Happy Hump Day!!!

Yes, it's that time of week and yes, I missed last week, mainly b/c my stuff hadn't changed! Here's what I am currently:

Reading

Listening to...yes, still

Watching

It's getting to pretty weather here in Texas. We have had several 70+ degree day in a row. This means Spring....which inevitability means.......SPRING CLEANING!!!!

I think that once we get to the 70's in Texas, it begins "open window" weather. I started mine a few weeks ago when we had a few days of warm, before it chilled out again. With this run of nice weather, and some inspiration from Christine, I began my HARD CORE PURGE!!!!

As any of you who have visited/moved me know, I have alot of crap. I differentiate between crap and stuff. Yarn is stuff, books are stuff, clothes that I haven't worn in three years are crap. You get the idea.

I began with a little furniture movement for accessibility, but I realized that wasn't the problem. It was my closet. Things that were supposed to be IN my closet were cluttering my bedroom. I have a bad relationship with laundry. We don't get along. Luckily, since moving to an apartment with W/D, my clothes are clean....they just don't get put up.

My clean clothes end up in a pile on the floor of my closet. It usually end up that I am too busy, too tired, or "my roommate needs the dryer so we will throw them in the closet" kinda situation. However, this comes in handy later.

Tonight, the spirit moved me and I tackled the closet. I took a page from Christine: "If you have forty shirts, you can go six weeks without doing laundry." She makes an excellent point. I started with the hanging items and sorting what I could donate and what I would keep. This was the easy part since I haven't worn these clothes in a while. Basically, what survived are my nice button-ups, 3 suits (I did get rid of two), a few coats, and half my dresses. Anything that hadn't been worn in 2 years got donated.

The exceptions were the suits and dresses. The reason being that I will need suits, on occasion, and I kept three dresses (two I made) and four "formal" dresses. Three of them are nice bridesmaid dresses from good brides who chose ones that could be easily reworn (Thanks Lesley, Julie, and Becky!). May we all be so fortunate.....

However, that is only about 1/4-1/3 of my wardrobe. The rest consists of pajamas, casual wear, and what I call "lab wear" (Leigh can vouch for this).
"Lab wear", for a chemist, consists of clothing that assumes the possibility that it could be ruined, with holes or stains. I have several pairs of pants and shirts that have been "chemically altered". This is not a bad thing, it's just reserved for the lab....and maybe the grocery store. Okay....enough of my crappy wardrobe.....I get enough of that from home! :-P

If you are unlucky enough to live by yourself, the good part is that you can do this anytime you want.....including from 11pm-3am, like me. Hey, I have to go when the spirit moves me.

When you are ready to do this for yourself, here's what I recommend:
1. Get a bottle of wine and your favorite music CD (see above).
2. If you have to think whether you need it, you don't. It's called HARD CORE for a reason.
3. Knitterly things I recommend:
(a) Over-the-door shoe organizer (clear) to store handknit socks.
(b) "Closet rod" sweater and shoe organizers; great for HK shawls and sweaters.
(c) Triple-drawers, plastic: great for storing yarn. You can usually pull of the top and stack them. Three will match the height of a bookcase. Ask me how I know!
(d) In all of the above, I added cedar/lavender stuff to ward off "vermin."

Overall, I feel like I am 85% done with my bedroom. I still need to clean the desk area, "lingerie drawer", and the bathroom.

Knitterly news, not much to publicly report. I am currently working on baby/birthday gifts for some blog-readers, so I won't post till after! I have currently hit a "sock block". The socks that I have been working on are causing nothing but trouble. I will have knitting pictures someday, I promise!