no boys allowed in the room!!!!

Amanda, if you want to reduce your clothing archive, maybe you should take pictures of the items in the archive, note what it is about that item that you want to remember and keep a record either in electronic or actual format. Then you can give the item itself away. I mean, only if you care. If not, I apologize for offering a solution when you are not actually looking for one.

"just in case" it sits in your closet. "just in case" is always spared during spring cleaning. hasn't happened yet, but any day it could be called into service. this is the item that will have your back, on your back. sometimes, having "just in case" ready to go on the old hanger works like an umbrella on a cloudy day, miraculously, and mysteriously staving off any need whatsoever for it.

A pretty little blog post that I found while googling something else the other day.

no i AM looking for one. that is a good idea. i need to say goodbye to some stuff and i just can't find a way to do it without, i dunno, a ritual burning or something.

just in case is most of my closet. ok, closets.

photos and a ritual burning sound good, actually.

Okay, good. I'm super sensitive to the "offering solutions when none were requested" thing because my coworker keeps doing it to me, such as the other day when she suggested I take some classes on how to be more self sufficient because I joked that when Jeff went out of town, I get kind of feral and eat over the sink and sleep on my clothes.

I sort of want to tell her that last night for dinner I had a cold piece of leftover frozen pizza and a bowl of cornflakes but then she'll start sending me easy recipes that I can freeze and eat later or something.

Amanda, make some room in your closet because I still have that thing to send you! When I remember. Maybe I will look for more than one thing, just to make the package worthwhile. You won't need the jacket until spring anyway, more's the pity....

ok. i can get rid of some things, i'm sure. like the high heeled tap shoes (sob), or the tall brown lace-up mother goose boots that are too small and will always be too small (sobsobsob)

seriously though, there must be a second layer i can peel. like the polyester green-white-pink maxi tank dress that belonged to someone who lived in my old neighborhood's hawaiian mother while she was pregnant with her.

see? it's hard.

Anything that doesn't fit must go. Anything that is ripped, stained, and unrepairable must go. Unrepairable means that you have been saying to yourself for more than one year that you are going to repair or have repaired a certain garment, but have never actually done so.

If you have attachment to some things such that you love them and want someone else to love, put them up on Ebay or Etsy to find them good homes with loving owners.

i also wore that hilarious dress to my old boss's over the top wedding at the modern art museum and got super drunk with my other coworker and then took the bus home and we talked about weed. memories!

i think i can't get rid of these things because they jog my otherwise very clogged memory. it's not as easy as ebay because i don't want anyone else to have these things. they're too full of me.

maybe i have a problem :-/

a picture would help.

I mean unless they're making your life an episode of "Hoarders", it isn't bad to keep things that mean something to you. If you KNOW that that's what they are, you don't have to follow that cookie-cutter self-improvement advice about how to clean out your closet. (It IS good advice IF that's what you want to achieve, but...).

I keep a lot of things for various reasons.

A picture, and then you record that story, too. You can even make a book out of them through the magic of iPhoto or other on-line services.

Amanda, when you are ready to do this, I will be there for you. I'm very pragmatic when it comes to reducing clutter, plus I like listening to your stories.

xp - of course, Laurel is also correct.

I expect Amanda has her reasons for wanting to be able to shut the closet door and feel good about it, I am not unsympathetic. But I also happen to be against the clinical disposal of memory objects, even though NYC apartments have basically no storage and I had to jam my winter coat into the closet this morning. (NYC apartments also do not have coat closets separate from the bedroom ones, and winter coats take up a crapload of room.)

oh, they do! and i couldn't possibly get rid of the 1930s blue wool ankle length coat i got at this estate sale of an old woman who lived in my neighborhood until she died and her family sold off everything in her house.

my main concession in the last few years is not to accumulate any more of this stuff. i'm not a hoarder, but i have a real shitload of memory objects.

i realize that's basically every estate sale ever, but it just felt very fresh and weird to be walking around her house, picking up things where she last left them.

i always hated getting rid of meaningful things, but moving a lot helped me with that. however, i still have at least 1 suitcase worth of things i haven't worn in years and couldn't bear to get rid of.

here is a case for keeping: before i moved, i was a little ruthless in getting rid of things, and gave away my black wool peacoat that felt a little too snug for comfort. now it would fit perfectly and my other coats are big and i'm stuck having to spend $ on a new one and also going through the agonizing process of finding the perfect replacement.

another story: i could never bring myself to get rid of that bcbg kimonoish black top, even though i had only worn it like twice 5 years ago, because it made me feel so fat and insecure, but this year i wore that shit for christmas dinner. so. keep the ones you love.

guys i didn't read the whole thread; what's "Q"?

quality.

ty!

