Fall Layers and Closet Truths: A 30-Day Purge Begins

September in Michigan brings more than falling leaves and back-to-school chaos—it sparks a personal reckoning in Jean's closet. As the weather shifts, so does her wardrobe, and this year she's committed to a 30-day clothing purge. With decades of fashion, fluctuating sizes, and sentimental garments hanging on padded hangers, she is confronting the emotional weight of letting go. This isn’t just about de-cluttering—it’s about identity, memory and making peace with change. AI...

 

September brings change to Michigan. The biggest shift? Kids heading back to school while parents scramble to fill calendars with carpools, practices and pick-ups. A longer-lasting transition begins in the trees, which start their slow dance of changing colors—pale pinks and yellows taking the first steps toward October’s grand finale. The high temperatures of summer are also ushered out on the tail end of hurricane season on the Gulf of Mexico and along the Eastern seaboard. And September means I start digging around in my closet for clothing that bridges summertime weather and winter layering. 

I’m the undisputed queen of layering. Summer means sleeveless shells under ¾-length shirts. Fall brings short or long cotton sleeves under flannel. By November, it's turtlenecks pair with sweaters or sweatshirts. And in winter? I might add a third layer—a cotton camisole or quilted vest for extra warmth. In the “black” section of my closet alone, there are fourteen tops in various weights and sleeve lengths. No one needs that many. Same goes for the sweater section—eighteen, all hanging on padded hangers. And pants? Nineteen pairs, including three pedal-pushers and four pairs of blue jeans. No one needs that many pants. Unless, of course, they do—because like me, they have two sizes in each category. 

I need a major purging project because my closet can’t hold another hanger!

It’s no secret—I struggle with my weight. It goes up, it goes down, and right now I’m living in the larger sizes. You’d think purging would be easy: just toss what doesn’t fit. But other fatty-fatty-two-by-fours might back me up when I say that letting go of smaller sizes feels like giving up on ourselves. I did that once and what happened is that larger size became the smaller size as I added on more pounds. Now, years after that disastrous purge I hear a little voice in my head reminding me that I shouldn’t get rid of anything in my closet, because I won’t be able to afford to replace whatever I’d purge. Tariffs combined with a fixed income are a bitch.

On September 1st, I went looking for a hanger to store a new top—and found none. Not. Even. One. That was my breaking point. I came up with a plan: purge one garment a day for the next thirty days. I’m in day eight as I write this and so far I’ve kept my promise to myself. I started with things I don’t like and never wear and next I’ll go for the things that don’t fit. I’m putting my daily choices in one of two boxes: ‘Donate’ and ‘Hold for a Year.’ Somehow knowing I'm not donating everything makes it easier to perform the task. Purging thirty space-wasters should make a huge difference in my small closet and I’ll be able to see if I have a need for anything new. If I do it will be pants. I have some that are a quarter of a century old. My pants size doesn’t seem to change like my top sizes. But I have some that are too short.

This is the third time I’ve written a post about closet purging, the first time was in 2014. “I started with a book titled, Ten Steps to Declutter Your Closet,” I wrote.  “Short and sweet. Twenty-five pages of standard stuff: haul everything out of the closet, try on everything and purge the stuff that doesn’t fit, is stained or needs repairs or that you haven’t worn in the last year. One Year! I’ve got nearly three feet worth of closet rod taken up with vintage clothing from as far back to the Kennedy administration.” Before I moved here, I managed to pare down my vintage collection. But I still have three garments I can’t part with. They make me happy just to see them now and then: a dress from my clubbing days with Don in the ’70s, a size 11 sailor-themed, two piece outfit from the late ’60s (the smallest I ever was in adulthood), and my beloved hippie/bicentennial dress from 1976.

