My husband is fully aware I have a proclivity towards shopping. I am not a hang out at the mall type of girl, but I do love fashion. And our closet reflects this or what I call my earnest interest in supporting our economy. When I first purchased the house, I had one wall of the walk in made into shoe shelves. Beautiful, necessary shoe shelves. About 10 feet high and 10 feet wide. Awesome for me. NOT awesome for the man who would later share that closet. (Clearly, his shoes are not welcome in my shoe shelves.) I have them organized by color, heel height. (Yes, feel free to mock it all you want BUT I know exactly where to find the exact shoe I am looking for, right? Right. Same goes for all the clothes, sorted by color and by sleeve length. NO it is not anal. It is called organized. It might be busy in there but my closet is not going to be a hot mess.)
JohnnyMac has not a single issue with these purchases but years ago began to strongly encourage me to adopt the “one in, one out” policy. My initial response: just because Oprah said it is a good policy, doesn't make it right for everyone! But later, I have responded to this suggestion and have discarded of plenty of things. He said throwing out old lipstick is not the same as one pair of shoes in, one pair of shoes out. I do discard bags of old or unwanted items twice annually, but let us say what he and I consider a “full bag” are not the same thing.
Well, my little brother came in the spring and he loves to team up with JMac and hard time me about my closets. My little brother is very stylish, and also loves to purchase so this is what I call being a hypocrite. He offered to ‘help’ me pare down my closet, especially the shoes. By ‘help’ I imply that he would hold up almost every item of apparel and ask when the last time I wore it. Things not worn in the past six months needed to go. This is not realistic, I asserted. I am not Punky Brewster. I can’t wear 19 items at a time.
As he was pulling things out, I would merely go back and put them in their proper place. And as he is spinning around like a dervish, he discovers this shelf that due to construction, is not immediately visible. On the shelf lies about 30 pairs of jeans. Ironically, I not a frequent jeans wearer but the pairs I have, I love. He called JMac into our room to point out the stash. For some reason, this was the source of much entertainment for them. Not entertaining like “WOW, you are a denim addict” but more like “WOW, you are a ^#*&^# hoarder.”
Some of these jeans have seen some pretty fantastic days. That is not to be taken lightly. And they all fit, but I have discovered similar to Halloween candy, when I like a little something, like Earl or Seven, I buy more than needed. We successfully made additional room in the closet (some of it just moved to one of the other bedroom closets) and a great big bag to donate. I thought to get them both out of my clothes business, I would send them to look at the garage. That turned out worse because the first thing said to me was “ALL of this wrapping paper and bags of ribbon need.to.go.” I offered to make bloody mary’s instead. Bloody Mary’s were a great distraction.
I recently bought a pair of skinny jeans. JMac likes them. I asked if he thought these jeans make our closet look fat. For some reason, he didn’t answer. Must be that his filter for sarcasm was set to high.
