Over the weekend, I cleaned out my closet. I gained a lot of weight after Ramona was born. (I’m blaming the new medication for it. Combined with a lack of time to exercise.) So a lot of my clothes just didn’t fit anymore. It was depressing to walk into the closet and see hangers upon hangers of clothes that I couldn’t wear. This led to me keeping most of my currently-fitting clothes draped on furniture around the bedroom so I didn’t have to go into the closet very often. (Have I mentioned my husband is a very neat and tidy man? He knew what he was getting into — I’ve never tried to hide my messiness — but the clothing situation was really getting out of hand. And like I said, it was bumming me out.)

On Sunday, I got a bug up my butt and decided to do something about it. I went through everything, hung up what still fit, and put everything else into one of three piles — one to give away, one to throw away (for stuff too damaged to give away), and one to keep in a box shoved in the very back of the closet. Unless I absolutely loved it and knew I would wear it again, it went in one of the first two piles. I ended up with two garbage bags full of garments to donate, one bag of trash, and a box heaped with clothes. Now I know when I listed the Clean my Closet Thing, I only allowed for 10 sentimental exceptions. I definitely kept more than 10 things. But I’m counting this Thing as done because my closet is totally clean. At least, clean for me.

And we’ve got about eleventy million hangers. I hope our dry cleaner will recycle them.

Let me tell you — it is such a relief to walk into that closet and see clothes that I can actually — and do actually — wear! It’s a weight off that I didn’t even realize I was carrying. Whew.

Also — Like I said I would in my last post, I have started the “Morning” Pages Thing. I’ve been doing them in the evening, but I only missed one night. (Grace and Frankie dropped on Netflix and I had to dig in. Lily Tomlin is my hero.) I wrote six pages the next night to make up for it and I haven’t missed any other days. So we’re 9 days in on this 30 day Thing. I don’t always have much to say. If you look in my notebook you’ll see several lines of variations on the F-word, just to take up space. But I have written down a few seeds of ideas that might actually turn into something. Do I think my poem for publication will germinate in these pages? I’m not sure. But maybe? I’m looking forward to seeing where this Thing takes me, creatively.

So that’s another Thing down and one well underway!