Christa, Day 13: A Trip Down Memory Lane

Closets and drawers... closets... and drawers. My own little likenesses of the Dorian Gray that is my life. The good news is that not ALL of the closets and drawers in my wee house are filled to the brim with out of place or unnecessary stuff. I don't, for instance, have a junk drawer - as much as I really would like to have one since the one that my dad always had, and still does, has always been a source of bizarre family fun. Junk closets? I have at least one, and I'm about to go look at it so I can address today's simplification idea:

Edit closets and drawers. Once you’ve gone through the main parts of your rooms, tackle the closets and drawers, one drawer or shelf at a time. More here.

I chose one little corner of the "red room" closet and, wow, what a haul.

Tedd's uncle's infant silver set and Tedd's, too. Long old fashioned gloves that my mother-in-law wore when she was a young adult - which aren't practical and the lovely pink kid gloves from France are too small for my big fat hands *cries*. The shoebox of things from P.'s early life, like one of her tiny preemie diapers and a preemie onesie that seems too small for even dolls (plus her umbilical cord stump ewwwww!). What is probably too many pairs of tap shoes. Manuals for all the baby products that came with manuals. A few books, some evening bags, a pair of Crocs Mary Janes the P. will grow into, a batik skirt I thought I'd make into a dress for her, and more.

Now tell me, is that a lot for one little corner of a closet? There were also some files that got stashed in there when we were moving our bedroom upstairs and random papers, to, including a print out of a pirate ship with no contextual clues as to why it was there. I love treasure hunts! This was a fun one, even if I didn't quite get into the spirit since not much made it into the trash or the donation pile. The books are going down to the bookshelves, as are the CDs and the silver, while other stuff will be filed or brought upstairs for safer keeping. The gloves I'll keep until P. is old enough to appreciate them - hey, they don't take much space - and the tap shoes...

Those I'm on the fence about. I don't exactly have a need for multiple pairs of tap shoes sporting different heel heights. I know I don't.

Particularly not the one-offs I used in a single show, like the white Mary Janes. Adult tap around here is all about the jazz funk, so my custom crossovers will likely do me forever. But still, keeping my shoes around is like my guarantee to myself that I will tap again someday. It's just that the teacher I really like teaches classes that are too dang far away, boo.

Basically I took a few trips down memory lane, put whatever had a place back in its place, and now have a slightly less messy closet in a room that is sort of up in the air as to its purpose. 

As far as my overall voluntary simplicity progress up until this point goes, I DID make a meal plan to simplify home chores but trashed it tonight for Subway (which was simpler, so ha), I DID ultimately choose to let go of a fairly big obligation that will free up more time for family (woo!), and my first big item to go on Freecycle was this:

Bye bye, treadle table! And thanks, Freecycler for hauling it off!