Day 2 - Not Quilting

Having a sweet life starts with progressively living in favor of what might BE & what IS rather than what might have been. 

After coffee with my next door neighbor, I went to work on the 5-drawer cabinet, my PJ drawer, and hanging bin to go through my clothes. Its one area of my life that is hard for me to deal with, hard to release, and has piled up. These storage places are overflowing with worn out clothes and clothing I will most likely never wear again. Junk.

The first thing was to get them all out of their containers, fold them, and try things on for fit. Next, a few things got tossed, a few wearable things went into the thrift store giveaway, and then the rest was re-folded and re-organized into my closets and drawers. I don't need all these things. And when I look at them, they ARE junk. True down-sizing might mean that I need a few changes for daily use, a couple of 'for-good' things and a few PJs. 

What I don't get about me, and how I deal with these raggy clothing items, is why I keep them. It might be in my best interest to wait a day or two and then do it again. Pull them all out into a pile, sort and cull. 

If there is truth to progressively living in favor of what might be & is, AND my goal is to live more as a minimalist, then I see how I am caught and stuck in what was. I think I have been avoiding a lot of other things in my life when I quilt. 

Its possible that I need to convince myself that it is ok to let go of what no longer serves me, EVEN IF it never gets replaced. I think one of the issues is that I don't know what I am doing here & now, or how I am going forward. It is probable that these tasks will shed some light on what the next steps are. 

It makes me smile. With all those 'notes-to-self' I write on my quilting projects, I don't do that with my clothes. Keep/toss?

Part of this might be a residual effect from retiring. All that change had a lot to do with releasing a particular lifestyle of traveling and speaking in front of groups. Our culture doesn't give us a lot of training in releasing old ways. It is caught up in the consumerism of wanting more, buying more and having more.

My next task was to pull out a stack of periodicals, saved because, in my head, it is a grievous sin to throw away any printed material. Over the years, I might find one tip, one recipe, one photo that is worth the magazine. And I discovered that I can actually RIP that one precious page out and put it in a 3-ring binder to save for reference. I don't NEED a stack of magazines taking up shelf space and collecting dust.

Maybe I cheated. About half of them focus on gardening, so they are in one of those flat rate mailing boxes going to my friend Rex, who is still gardening. I didn't open one of them. This stack is more manageable. 

I needed to find and bring some health documents to my chiro appointment. My really lovely maple 2-drawer filing cabinet was moved under my work tables, and shoved back to the wall. Last time I opened it was just after retiring over a year ago when I cleared out and sent all the student documents, and tossed old lesson plans. Most of it is empty and its time for me to go through it again, toss the rest of what is not needed, and move it to a better location. 

And yet, I was still not done for the day with things I have been neglecting. Some time ago, I started listing my books for sale online, and they sell a few at a time for whatever reason. The problem I have is that I wasn't keeping the listed books separate enough on my shelves from the non-listed ones. I emptied out this corner shelf in my studio and switched books that I do not plan to list from the great room. I need to spend time putting the ones I do want to sell in an alpha-order. The 'keeper' shelves are thinning out and yet there is a pretty big pile of them waiting to go on the for-sale list. 

It was a good day not-quilting. And it feels like I am starting to live a sweeter life as more of a minimalist.