My DH and DD's have headed off for a week, to visit SIL and FIL. This is heaven for me - a chance to putter around, start projects without worrying about finishing them in a prescribed time frame, etc.

Other than the usual tidying/sorting of crap around the house that I usually undertake, this weekend I really really wanted to do some sorting of my clothes. I'm in the groove!

Yesterday I went trough all my tanks, tees, long sleeved tees and gear. I was not ruthless, this was an exercise in seeing what I have, what still fits, and getting things in the right place (clearing out and rearranging drawers). But I definitely generated a few items for the donate pile.

This morning was capris. And this was a great exercise, and one that might help those who are purge challenged like me.

Before tackeling the actual clothes, I sat down and "did the numbers". Conservatively. For work... How many time a week do I want to wear them, how many weeks of capri appripriate weather do we get, how many times do I want to wear each pair....And then the same for my casual weekend/weeknight ones. And then... I checked in stylebook from this summer and last summer to see if my numbers remotely reflected my reality. (An aside for Stylebook users... I have been keeping a "packing list" of the outfits I wear this summer, so I can see what really does get worn, and I intend to do this for every season. Kind of an electronic version of flipping the hangers. I think it will be a really easy way to do some closet editing based on reality at the end of the season). This was quite illuminating... I do NOT wear capris as often as I had "budgeted". More reason to err on the side of being conservative.

So I headed upstairs armed with a couple of numbers. Now, I'm a closet maximalist, at least at this point, and I do like variety, so I kept this in mind as well. In other words, I gave myself permission to keep things I liked and that fit - I was not trying to hit a magic number, or purge for the sake of purging. I've already bought them. and I have space. But I did know in the back of my head what that number was. I was in pretty good shape with my work ones. Casual... another story - I was way, way, over. So what this did was make it really easy to cull ones that were no longer in my colour palette, or that were just "okay". Because I knew how many was reasonable to keep. And I had that many, or more, that I liked far better.

No guilt, no anxiety, just logical sensible decision making! And I think 6-8 pairs will find a better home. It kinda kills me that a couple of them were NOT cheap, and that a couple still have tags on (but were, like, $16 from Costco) but it also is great to know these are good decisions becase they are NOT my colours (and not longer even go with my tops), and that they do not have the right leg cut for me, or PPL, or something. We won't discuss the fact that a couple of them are a bit snugger than they should be either...

I also realized that they were far more part of my style a couple of years ago, when most of them were purchased. Now I'm more interested in BF jeans or rolled pants. So this isn't just about excess, it's about my style moving on.

Thanks for listening!

Onward!