Almost Ironic (with apologies to Christine)

Ten loads of wash, 8 big boxes of clean and neatly folded clothes, 3 boxes of “rags”, 1 bag of trash, and 2 trips to Salvation Army were yesterday’s culmination of an ongoing effort to get rid of unnecessary clothes prior to getting our house ready to sell so we can move to Belize next year. I didn’t realize I had so much. I had filled at least 30 feet (!) of hanging space with my clothes; some were 20 years old, some were older. Most things from the 2 spare bedrooms were pretty musty, so I washed and dried everything before I sorted through it all. I was heartless; my wedding dress – into the rag bag! That slightly too-small silk blouse of the most beautiful blue – into the box. The lovely long green skirt my sister made for me that matches the skirts she made for my other sister and herself one long ago Christmas – into the box. The black satin dresses that were my grandmother’s – into the rag bag. The Santa Claus suit that was hand made for my Father when we lived on Okinawa in the early sixties – into the trash bag (sniff). The gorgeous, semi-formal dress hand made for my Mother when we lived on Okinawa – into the trash bag. Well, I did salvage the fabric from the skirt; 3x10 ft of a beautifully hand-embroidered fabric that I entertain a notion of making into pillow covers if it isn't too rotten. The “keepers” still occupy 8 feet of hanging space, but some of that is taken up by winter cloths that I will need for next winter. Anybody need any clothes hangers? ;-)

This morning the title of an older post on Christine Gilbert's blog Almost Fearless caught my eye “10 Unexpected Costs of Owning Things”. I read it and some of the comments it had elicited. Still in the heady post-cleaning out state from yesterday, it resonated strongly with me and I resolved to rethink the many boxes of books I was planning on taking to Belize. But before I reviewed the book inventory on my computer, I made the mistake of reading my emails first. Oooh - here’s one from Amazon. There are some 400 thread count sheets at a very good sale price and lots of good colors to choose from. Quickly --  delete, delete -- no more stuff! It was a close call, but I managed to resist the temptation and decided to write this post instead.

Nearly 2 yards of embroidered tafetta, more than 50years old that I will try to salvage.