A transparent (and thorough) view of how much clothing I actually own

 Forgive the phone quality photo. My camera is otherwise engaged. 

I have searched high and low, dug through my laundry, emptied out my drawers. I have counted and tallied and here is what I have come up with:

29 shirts (30 if you include my crappy paint-the walls shirt. I choose not to.)
6 dresses/tunics
4 Sweatshirts/cardigans
3 coats
11 pairs of pants (3 leggings, 4 actual pants, and 3 pairs of "exercise pants")
4 skirts
13 pairs of socks
5 bras (including sports bras)
11 pairs of underwear
1 hat
6 scarves
4 pairs of gloves
5 pairs of shoes
7 bags

Assuming I added correctly (and I really dislike math, so I'm not even going to double check), I have 102 articles of clothing. 109 if you think of bags as clothing. I'm tentatively lumping them in with cloth accessories.

As I said in my last post I really like Marie Kondo's The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up and I have since bought and read her newest book, Spark Joy (a sort of illustrated companion guide to the first book). As I try to move towards simplicity, I wanted to use her method to declutter my house in one bold, radical sweep. I very nearly skipped going through my clothes, however, because I have done that so many times before. I just took a rather sizable bag to donate to the local Community Aid, for crying out loud! I actually thought I had a reasonable wardrobe going here. Now, though, I'm not so sure.

Some of you might feel different. For some, 150 items of clothing is probably seems almost scanty, and that is fine! Maybe clothes are your thing. But for me, someone who professes not to care about clothing one way or the other, 102 pieces is a rather shocking amount. Or at least, it surprised me. So while my wonderful husband has the kiddos at the PA Farm Show, I am delving in and "Marie Kondo-ing" my clothes.

2 hours later... 

19 shirts

5 dresses

3 sweatshirts/cardigans

3 coats (One of these I don't necessarily like or want to keep, but winter, y'all.)

7 pairs of pants (now with an appropriate number of exercise pants!)

3 skirts

7 pairs of socks

4 bras

10 pairs of underwear

1 hat (again, winter, y'all.)

4 scarves

3 pairs of gloves (light, heavy, and gardening variety)

5 pairs of shoes 

5 bags 

So we are left with 74 pieces of clothing... or 79, if you include bags. That is 30 things gone in total. This really doesn't seem like a lot of stuff does it? And it isn't. But I am sitting on my bed surrounded by clothes and thinking back to when I started my whole minimalist journey. I started out with maybe 150 pieces of clothing (I can't remember exactly, it was a long while ago. If we go waaaay back to the very beginning, it was like 3-3.5 years)... and this number was not counting shoes, socks, underwear, bras, bags, or any accessories at all. I've come a long way since then.

And the truth is, I didn't whittle things down as much as I could have... I am looking at one blue skirt next to me, for example, that I am just not sure about. Pretty much anything I wasn't sure about, I kept, hoping to get rid of it or keep it with more confidence. As I have time to see and think with more clarity about what I actually wear, I hope to shed more things as the year goes on.

But the whole point of this exercise (and of minimalism in general!) is not to be left with the bare minimum! The point is to weed out some of the excess that I could better appreciate the things that I really like... or in Marie Kondo's words, the things that "spark joy". Does everything that I have in my closet (or spread all over my bed) right now cause a thrill? Maybe not. But maybe, just maybe, one day I will get to a point where it all will. Either way, I am thankful for what I have right now. And that it enough.

Now if you will please excuse me... I have a lot of clothes to fold...