The Pure Math

So, I have asked 7+ people: How many clothes does a person need per season to be comfortable and to have adequate variety? My question is falling on deaf ears. People change the subject and stutter a little…but no one has answered my question. And I don’t care about the answer enough to do a survey or Facebook post.

I have added the seasonal clause as I realize that some of us live in extreme climates – where we are wearing tanks and wool cardigans and everything in between.

The pure math for those of us that work outside of our home and are required to look quasi-professional or at least not wearing sweats or jammy pants is pretty simple.

We only have 365 days or 52 weeks in a year. I really don’t love math, but here is a GO at the number of days you need to look like you are employ-able vs. the days you can look like a bohemian.

• 103 weekend days
• 261 possible work days
• Assuming we have 20 days of vacation between normal vacations and National holidays
• This leaves 241 WORK DAYS
• And 124 PLAY DAYS
• 241 WORK DAYS + 124 PLAY DAYS = 365 days

I started making some mathematical assumptions — like how many times you do wash, and how many times you want to re-wear the same clothes and then I got tired of all of the possible derivations there could be. And then there are the differences in how much variety we need for survival on this planet earth.

My husband got a good giggle as he things my DNA spells variety and change and if I take that away from myself with this silly challenge, I could shrivel up and apparently not be a good wife, mother or human. So, he helped me make some realistic goals ignoring how many times we do laundry as hell, who knows the answer to that.

We estimated that for a good amount of variety….

WORK CLOTHES

• Pants / Skirts: 16
• Shirts: 16
• Dresses: 4
• Shoes: 4

PLAY CLOTHES

• Jeans: 6
• Exercise/Jammy Pants: 5
• Shirts: 25
• Shoes: 4  

So this is 80 pieces of clothing per season. And because this is my own personal challenge I can make my own rules in/around accessories. Henceforth, I don’t have a limit on the accessories.

Stay tuned for the big count and other closet adventures…..

Big Closet Swap

Before!

It was part of my plan to swap closets with my Main Squeeze. On a random week day night we made a go at this. Yes, I officially kicked myself out of the narrow, but more spacious master closet and am moving into our family ‘clothes’ room.

A few thoughts about this swap:

• I can’t be a slob in the same room that I demand from the kids and their belongings.
• Secondly, I have less space so I will be forced to get reorganized.
• Lastly, change is always good when you are in a rut.

You can see a few random picture of the swap and some of the piles that were there before and then the large leaf bag full of clothes that were donated to the thrift store after!

I already feel relieved that our room is pile-free. I still need to sex-up my closet area a little though.

I have learned that look, feel and color are very important to my soul. If things don’t feel right, I will have 101 reasons why I can’t function. Hence the reason my office at work has a circus-like spirit. Productivity requires a special touch in my world.

 

Very normal looking pile!

 

A glimpse at my new pre-sorted world!

Duplicity or Triplicity!

I am not certain that the word, duplicity, is being used in the right context here but I did find a relevent definition: a twofold or double state or quality. How about three-fold! Here is another conundrum I have run into!

When you like a color or a style — I have been known to have more than one. These all serve a different purpose, well kinda-sorta.  And I haven’t been a significant amount for any of them. In fact two of them I didn’t pay for; got one via a  Book Club Clothes Barter and the other from my sister who picked it up at a thrift store.

A key challenge in this Living Mo’ Simple strategy is not necessarily seeing how much you can buy for cheap or get for cheap — but having enough to make you happy and sane.

I will write another post or two on my closet-strategy…as there are more conundrum’s to come!

Spontaneity Rocks.

Oh my. It is amazing how much a person can learn about thyself and how much they can accomplish by merely taking a day at a time. I have documented my goals for the year, but I have been conscious about not documenting a strategy on HOW or WHEN. I am not a person who likes a schedule and the more pressure, the worse I perform.

ONE MAJOR EPIPHANY that has proved to work as my quest takes me room by room and closet by closet in our house to remove stuff and sort:

Spontaneity Rocks. We sorted and organized our kitchen glasses one random Sunday and one random week day we did our big closet swap. My Main Squeeze got the master bedroom – so me and my cluster of clothing got moved to the guest room. If either of these tasks had been planned, I would have dreaded them and resisted them!

The question that I continue to run into is how much stuff does a person and family need to be comfortable? My skeptics think I am trying to rid of everything and make my/our life uncomfortable — but this isn’t the case. I want to be more comfortable and more at ease by having just the right amount…you know sort of like that business concept of just in time inventory!

Check out our fabulous glasses-sorting project! We have gotten a lot of new glasses since being married and haven’t rid of the old. Having kids requires new glasses. Then kids get older and you buy small juice glasses. And you still have the old plastic glasses. Not to mention those hard-to-resist $.25 glasses at the thrift store. You can do the math here!

What the hell is she blogging about now?

Check it out >> It is pretty simple.

My goal is to keep an online journal of my Live Mo’ Simple Adventure as a way of staying accountable. I love to write and I am a doer. I like to do what I say I will do. This blog should help accomplish both with the hope of ending 2011 living in the same home with the same delightful people, in my same body….with fewer things and a tidier mind.

The challenge begins…

So here I am madly enjoying a break from life. From the pace. From work. And naturally from my closets full of crap! It is lovely to think of my fresh start from afar. The challenge for 2011 is simple: Living on less with less. Ironically, before the holidays I checked out a couple of books from the library on Buddism. This quote specifically struck my fancy.

Question: Wouldn’t life be boring without attachment?
Answer: No. In fact it’s attachment that makes us restless and prevents us from enjoying things. For example, suppose we’re attached to chocolate cake. Even while we’re eating it, we’re not tasting it and enjoying it completely. We’re usually either criticizing ourselves for eating something fattening, comparing the taste of this chocolate cake to other cakes we’ve eaten in the past, or planning how to get another piece. In any case, we’re not really experiencing the chocolate cake in the present.
On the other hand, without attachment, we can think clearly about whether we want to eat the cake, and if we decide to, we can eat it peacefully, tasting and enjoying every bite without craving for more or being dissatisfied because it isn’t as good as we expected. As we diminish our attachment, life becomes more interesting because we’re able to open up to what’s happening in each moment.
Thubten Chodron, Buddhism for Beginners