What with overindulging this past Christmas and a new medication I'm on that makes me hungry, I've suddenly discovered that a whole lot of clothes (pants and skirts, mostly) are uncomfortably tight. At first I was annoyed, but it turns out there is an unexpected upside: getting dressed is suddenly very low-stress. Last weekend I spent a half hour going through my bottoms and putting the too-tight ones up on a high shelf, out of the way. I would say about a quarter of my pants and nearly half of my skirts are temporarily "on hold" (or who knows, maybe forever!), which leaves me with -- to my surprise -- a more manageable closet. I guess I did have too much in there.

I'm not advocating gaining a pile of weight to help you pare down your wardrobe, of course. I also imagine that gaining weight could cause a whole lot of stress, if suddenly nothing fits. But while in general I don't like getting fatter, at least in this case there is a silver lining.