip, hopefully in a very good mental & emotional space after two weeks of meditation at Plum Village, a Buddhist retreat center in SW France.

My first week back I stayed in her home since our wonderful house-and-chickensitters were still here. I took a few too many liberties with cleaning--it slipped into organizing mode, which is very dangerous in someone else's house, and I hope that she will forgive me. Cleaning up spilled cat litter led to cleaning out a closet. Doing laundry led to organizing the laundry room. Looking for something for a headache led to a 2 gallon bag full of expired medications. Looking for bathroom cleanser led to organizing the cleaning product cupboard. You can see where this is going...

I have the organizing itch. Not to say that my own home is done--far from it--but I didn't have access to it, and besides my mother's home has so, so, so many things in it...piles of them...I had to restrain myself from doing more. (Which I did; Hi Mom!) It always strikes me how very much easier it is to clean when there is less to clean around. And since I don't particularly like to clean, this just makes sense.

Now I am home, back in my own rather spare space (though much less so since my three Beloveds came home) and it feels good. I was asked rather anxiously by one of the p'tit minous if I had done much minimizing while they were gone, and could answer truthfully (to his relief) that I had not--too busy with work and academics. (I also didn't do any gardening, which is sadly apparent).

However, the organizing itch just must be scratched. Last night I sat on the couch with Minou and p'tit minou deux while they watched an action-hero type movie, and I happily organized my computer files and server storage, deleting the multiple nested duplicate files that I have somehow managed to accumulate over the years (I'm better now, but in my early days of thumb drive use it was all a little bit confusing--I must have had at least five or six copies of all my past teaching files).

And I can't wait to see if my Mom will let me at her closets and not-closing dresser drawers...(with her of course).
I love to spread one of the joys of minimizing: being able to find clean, flattering, well-fitting, not-worn-out clothing without digging through a bunch of not-that.
Do you think I should give her time to recover from jetlag before bringing up the question?!