purging

I am really good at purging.  Clothes, toys, all the accumulative crap that piles up on my desk/the kitchen table/countertops/the master bedroom dresser....  However, I have to not be able to SEE the kids closets or said surface space before I get the motivation to clean up.  I noticed Friday night that I had a stack of papers from school already and it's only the first week.  And considering that Liam was the only one actually doing any school work and bringing his papers home, this is not a good thing.

I am one part extremely organized and one part very lazy.  I'm the person who runs around frantically cleaning her guest bathroom, dusting and vacuuming the floor before you come over, but I organize all my silverware when I put it IN the dishwasher.

In this spirit, I decided to ignore that fact that I should get some stacking bins and label them, one for each kid to deposit papers in every afternoon for me to sort every night and instead clean out my closet.  Avoidance is my middle name.

As I have been trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to lose the 50lbs. I put on while preggers with Finn 2 years ago, I have been saving bins full of clothes that I wore before I got pregnant in the hopes I will some day fit into them.  Last night I decided it just wasn't going to happen.

Somehow (cough, cough) along my journey of 4 pregnancies my body changed.  A lot.  And so did the clothes.  NONE of my old jeans have any type of stretch to them.  There is no "give" in my beloved size 10 Gap 1969 Ultra Low Waist Skinny Jeans.  And I need give.  I will never be "skinny" and while that's ok with me, my thighs do need to fit into my pant legs all the way.

*As a side note, I'm sitting here thinking about how much weight I need to lose before I get back to my "pre-Finn" scale number and it's only 12lbs.  When did that happen!?!?  Though the goal is another 15 after that.*

But back to what I was saying.  I tried on 30, THIRTY pairs of pants last night.  Well, some of them were shorts and a few were capris. Oh and when I say pants, I don't mean just jeans.  But still.  30.

Some were too small, like I can't get my calf in too small.  I mean I've got large calves, but really?  I was either a lot thinner than I remember, or someone was NOT telling me I looked like I had painted my pants on 3 years ago.

And some were too big.  Which is always a nice problem to have.

I also cleaned out shirts and dresses and I sorted through my never ending assortment of sweaters.  I'm not really sure where they come from, my sweaters.  I secretly think they knit new sweaters when I'm sleeping and that's why I seem to have soooo many even after purging a bunch last fall.  Though in reality, I probably just have a ton left over still after living in the land of snow for 15 years.

After sorting and stacking and putting some things into bags for Goodwill and pulling a few items to sell on eBay, I threw all my "new" clothes in the laundry and washed them (and a bunch of my other stuff.)  Which brings me to a whole other type of purging.  The accidental kind.  You know, the type where you forget your "lay-flat-to-dry" top just went in the dryer....

"I thought I was losing weight, but it turned out my sweatpants had just come untied."