In 2020 while faced with another closet purging I wrote: “My master closet has always been a walk-in hell-hole of clothing (in three sizes), shoes, Crocs, purses, hats and anything that I want to hide from the world---the volume of which needs to be cut in half before I move. I’ve never enjoyed purging clothes. My size changes so often that I’m afraid to let go of things that don’t fit. I know—it’s a messed-up mindset. Life coaches and diet experts would say keeping three sizes traps us in a cycle: we bounce 15–20 pounds up and down, grabbing the next size up instead of facing the snug truth.” Re-reading this post made me realize I have made some progress, given the fact that my current closet only holds two sizes. Maybe if I live to be 100, I’ll die with just one size of clothing to my name. But let’s be honest—it’ll probably be one of my nieces who makes that happen, when and if I get moved to Assisted Living.

Until Next Wednesday ©

The Great Closet Project Part One

I’ve fallen off the discipline wagon when it comes to writing blog posts. The one I posted earlier this week about my dreams was one I wrote and originally scheduled for the week after my hand surgery but I didn’t use it because my recovery was faster than I anticipated and I wrote a post in real time instead. I’m totally off my sync for when I write and when I play and partly that’s because I’ve been doing something a few of my blog followers have been laying a quilt trip on me for not doing sooner. Yes, someone out there in Bloggerland shamed me into starting the Great Closet project. Thank you. I needed the kick in the posterior.

The photos below might not look like they have much to do with a closet makeover but they do and it took me a three day weekend to swap that short bookcase in the living room out for the tall one in my closet. And I moved them all by not-so-little self…with the help of my handy dandy E-Z Movers pictured above. Living in an apartment house, means I had to get my E-Z Mover kit out of storage and put it back down there again which involved an elevator ride down to the underground cage storage area that is attached to our underground parking lot. 

Nothing is easy when it come to storing items you don’t use often when you live in an apartment building. For one thing you have to be fully dressed to make the trip and if you get creeped out easily you won’t be going down there after dark. It doesn’t bother me---it’s well lite and we’re not in a high crime area---but some people think they’re going to get mugged in those lonely hallways. Those are the same people who avoid underground parking and storage after dark who also keep their second and third floor deck doors locked because presumably some mastermind could rappel off the roof down to their decks to steal their family silverware. Not going to happen. I’m on the ground level and I didn’t even close my deck door all summer long, let alone lock it. With twenty-five apartments and the security guard’s desk having a clear view of my deck, I feel completely safe and the only action out front of my apartment during the middle of the night are the geese that are fooled by the bright lights. They think it's daylight and they walk around like they own the place.

Since we’re talking storage areas I’m proud of the fact that I don’t have extra boxes littering up the floor in front of my car the way about ten people do. Management is starting to lean of them about it and I don’t blame them. It’s been a year that we’ve all been living here and if you can’t find room inside your apartment or cage storage for 10-30 boxes of stuff it’s time to let go. I understand it though. If you don’t want to donate it, we’re limited on how to sell stuff.

Anyway back on topic: The first picture below shows the way my living room looked with the short bookcase and the other picture is of the taller bookcase taking its place. And if you're wondering what the heck they have to do with overhauling my clothes closet. Quite a lot, actually. With the lower bookcase now in the closet it frees up the wall above it up to get maintenance in to put a shelf and clothes rod, giving me three more feet of space to hang hangers. The tall bookcase was full of boxes and folded T-shirts, etc., and paring that stuff down involved making another elevator ride down to put some donation bags in my car to drop off at the Salvation Army. The back seat of car looks like a storage unit, by they way. It’s filled with toilet paper and paper towel. The last few months when I’d look around my apartment to make a grocery list I’d put those two items on the list, forgetting I didn’t have room on my cart to bring them upstairs the last few times I’d been shopping. Once I remember the back seat of my car looks like the paper products aisle at Meijer I won't have to buy those items all winter long.

Anyway, now that I've made the swap of the bookcases I was able to  put in a work request to Maintenance for the new bar/shelf combo. He’s also going to replace the tension rod with a regular rod. Both will cost me under $75 but worth it not to have clothes that are wrinkled from hanging too close together or being folded up on the bookcase. I though about having the closet designer company come out, gut the closet and start over. I’ve seen their work and know it would look better but it would cost over $1,500 and I’d rather spend that money elsewhere…like on new clothes. I’ve already started by making a trip to Land’s End where I bought the first part of jeans I’ve own since the last century. 

