Challenge 2 and 3

It's supposed to be close to 70 degrees tomorrow. What a fantastic way to celebrate the end of our second challenge! The clothes challenge was infinitely easier than the food challenge, which I was confident it would be. That being said, I'm pretty excited about wearing skinny jeans and some spring flats tomorrow. Old man winter may have played a big role in this challenge being as simple as it was. With it still being so cold most days during this challenge, all I ever wanted to wear was my sweatshirt anyway. Now with spring time weather knocking on our door, I'm looking forward to changing things up a bit.

I don't know that I necessarily learned anything that I didn't already know from this challenge. It mostly just reinforced what I've already realized. Though I've never been a huge shopper and my closet space is no bigger than my husbands, I still had many items that I hardly ever wore. I would consistently pick out the same handful of items time and time again. And this goes for myself as well as the girls. I've collected so many cute things for them, but still choose to put them in my same "favorite" pieces. I may have been in denial for a few years about buying on consignment. I would tell myself that because everything was so cheap, I could afford to buy five times the amount of things I really needed. Well, I'm wising up. I'm now on more of a mindset that quality matters. (Don't get me wrong. I still will be shopping on consignment; I just know now that I don't have to fill my cart with it.)

This time of year will be tougher for me to resist buying any new clothes. I mentioned in a previous post that along with the 7 challenges of this book, our family also has a goal to not buy any new clothing for the whole year. I've always liked to refresh my wardrobe in the spring and fall, so this year I'm really having to completely refrain from any temptations. For myself and maybe even more so, my girls. I have to consciously avoid the little girls clothing section when I'm in Target. Gahh! So many cute things! I have to remind myself of all the clothes hanging in the closet, just waiting to not be worn.

Since Justin and I figured this challenge would be a lot easier to swallow, we also decided to tackle Challenge 3: Possessions, simultaneously. You see, as I was choosing my seven clothing items, I realized then how many things I had in my closet that I just needed to get rid of. So I started a pile of just my items.

Twenty-seven things I felt that I didn't wear regularly enough to rationalize a place for them in my closet. So that just jump-started me to go through all the closets and spaces throughout the house to see what else I could find. The third challenge of the book is to give away seven items a day for 30 days. 210 things. When I first read the chapter, my immediate thoughts were, "No. Way." First of all, I've always been a passionate organizer and a hater of clutter. I didn't feel there was any way I'd be able to get close to that many things to give away. Secondly, we just moved here 8 months ago. That means, before packing extra junk in boxes to move, I packed them in garbage bags and dropped them off at Goodwill. Again, I thought, could I just count all that as challenge completed? How sorely wrong I was. 27 items from my closest. Close to 200 separate items from Eloise and Mirabel's closet. Disgusting. Seriously. In all, we've given away almost 300 items and my work is not done. Though this really sickens me to think that I thought I wouldn't have anything to give away, I'm glad that so many things have gone to organizations here in Lincoln that can put them to use. We've been able to give most of our baby items to the Friendship Home. My clothes and other household items get taken to Fresh Start. It's also been fun to just give something to a friend who would be able to use something that's just taking space in your closet.

So as I said, it's still a work in progress. I think with kids in the house, it will be that way for a long time. But with the things I realized with the clothes challenge, I'm hoping eventually that knowledge and resistance will catch up with us and since there will be less coming in, there would be less that needs to go out.