November 05th, 2018

You see before you a veritable nest of hangers.  Looks like some strange puzzle or a bizzaro land game of pick-up-stix (remember that one?)

This is the result of Tim deciding to go through his closet this weekend and getting rid of anything he doesn't wear.  It's something he has mentioned he wanted to do for quite awhile now and I'm sure he feels very accomplished now that it is done.  I know that's how I felt when I did my side of the closet last year.  There is just so much more room in the closet!  

The difference is that when I did it, I had to try things on first.  Sometimes I tried a skirt, for example,  with several different tops (hey..sometimes it makes a difference!)  or various shoes (again can make or break an outfit).  If was an article of clothing that I was on the fence about, "keep or save, keep or save, hmmmm", sometimes I would walk around the house in it for a bit. Sit, stand, walk.  I asked questions of myself. How comfortable is it?  Does it still serve a useful purpose in my life?  What else do I have that goes with it or in other words, how multi-functional is this garment? Does it require dry cleaning?  All to help make the final determination.  It took me most of a day to sort through.

Tim went through his closet in under ten minutes.  It might have been closer to five minutes.  He started on one side of the closet, scooting hangers along the rod, instantaneously pulling the items off when it didn't meet whatever inner criteria he was using to make this decision  and threw it on the bed, hanger and all.  Once he finished both hanger rods (we have two, one up high and one lower) he was done.  Taadaa!  Finished.   As far as he was concerned it was Mission Accomplished.

It was my turn now to remove the hangers, fold the clothes, bag them and haul them off to GoodWill if they were good enough to move on down the line.  Some were not and were very garbage can ready.  A few things I saved for myself.  Seriously. Tim's old tee-shirts make great pajamas tops or even nightgowns for me.  One of the advantages of being short!  I even saved one of his old Hawaiian shirts.  I'm not certain what I will ever do with it. But it's just so soft and yummy that I think I need to hang on to it for awhile.  I'm thinking, bathing suit coverup.   I have the clothes are handled one way or the other.

But now what do I do with all these doggone hangers?

The wire hangers are easy.  Out they go!  Straight to the garbage.  Not to be too Joan Crawford about it, but I really dislike wire hangers.  Sill the rest of these nice sturdy plastic hangers surely could suit some purpose, right?

If only I knew what that was.  Perhaps if I was a really creative person, I would look at that pile of hangers and be inspired.  I would immediately  think.....I don't know...something creative and wonderful.  (I think I was hopeful for a second there that just writing the sentence would bring something to mind and I would have a terrific finish for this. I was wrong).

There are probably a few older kind of beat-up hangers in the laundry room that I could replace with a few of these.  And it wouldn't hurt to have some hangers in the guest room closet in case a guest wishes to hang up their clothes instead of leaving them in the suitcase. But the rest?  I just do not know. Open to suggestions though.....

Meanwhile, Hurrah to Tim for getting a chore checked off his mental list of things he wanted to get done!

Now it's time for me to go hanger wrangling.