While I’m in a holding pattern waiting for Maintenance I’m starting part two of the Great Closet Project---trying on everything to determine if it stays or goes. I'm terrible about holding on to things I don't like wearing or that doesn't fit right---not a good thing if I ever get moved over to Memory Care or assisted living and I have to depend on a caregiver to help dress me. What a frustrating mess that would be for both of us.

Part three will be the fun part of making a few purchases to fill in the gaps when I get rid of some thread-bare pants and tops that have seen better days.

The short book case now in the closet

---boxes hold, purses, hats, scarves and mending.

The swap will also have an added benefit of bringing music back into my life…as soon as the maintenance man comes and can drill a hole to pass a plug through the back of the bookcase in the living room. I had the CD player on the short bookcase but I couldn’t keep my CDs out where they were easy to get at---they were under my bed---so they never got played. I really miss country western music. I realized that the other day when I sat in underground parking listening to my car radio. I would have stayed there all afternoon except that I had ice cream melting in a grocery bag. Songs like in the video below make me happy. For my writing group (update in my next blog post)  I've been writing poems like this song---the concept being to take a simple idea and turning it into a mini slice-of-life. ©

Holiday Weekends, Skin Cancer and Messy Closets

The Fourth of July weekend seemed to last forever here at the continuum care complex. Except for one security guard none of the staff worked Sunday and Monday in the independent living section of the campus so they packed all kinds of Red, White and Blue activities on the calendar both last week and this week including a lecture given by an Air Force Pilot (my next post), four therapy horses who came to accept all the petting they could get, a pickle ball tutorial exhibition on our new pickle ball court, an outdoor movie that got moved inside at the last minute because it didn’t get dark enough at 7:00---Duh! Who planned that? A five year old who goes to bed at 6:30? We also had two piazza parties and for food we could order and pick that up on Saturday to eat on Sunday and Monday because even our food services were shut down. On the fifth they threw an outdoor cookout of traditional holiday foods---hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad and ice cream. Every day they served an alcoholic drink that layered itself in red, white and blue. Some days they were free, other days just $2.00. They wanted to get us drunk and keep us that way. Or so it seems.

In addition to all that, the ‘in crowd’ here put together a picnic for those of us who are widows and not going anywhere on the Fourth. I was invited and was told to bring grapes. Yup, a bowl of grapes which in order to get more than one kind cost me $14. The cost of food in the stores these day still shocks me. I really didn’t want to bring them because I’ve never seen anyone eat grapes at a party, opting instead for the gooey desserts and salty snacks while the fruit and veggie trays barely get touched. I visualized me coming home with a mountain of grapes nearly as tall as I took to the party and then I’d have to watch them rot away in my refrigerator because I’m not that fond of them unless they come in the form of raisins. Apparently I was stressing out about this because after buying them I woke up in the middle of the night to pee and as I walked back to bed the thought that I could freeze any left over grapes popped in my head. I solve a lot of problems on my walks back to bed in the middle of the night. No wonder I never feel rested in the mornings. I ended up bringing some baggies with me and strong-armed as many people as I could to take some grapes home. But I still ended up with enough grapes to last the summer in my freezer. 

I’m writing this while sitting on the piazza giving myself skin cancer because I’m not as smart one of our four adult swans on the lake. She’s hanging out under the bridge with her two remaining babies where its shady.  Speaking of skin cancer the biopsy the dermatologist did in June on the mole that I thought was a tick turned out to be a “hperthropic actinic keratitis” which I was told are precancerous, slow growing cells that can turn into squamous cell carcinomas, a type of skin cancer that rarely kills a person if treated early. Supposedly the doctor got it all and I have nothing to worry about except a gaping hole the size of a pencil eraser surrounded by an angry red patch of skin the size of a quarter. 

