Simplicity ....a lesson in fully embracing...

I have a desire in my heart to live a simplistic life. We have a motto that Phil and I have embraced. It hangs on little sticky notes all over the house. It says, "Live SIMPLY in order that others my SIMPLY live". I heard it in a talk I listened to once and loved it.

We try and make choices that are economical, and environmentally friendly. We spend our money wisely and donate to charities once a month. However our simplistic living sometimes has a hard time flowing over to the things we already own, or the things that already occupy our home.

For me this fact lies more specifically in my wardrobe. Simply put I have TOO many articles of clothing. I have a dresser in our room, a full closet, a dresser drawer in the guest room and 2 Rubbermaid bins that hold out of season clothes. With a baby on the way and the thought of being more simplistic in my mind I am determined to get rid of things.

This afternoon I spent time taking the summer clothes out of my closet and placing the fall clothes in. I do this every year but my wardrobe never seems to shrink, instead it grows. This year I am getting rid of things. I have tops in my closet that I have never worn or haven't worn in the past year. If that is the case it gets set aside. I also went through my t-shirt bin for working out and got rid of more than 1/2 of the t-shirts. I only need 5 workout shirts one for each day and that is if I don't do laundry during the week, which is rare.

The next step was to get the fall/winter clothes buckets out. I can't judge if i've worn it in the past year because I can't remember but I can decide the number of sweaters, cardigans, long sleeve shirts, etc, that I think I need. I decided on 4 sweaters, 4 cardigans and 6 long sleeve shirts. Everything else is getting donated.

Do you need to clean out and simplify your wardrobe? If so, consider doing it this year during the seasonal clothing switch. I will take a few things over to try and sell them but most of them will be donated to the Lafayette School Corporation "It's My Closet" charity. Consider donating to them this year as you clean out your closet. Here is a link to their website.