08 December 2019

What to do with Funeral Clothes

Yesterday amongst the hustle and bustle of Saturday chores, holiday prep, and general stuff, the A.D.D. demanded that I clean out our closet.

I mean, it was kind of in the back of my mind that I wanted to do some reorganization but suddenly my brain decided TODAY WAS THE DAY, DOGDAMNIT.  And part of today because A.D.D. is super fun.

No, I'm not the boss, in case you're wondering.  It was one of those I'm just going to lean into it days.

The closet isn't that bad, to begin with.  This is where I say that someone else who lives in this house, that isn't Lucy, has more shirts than I do.  To be fair, he has safety shirts for his work "uniform". And he has eleventy racecar and truck shirts, all in shades of black - white. Plus a handful of dress shirts.  Boys have it easy.

I've been trying to pare down my side of the closet for a while. It's one of those "I never wear it so why is it in here?" kind of things.  Know that I don't usually buy clothes new so when I discard clothing, I'm only "losing" like $5 and it goes back to the second hand store.  I think this is also why I can so easily cast away things.  It's recycling, kinda.

Also. the A.D.D. is super particular about clothes.  I may love something but if the sleeve is tight, or the pocket is weird, or the tag itches, too bad so sad. Off you go, cute or nah.

Here's the the difficult part though.  The section of closet behind the door is reserved for jackets, pants, favorite hoodies, and what I would call "Funeral and Job Interview clothes"  You know, the stuff that you pull out only when your grandma dies or that initial big interview or on the flip side of the emotion spectrum, kinda: annual holiday party.  In my case, these are some of those items:

Kevin saw these on the bed and asked "What are those?"
"Funeral and job interview clothes"
"Oh, huh."
They take up valuable real estate in the closet where I can either simply have more room or hang up hoodies and t-shirts instead of them being in a drawer.  I wear them only once in a great while so it makes no sense for them to hang there.  There are other shirts/tops/blouses/whatever of that category that are already folded in said drawer.

Taking it one step more though: the sweaters on the far right are classics.  The boho top on the upper left is pretty cool.  The others...well...I really like them but it rarely occurs to me to wear them. And they're a little dated...but styles are cyclical....so....hmmm.  Their fate is yet to be determined.  I guess they're not hurting anything in a drawer, they've hung in the closet for years.

One thing I don't enjoy about this closet is that the shelf is super high.  Giants hung the shelves, I swear.  I have a tiny, antique foot stool that I use to organize that shelf, otherwise I literally and actually toss hoodies, etc. up there.  Kevin just noticed this the other night as I was putting away laundry.  We've lived in this house for 14 years.

My workaround is an heirloom dresser from Kevin's mom. Because of the ridiculous height of the closet shelf and rod, it fits absolutely perfectly there.  It's where I keep shorts, hoodies, and now funeral clothes.  Mostly stuff that I don't wear often.  I also have a regular dresser that holds regular dresser stuff in the actual bedroom.

And it did not come out of this adventure unscathed.  I reorganized how that works too.  When I got the dresser, about a year ago, I was loading it up at nine o'clock at night and did not care about ease or organization.  Now, apparently, is the time.

Socks and understuff in the top drawer.  For someone like me who gets dressed in the dark and in a hurry more than a grown-ass adult should, this should help the process.
Next drawer is pajamas and....I'm not sure what else now...I don't have that many pajamas.  (t-shirts, really. Not actual pj's)

Yoga and track pants are next.  I have gathered a bit of these. For one thing: with a bit of styling, shall we say, I can get away with these at work unless I'm doing direct service. Then I have to dress like a grownup.

Here's the next puzzle: bottom drawer is backup hoodies. Ones that I like but don't wear on the regular.  Now I have hoodies that are hung in the closet ("work appropriate", if you will) and my favorites are in the dresser in the closet.  Don't say get rid of some hoodies because that is blasphemy.

Oh, *bad words* then I forgot about t-shirts. I had to decide if I wanted to hang those again or cycle them with the seasons.  Two puzzles now: t-shirts and hoodies. The hoodies remain in three part purgatory and some of the t-shirts are piled on the chair.  Finally, I took away two hoodies and combined the t-shirts into two groups: ones that I will wear now with the hoodie and only summer ones.  T-shirts and hoodies combined in two separate drawers, depending on use.  This is probably too complicated of a system, I'm thinking.

Meanwhile, the house is not decorated, the football game begins in 40 minutes (#GoHawks) and Kevin is going to want dinner and eventually access to the closet and/or bed.


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