I wondered if swans get skin cancers and after googling the question I learned that birds do get squamous cell carcinomas around their eyes and beaks. How in the heck do they stay out of the sun if they don’t have a bridge to hide under? I’ve had dogs with cancerous growths so I’m guessing anything with living cells can get these “mutations.” If you want to scare yourself into buying sunscreen google images of cutaneous horn moles (photo above). In the dark ages before doctors understood much about anything it’s easy to see how people with ‘horns’ growing out of their heads were the stuff of folklore and fear.  

New Topic: I am running out of room in my closet. I need to purge stuff because I bought a few new things and there is no room left or hangers to use for a Landend’s sweater and a pair of Women Within pants nor room left in my underwear drawer for some great panties made out of bamboo. I had every intention of throwing out at least six pairs of panties that are so worn out I’d be embarrassed to be caught dead in them but there’s always something else going on I’d rather do. It dawned on me over the Fourth hat I’m not really living here yet. Yes, it’s been eight months since I moved in but I still feel like I’m on a cruise ship with a schedule to explore if I want to have fun and get fed. I need to make time for normal things cleaning drawers and purging closets. Even though my world has gotten smaller since I moved to this CCC I still can’t have it all. No one can. I need to make choices, prioritize and quit drifting with the wind like I'm going to kick the bucket any day now. I need goals. I need doable goals and the willpower to carry them out. ©

The Epic Closet Marathon Purging Project

My master closet has always been a walk-in hell-hole of clothing (in three sizes), shoes, Crocs, purses, hats and anything that I want to hide from the world---the volume of which needed to be cut in half before I move. I’ve never enjoyed purging clothing because I change sizes so often that I’m afraid to let go of things that don’t fit. I know, you don’t have to tell me how screwed up that line of thinking is. Life coaches and diet experts say the three-sizes-habit keeps us fatties stuck into the cycle of pushing 15-20 pounds up and down the scales when if we only had one size it would force us to do something about our weight when our clothes get snug with a pound or two gain. Instead, we scale bouncers just grab the next size up in our closets and before we know it, we’re at the top of our fat clothes weight wishing our bodies were like balloons and we could just let some air/fat out until our skinny clothes fit again. Instead, we finally get the wake up call and the D word enters our vocabularies because there’s no way we’re going to buy yet another, 4th set of bigger fat clothes. Oops, I just proved the one size only theory didn’t I. In addition to the three-sizes-of-fat-lady-clothing-curse I had a fair number of “memory-outfits” in my closet before this week’s EPIC PURGE-ATHON took place. Some dating as far as the 1950s, things I’d never wear again but just seeing them made me happy.

One or two years ago I made a meager pass at purged my closet and I did that trick where you take everything out and as you put it back in you hang things up backward so the end of hangers faces outward. As you wear things and they go back in the closet you hang them up the right way. The theory is the next time you purge your closet you purge everything that is still hanging backwards. I still had things hanging backward that haven’t been touched since my last purging but logic and fear were not on my side and I didn’t purge---this time---what the experts say I should have done. My life style will change dramatically after I move and I don’t expect that I’ll be living in sweats all the time like I do now, and all that stuff I’ve been saving for outings outside the house might become my daily wear. The fear comes in because I really hate shopping for clothing, especially when I don’t like most of the newer fabrics in the stores. It’s either too thin or feels like insects crawling on my skin when I wear them.

It took me five afternoons of pulling stuff out of the closet, trying things on and just plain staring into the hell-hole with frequent breaks to jump on the internet. But on Friday I had seven---count them, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7---33 gallon trash bags full of stuff that I dropped off at Goodwill before I could change my mine. One bag was filled with just hangers. If my math is correct what I have left will fit in my future closet, but I will probably downsize in there again before moving. I have too many clothes. One thing I don’t have is too many of is shoes. I’m not a shoe person. Crocs…now that’s another story. I love them but I don’t feel safe wearing them to drive so they end up staying home. In my future home I’ll be able to walk to the post office, the social center for classes and two restaurants on the CC campus so I suspect I’ll be buying more Crocs and they will take over my wardrobe. I even have a bag of Jibbitzs (shoe charms for Crocs) and you can bet your butt I didn’t downsize them out of my life.

