In the Beginning

Caroline, my sister-in-law of awesomeness, has been participating in VEDAug (Vlog Every Day in August). As I was perusing her vlogs at the beginning of this month, I ran across one where she talks about simplifying her life, an idea that appeals to be theoretically, but makes me kind of hyperventilate in reality. She talked specifically about material goods, which I have also been thinking about lately, having just moved. 

Moving sucks. It sucks no matter what, but it sucks more when you have boxes and boxes of crap. I use the word crap lovingly because frankly, I DO love my crap. But the process of packing all the crap up into boxes, loading it into a truck with my husband, and transporting to a new place where we then had to sort through it AGAIN as we unpacked led me to more of a love/hate relationship with my crap. 

One particular type of crap I have a lot of is clothes. This is partly because I work retail and have a wicked discount at my place of employment, but it is also because I am a woman. Not to be stereotypical, but I love cute clothes, quirky clothes, thrift clothes, dress clothes...and shoes. Oh Jebus, the shoes.

On the other hand, when I was unpacking said wardrobe after the recent move, I realized I wear only a fraction (like half) of the clothes I own with any regularity. Then I recalled a conversation with one of my work colleagues where we talked about this minimalist clothing challenge in which people choose 30 items of clothing to wear for 30 days. Then I remembered Caroline. Then all the pieces fell into place.

So I messaged Caroline, proposed this project, and we were off.

We chose to work with 75 pieces of clothing. This is partly because we are not minimalists, and partly because we included some categories of clothing  in our count that other similar challenges do not (such as underwear and workout gear). Caroline let me know yesterday that she may actually take it to the next level of limit her clothing further. More power to her. 

We start on 8/22, and go til 9/30. This is the beginning of my year of full time internships, and the beginning of Caroline's fall semester. In the meantime, we are preparing...