Odds and Ends

It’s the end of the month.

That means Halloween is upon us and it’s almost November, hubby’s birthday month. (He’s a Scorpio, and I’m a gemini. Yes, I know those two signs are not supposed to work. I don’t care.) It feels like “just the other day,” we were celebrating his 30th birthday with a surprise party and now he’s about to be 31. I remember meeting him (he was 27) and thinking he was so grown up. Now, I’m older than he was then. Now, I’ve revised “grown up” to about 32 or so.

Anywho, the end of the month is always frantic for me. My major source of freelance work has a deadline of the 26th of every month, which means I’m always working like a demon at the end of the month.

On top of that, since becoming a freelance writer, I work about 60 or so hours a week, which means my house is messy far more often than it once was. This morning, despite my hectic work schedule, I resolved to tackle that.

Welcome to Our Bedroom

Since I had clothes everywhere, it was a matter of putting all of them on the bed and sorting.

Sorting

I took into consideration the following:

• Season – It’s almost November and it’s getting a lot cooler here in SD. That doesn’t necessarily mean I have to put away the tank tops and t-shirts, but they should probably be folded and stored on the closet shelf or in my dresser.
• Size – Let’s face it. I’m not the size 8/10 I was at my wedding. That means, I need to sort by size. No reason to be emotional. It just isn’t logical to sort through clothes everyday that don’t fit.

Stack on left doesn’t fit. Stack on right does. As you can see, getting off this excess weight isn’t just a matter of health. It’s also a matter of economy. I don’t want to spend money on a new wardrobe.

• Wearage – When it comes down to clothes, you really have to look at things and say, “Do I wear this?” There are certain items that you realistically won’t wear often. For example, I have a silk dress that I’ve only worn twice. Clearly, it’s an occasion piece. But, if I have jeans, t-shirts, blouses, or accessories that I rarely wear, it may be time to gift them to a friend or donate them.

I found a couple of hats that definitely fit in this category.

Two cute black hats. The one on the left is Nine West. They are both just too large for my head (I’m petite.), so I’ve never worn them in the 5+ years I’ve owned them.

Organizing

Once I had my clothes sorted, I had to check out what I have and group them by “like” things.

Did I mention I have an affinity for brightly colored hippie clothes? Oh, I didn’t? Well, now you know.

When organizing, I took into account the following:

• Frequency of Wear – The above hippy clothes get a lot of wearage, as do pretty dresses and comfy jackets. Other stuff, not so much, so it gets put in the back of the closet.
• Length of Garment – Because my clothes hang above my shoe organizer, it’s necessary to put my dresses further down in the closet so they aren’t draping over my shoes.
• Color – I prefer to organize clothes by style and color, but this takes a lot of time. If you can only worry about one thing, just pick frequency of wear. It will save you a lot of time on a daily basis.

Shoes

Shoes are important. I have a million of them and what you’re about to see is only half. My professional and winter shoes are in the guest room. The guest room is kind of a nightmare right now. We’ll talk about that later.

A few tips:

• Face Shoes Out – This makes life easier when you’re trying to make that all important decision about which pair to wear.
• Group by Type – Sandals, Flip Flops, Boots, Sneakers, Flats, Heels. There are tons of types. In San Diego, we can wear all of those types all the time, so it becomes necessary to organize.
• Wearage – Again, if you never wear a pair of shoes, what are you keeping them for? There are so many people out there who could put your shoes to good use. Consider donating them.

Before:

After:

 

 Clean Room Pics

One of the fun things about cleaning is that you rediscover things you’d forgotten you had. Look what I found!

Wedding Stuff! Even the basket was a wedding gift (included a bottle of wine).

I wrote all of our placecards by hand with a silver pen on black construction paper.

Souvenir from our honeymoon in San Francisco. Here’s a pic of us on a tour at Alcatraz Island. We were both rocking our Indiana sweatshirts! 🙂

Our program that I designed myself!

Handmade wedding gift. So nice!

After all that cleaning and reminiscing, I had a bowl of rice with seaweed and sesame seeds. Clearly.

Then, the afternoon went like this:

• Work like a crazy person.
• Run with Ryan.
• Consume an amazing dinner.

My wrap included:

• Black Beans (cooked in taco seasoning)
• Refried Beans
• Corn
• Tomatoes
• Lettuce
• Part-Skim Mozz Cheese
• Peach Salsa (Imagine that!)
• Apple Slices as co-pilot

And, now I am going to swing by Freshy Freshy to pick up flour, so that I can bake cookies and redeem myself in your eyes after last night’s (sexy) cookie fail. Stay tuned.

Reading over this post, I realize that I just gave you a play-by-play of my day. Do you feel like we just hung out or what? :p

How do you organize your closet? What tricks and tips do you use to make sorting and organizing easier?