So what did go in all those trash bags? It’s easier to catalog what I kept, all of which fits except for 6 outfits on hangers and a small box of clothing marked “slightly too small” (downsized from 3 boxes). Hanging in my closet now are: 3 skirts, 2 pair of dress slacks, 7 pair of winter sweatpants, 15 pair of summer knit pants---10 are black and, ya, I know! no one needs 10 pair of nearly identical black pants---4 pair of crop pants, 2 bathing suits, 9 sweatshirts, 2 vests, 25 short sleeve knit tops, 5 short sleeve blouses, 9 long sleeve blouses, 10 long sleeved light weight knit tops, 10 heavy weight long sleeved knit tops, 7 tee-shirts, 3 sleeveless tops, 7 long sleeve sweaters, 4 short sleeve sweaters, 10 camisoles, 3 summer dress jackets, 6 Pendleton wool classic jackets, 3 dresses (slightly too small), 4 summer sleep sets, 6 winter sleep sets---I was shocked to find all that sleepwear!---2 pair of dress shoes, 12 pair of Crocs, 4 hats and a box of purses that I refuse to count because I really don’t need any of them since I rarely ever changes purses when I go out. The other 3 things in my closet that don’t fit are the only 3 memory outfits that I kept. You don’t have to tell me I still have too many clothes. I will downsize again before I move, then again after I move and I’ve figured out what my life style is going to be.

Photo Notes: The dress at the top was worn in 1964 by my mom for her 25th anniversary party. She wore a gray suit to get married in so this was the closest thing she had to a wedding dress. I posted it on Facebook to just those on my side of the family and two relatives wanted it. The three outfits below are the only "memory outfits" I still have left and with any luck I'll have them until I die. The first outfit is from my man hunting days in the '60s. (The pants are long, I just didn't photograph them off the hanger.) The second dress was what I called my Oscar's Uniform. It's from the '70s when Don and I were dating. There was a nightclub in town that booked fairly well known singers and comedians for a mid-week stopover in between their gigs in Chicago and Detroit. We'd go there almost every week and I always wore that dress. The third dress is hard to see in the photo to really appreciate the cotton fabric. It has a bi-centennial theme and I wore it every weekend the summer of 1976 when Don and I went crazy going to every small town celebration we could find in our state. I call it my hippie dress. ©

EDIT To Add: I counted the purses and I have 15 and I promised myself they will get downsized again before I move. (I'm burned out on the process now.) Last summer I sold four vintage purses on e-Bay, in the $35 to $50 range and three other purses I still have are likely candidates to go that way but the rest I part with will have to go to Goodwill with a tearful goodbye. 

This week I also sold two Pendleton Western cut Wool shirts that were my husband's on Marketplace for $45 each. They were the only memory clothes of his I had left except his Mickey Mouse tie which doesn't take up much room so I'll never let go of that. It was hard to part with those shirts but the guy who bought them was funny with his attempts to bargain the price down---he caved way too easy. That same cut shirt today, in the same plaid sells at Pendleton's website for $160 each so the guy got a good deal and he knew it. He's a brew master at one of the local micro breweries in town and when the bargaining didn't go his way he wanted to barter beer to knock the price down. I don't drink beer so I held firm. But my husband would have loved this silly guy and his unusual job so I was left with a good experience.

Marie Kondo and my Bedroom Project

Let me say right off the bat that I’m about to trash Marie Kondo’s methods of “tidying up.’ If you don’t know who she is, she’s got a new TV show on Netflix that is based on her run-away best-selling books and just about every talk show has either been talking about or interviewing her. As a blogger friend said, “You either love her or hate her.” For me, ‘hate’ is a strong word that I reserve for presidents who commit High Crimes and Misdemeanors but a guest on The View was quick to label Marie “his mortal enemy.” If you’re one of her fans stop reading if you can’t be open-minded about my reasons for not buying into her philosophy starting right out with her calling what she does “tidying up.” In one of her videos she said she’s had clients who filled up over a 100 trash bags. That’s not “tidying up” that’s deep cleaning or decluttering. Tidying up is putting the potholders in the drawer and making your bed because company is coming. Language matters. You wouldn’t call a leg amputation a pedicure and you’re not “tidying up” when you can put a 100 trash bags out to the curb on trash pickup day. Also, Marie never addresses the psychological reasons why possessions are security to people who ‘hoard’ to that extent.