Things I can't throw out are mostly vintage things passed down from grandmothers/mom/aunt, anything made by a decent designer, shoes passim. Part of the 'keep' impulse comes from being badly burned a few times after getting rid of something and having the item or similar 'revived'. Luckily there is no moth problem where I live now - clothes stocks were decimated a few years ago because ex-BF brought the moths' eggs back from camping trips, just to eat my cashmere.

if you want it to be, q is short for qute

that is how i had been reading it!

ok i made a pile of stuff i totally don't care about and can't remember why i was keeping it, including:
* a size 10 skirt with the tags still on it that a student gave to me
* a few heavily discounted/shrunken sweaters
* ruffled chiquitita shirt i picked up god knows where that had a hole in it
* scratchy polyester robe i bought in chinatown in 1997 and wore like 1x b/c it was so uncomfortable

clearly THIS is stuff i can get rid of. i know that.

lol ruffle skirts!

FYI I will not be posting the color of my bra on Facebook to race awareness of breast cancer. kthx

wow, this is really a thing. i'm not going to do that either.

fyi gr8080's is cheetah print.

hi everybody! i have just discovered this thread. my bra is light green but facebook doesn't need to know.

Eh whatever - I did it because why the hell not?

I'm going to post my preferred brand of tampon to increase awareness about gang violence.

OB

I didn't know about the breast cancer thing just thought it was a random meme. Oh well, whatever.

haha that's even better actually

OB here as well. one of my friends used to get heavily discounted stuff from a pharmaceutical company he worked for and ordered them in bulk for the women in his family, i'm kinda jealous.

lol Amanda

I like it as a random meme a lot more than I like it as a breast cancer awareness raiser.

diva cup for me, thanks

Dare I admit...

Diva Cup/reusable cloth pads

Now you know.

xp YAY!

x-posts Yeah, me too - that's what I meant. Probably wouldn't have done it if I had known what it was for.

Me too! The email I got suggested that we "let the boys figure it out". Barf. Breast cancer bras boobies boys.

I can't use a diva cup because I have an IUD. Tampax here or sometimes OB. I like both. Cloth pads here too but only for sleeping.

I used a Diva Cup when I had an IUD. No probs. Why aren't you supposed to?

Wait me= too slow.

I had a bad experience with the product known as "instead" so I'm OB original...bampon. I did not post about my bra to boost breast cancer awareness on fb.

Jenny you had your iud removed? You didn't tell me!

Not that you should have but I remember taking the bus with you on the way there. <3

They don't recommend using Diva Cups with IUDs because there is a risk of catching the string and pulling out the IUD when you remove the cup. Some people do use them together but doing so is generally not recommended. The idea of yanking out my IUD is so awful that I just don't want to risk it.

I got it taken out awhile ago. It was the Mirena kind with the hormones, so I after about six months, I stopped getting a period, which in and of itself is not terrible, but I also got a full-on hardcore compliment of PMS symptoms. So I'd be minding my own business, when WHAMMO with no warning, crying like a crazy woman, my face would break out, I'd be suuuuuuuuuper bitchy (more so than usual), my boobs would hurt and then... it would stop. No period at the end of that sentence. It made me a little crazy.

Erin, had I read that same warning, I would have heeded it. Thinking about accidentally yanking out the IUD was awful for me to contemplate, too. But as noted, I barely got a period so it was kind of a moot point after awhile.

Huh that really sucks that the Mirena had that effect on you esp since it's a local and not systemic hormone delivery system. It's not supposed to cause the dramatic side effects that oral or injected contraceptives can cause in some women. :/

I have the copper IUD so still get periods and while I'd love to try a Diva or something similar, I'm going to err on the side of caution. Btw, it's Erica. :D

Out of curiosity - how painful was the removal? Sorta dreading the day I decide or have to get mine taken out. I know it's be quick but my insertion was pretty bad so I'm sorta nervous.

^ "it's" should be it'll

I'm so sorry! I have been calling you "Erin" in my head for like at least a year now. Erica. Erica Erica. Got it.

I don't know that the IUD caused the PMS (I get PMSy to some extent no matter what), it just dried up my period so there was no notable endpoint to the PMS. That sounds weird, like a non-problem, but it really got to me. Like it was all anticipation with no denouement. I wanted the copper IUD but my period is super heavy on it's own and the gyn thought it would be a bad move.

The removal was a PIECE OF CAKE. I've had pap smears that were more uncomfortable. The insertion was awful awful awful, so I feel you about the nervousness. I was nervous, too, and pleasantly surprised.