So this morning I finally got around to putting away a week’s worth of laundry. At least it was summer laundry so it was only 3 full hampers of folded clothes. As I was stuffing, literally stuffing, the clothes into the drawers I wondered why on earth the drawers were so full to begin with. After all, all of the clothes that we wore in the past week were in the hampers – how could the drawers still have so much in them?
I am not a hoarder and I get rid of stuff fairly regularly. I also remove the clothes seasonally and put them in the attic. So apparently we just have way too many clothes. Which got me thinking about how much was the appropriate amount to have. How many tee-shirts does a 5-year-old need? What about a 7-year-old or 10-year-old? How many shorts? Whatever the number is, I know its less than what we have in our drawers here. Probably the stuff on the bottom never even gets worn because I think I’m cleaning the same clothes over and over again.
Maybe I’ll get motivated one of these days to go through the drawers and thin them out. But if I don’t, I think I need to be way more selective about what I save and what I get rid of at the end of the season. And when I pull out the fall / winter clothes I need to not stuff the drawers so full.
But then, what I need to do throughout the year is something I learned from one of my roommates after college. Whenever she got something new to her, whether clothing, shoes, or purses, she would get rid of something she had. (It was very beneficial to be her roommate!) If I did this with all of our clothing, then perhaps I would not be in the position I was this morning of stuffing the clothes in the drawers!
But regardless of the space issue… it’s probably better to give the clothes to someone who can use them rather than have them sitting in our house only getting worn once or twice a season (if that). But, here’s my problem… as I’m typing this I’m mentally going through my shirts and can’t think of any that I want to get rid of. Same thing with my kids clothes… because even if they only wear it once or twice, they probably looked really cute in them… And what if I couldn’t do laundry for 2 or 3 weeks for some reason… wouldn’t I want to be prepared? I have such issues… am I alone on this?
“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?” (Matthew 6:28-31)
♥Becki, imperfect housekeeper
I’m way behind on reading many blogs and have started catching up, so I’m just now reading this one.
I understand what you mean about getting rid of things. Until our recent trip to PA I’d been keeping ALL of Jadon’s clothes. Not for sentimental reasons, but in hopes of having another. About 3 days before we left for PA my sister-in-law sent me a message asking if there were any baby things I ‘wanted’ to get rid of. She has a family member with a baby boy and they are in need. As it was so close to our trip I really didn’t have the time to go through anything or to think much about what I would part with (of course this is because I was still trying to determine what all we were taking to wear.) So at the last minute I had Frank add two tubs of clothing into the van. Though she had really been asking for toys and such I figured that if you don’t have to buy clothing (for the next 2 years) then you could use that money for toys. In part it’s because I have no clue where the box with the toys are and I didn’t want to part with any of the big items yet. Before passing the clothing on I did look through it, and actually kept only 4 or 5 outfits. When it was all said and done I was a little surprised at how easy it was, especially given that we have at least 3 shops in town that will buy kids stuff.
The other side of it all is that I returned home with both the tubs filled with clothing for me. My sister-in-law started passing clothes to me about 3 years ago. Every time I go home I come back with some. After the first closet purge she has adopted the rule of taking something out and putting it in the “Jennifer pile” when she adds something new to her closet.
I’m not sure which helped me more; knowing how it feels to receive the clothes, or knowing that I was giving them to someone who would appreciate it as much as I do. Maybe while you consider a purge of the clothing in your home it might help to think of someone specific to give them to.