After spending the whole summer doing all the things I like to do, whilst promising myself I'd eventually get down to the things I needed to do, reality set in this weekend, writes Jackie Taylor from the USA.
If I didn't make the effort to at least begin thinking about sorting out my closet I'd have to forgo the 'end of summer sales' simply because fitting another single item of clothing into the already crammed closet would prove impossible.
Not wish
ing to deprive myself of the utter stress of fighting vicious women in the aisles of the department stores, engaging in terror tactics over pairs of knickers, I set to work with gusto Saturday morning.
A quick study of Feng Shui, the Chinese art of placement, revealed how important it is for doors to swing freely open. Nothing should be stored behind a closet door, according to Feng Shui beliefs. So smashing it open with my shoulder didn't bode well. Furthermore, nothing should be placed above the entrance because such practice produces feelings of depression and anxiety. Not to mention pain when things fall on your head. Already I was experiencing those effects from simply looking past the door. Spaces that are completely full, block the flow of chi (vital energy), said my Feng Shui guidelines for storage areas. No wonder I'd been feeling lethargic lately. My walk-in closet was a fashion freak house.
Avoid holding on to clothes until you've lost that twenty pounds, advised another article. With that in mind I set about sorting stuff into piles, mentally labelling...fat clothes ...very fat clothes, thin clothes, not so thin clothes, clothes out of style, yet may be back in style one day, clothes that never were in style but a bargain etc. I remember watching an Oprah Winfrey show on this subject a few months ago. If you haven't worn it in the last two years, you probably won't ever wear it again, Oprah's experts said. Ha! That just goes to show what she knows, I thought. If I haven't worn it in two years, that's likely because it's been sitting in my ironing pile.
One hour later my bedroom floor is covered with several piles. What looked to me like chaos, smacked of 'adventure playground' to my four cats. After several attempts to extract them from underneath the piles, and chasing after Simba, who was sauntering out of the door proudly carrying his prize 'kill' a rolled up sock, I decided it was time for them to leave.
Collecting four cats, and persuading them to go seek excitement elsewhere, can be frustrating to say the least. It's a question of who's smarter in the end. Or, to whom, the lure of cat treats is greater. As my preference is for chocolate I won the round.
Not a word was mentioned about cats in my Feng Shui, book, based on that, I decided to scrap it and do this my way. Leave it... and go get a coffee.
My plan was that after a break I'd return with clarity of mind, ha, that didn't work either, the piles still looked calamitous, I swear they'd bred in my absence.
Casting my mind back to Oprah I remembered 'seasonal'. Great idea in theory, the only problem with that is...
