Saturday, December 03, 2005

clothes

Yesterday I was blessed with quite a few kid free hours!! As I am participating in 3 markets this week I looked forward to lots of sewing. I had a whip around the house and tried to clean up.....still hoping to find the preschool raffle tickets that I had lost....lucky I hadn't sold any!!! Though I did make a generous donation to ease my guilt. After finally taken clothes off the line on Thursday that had been there since Saturday...yes we have had a hell of a lot of rain here. I hung out another lot of clothes...it is such a never ending chore!! I thought about one of the mothers at school who appears to wear the same clothes (or versions of the same) every day....I bet she doesn't have clothes strewn all over the house, busting out of the cupboards, draped over anything that stays still!! Yes we have far too many clothes in this house...it stems from our time in Switzerland where I had two washing days a month and so we had more clothes. Surprisingly Switzerland had many cheap (but good quality) clothes shops this one being one of my favourite with amazing sales, and many wonderful kids second hand shops or charity sales ensured the children were very well attired!! Then there is my habit of holding on to old clothes, because they could be great for the garden, painting, all number of messy things and wearing to bed etc etc. Well something must have snapped within as I looked at the growing pile that once again needed folding and putting away!! I rushed and grabbed a roll of garbage bags and started filling them. Anything that was too tight, thought twice before wearing, was a hand-me-up from my little sister and I still hadn't worn, too faded, only good for painting (and how often do I paint the house), only suitable to wear to bed, couldn't be saved for my future days as teacher or not even suitable to wear on my grungy Uni days was turfed!!! Who knows I might even end up buying back some articles from the charity shop. I then went through everyone's cupboards and followed the same principles. I can guarantee Marcel will not once ask "where is my blue and white shirt" or for any other article that is no longer in his wardrobe.......no I am pretty sure he wont...shit I hope so!! Everything was promptly delivered to the charity bins before anyone had the chance to have a look through!! A big bag of the girls' clothes was saved for a friend with two younger girls.
It is not in my nature to be so ruthless, I think too practically. I then went through my socks and undies drawer and asked myself "If I ended up in hospital would I be embarrassed when the doctors and nurses saw my underwear?"....Don't worry most of these things went in the bin not to the charity shop. But I filled it with uncomfortable bras, those held by threads, odd socks that had been waiting for months/years to be reunited with their partner, bikinis that I wouldn't dare bare on the beach, undies that would only stay up with jeans over the top, g-strings (I never got used to wearing them, in fact I would rather wear nothing), and breastfeeding bras.

So now I should have the whole clothes/washing issue a little more under control, be happy with the whole "getting hit by a bus" thing, and have the potential to look quite trendy when gardening.

As for all my sewing for the Markets......people shouldn't be so fussy and should buy what I have!!

6 comments:

Jellyhead said...

Ah, I can so relate to this! Don't worry, your husband will NEVER KNOW. I don't think most heterosexual males have the 'clothes-noticing' gene.

I read an article which said you should throw away anything you haven't worn in over a year. So I'm trying to be ruthless too.

PS the Great Relative Visit has gone OK (SO FAR!)

Alice said...

At least you don't have one category of 'saving clothes for ....' that I do, and that is 'saving for when I lose weight'. Now that's an even more futile exercise than saving for painting, gardening, etc. After all, if I lost enough weight to wear some of these clothes, I wouldn't want to wear them anyway. I'd want new ones to celebrate!

kath red said...

great. i did this recently and threw it all before I could change my mind. I often leave the garbage bags in the corner of the room for months before getting rid of them and by then the clothes have mysteriously made their way back into circulation.

oh and good luck with all the sewing

Calidore said...

I'm half way through the Great Clothes Clean Up. Isn't it liberating. Why do we keep so many items that aren't worn, don't fit etc. And I know the feeling about the underwear and hospital. Each time I had one of the children - I had to buy new underwear. There was no way I was going "in" in my old stuff.

cookingforjp said...

I have done the great close cleanup, then the big house cleanup and it is very liberating.
I know exactly what you mean about doing laundry in Switzerland, I remember my mom having washday only every other wednesday and then 2 Days in the "Trockenraum" to hang the clothes, no dryers. She now has a washer in the basement and a dryer too. But that's for small loads in between.
I would love to hear more about your Stay in Switzerland, since I am from there.
Tschuess

Judypatooote said...

Let me start out by saying "ditto Alice"......you make me laugh, I have done the donation thing too, because I couldn't find the tickets or was just to lazy to push the kids to sell them....Gosh I 'm glad that time is over..... I did the clean out the clothes thing in the spring, but oddly enough I still have tons of clothes that I don't wear....Some are new, bought and thought they looked pretty cool on me, and then when it was time to wear them...Yuck......