To be fair to the girl, I decided to do some research to figure out why she evokes such a negative reaction in me. In addition to watching some of her YouTube videos I bought the Summary: The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. It’s a 75 pages, $3.99 Kindle download and I read every page but it didn’t change my attitude nor make me want to click to buy the full book. I do like her method of folding socks and I’m am now using the official KonMari method of doing that task. I own a lot of socks. I have knee highs and no-show socks and everything in between---all black or gray. I even have old socks in my cleaning closet that are used to clean up dog vomit, after which I finally throw them out. I’ve tried to research how many socks are too many according to the Tidy Up Girl but I couldn’t find a number. She a minimalism so I’m guessing two pair in each style. I visualize her doing laundry nightly like someone living out of a suitcase.

One of the things that I bad-mouth about the KonMari method is Marie’s attitude towards books. She believes you should throw out books you haven’t read and books you’ve already read. Yup, if you’re reading a book that’s the only one in the house that’s safe from being labeled, “garbage” which is her favorite word to use for our stuff. She also says if you have a book you just can’t part with, tear out the pages you like and throw out the rest of the book. And if you can’t do the tear-out thing then, she says, put the books in a box and store them in your closet. Thirty should be enough to keep. I have an entire library room in the house with twenty-feet of floor-to-ceiling shelves full of books. I value books. I wouldn’t destroy a book but I might start calling my library a book closet. All I’d have to do is cover the glass-paneled door over so you can’t see into the room from the living room. I do plan to purge and donate enough books so I can move six running feet of books from my bedroom to my new ‘book closet.’

Which brings me to another, exciting project. It started with an exhaust pipe in the roof that was leaking and caused a stain on the master bath ceiling. I had the pipe cap replaced, then I marked the edges of the stain so I could be sure it didn’t grow. Enough time has passed that I decided I could repaint the ceiling but guess what. A few years ago when I thought I was going to buy a condo I threw out the paint I’d saved for touch ups. Now I have to paint the whole bathroom so I’m taking the opportunity to change color schemes in the master bath and connecting bedroom and to get a smaller bed. So off I went to shop quilts as my color palette starting point. Hours and hours of online shopping later I bought a quilt and shower curtain. I’m going from a grey, black and red palette to a girlie beachy/cottage theme.

My closet purging project, by the way, got done. Like Frank Sinatra, ‘I did it my way’ in five sessions---not the KonMari one giant session way. Her method of piling all the clothing from all over the house into the center of a room, then picking up each piece and asking yourself it if sparks joy might work for some people but if I did that I’d end up with three things to hang back up: two iconic outfits from the ‘70s and a 1950s Scandinavian sweater that my mom made that earned me a quarter page photo in the newspaper with the headline: Baby, It's Cold Outside! I get joy from many things, but clothing is not in the mix. I get joy from my metal Cracker Jack toys, from my handmade scenic and portrait buttons from the 1800s, from books, stones and seashells. I get joy from my whale oil lamps, woman's suffrage postcards and art prints. The list goes on and much of it serves no useful purpose in this century. 

I do respect the idea of creating a smaller footprint---the minimalist mindset. I’ve read a lot about other minimalists in recent years because they do fascinate me but none of them make me feel like a lion who'd like to stalk them for dinner like Ms Kondo does and I figured out why. By her soft-spoken, simplistic labeling of everything that you don’t use daily or doesn’t spark joy as “garbage that you can get rid of” she’s insulting my entire, life-long collector’s life style. Other minimalists use words like ‘recycle’ and ‘donate’ for things you may have tired of owning which I don’t believe appeared even once in Marie's summary book while the word ‘garbage’ appeared so often that I wanted to bounce my Kindle up against the wall. ©

Photos: My new quilt at the top and this is my new shower curtain.