Whoa, I didn't know I even had that much stuff

My good friend Karla (her photo has been added to the Cast of Characters page) came over the other day to help me clean out my closet.  I thought we'd straighten things up, re-hang things that had fallen down and things like that.   Karla had a different plan.

"Pull everything out."  she told me.  I pulled out the stuff that was on the floor that needed to be hung up.

"Pull EVERYTHING out."  she repeated, emphasis on 'everything'.  I pulled it all out.  All the clothes, all the shoes, all the handbags, all the hats all the everything.  Some of you reading have seen my closet in person, some of you are imagining my closet, everyone is probably picturing the amount of things I pulled out in an accurate manner.

Then we started in on it.  She would hold something up, if I hesitated to say I wanted to keep it she put it in the donate pile.  The syllable 'uh' was followed by 'goodbye'.  She also found things which made her say it didn't look good on me and she wasn't going to let me keep it.

She looked at the sizes on things and expressed disbelief that I even owned something in that size, let alone wear the ginormous thing.  She held up a cardigan sweater.  I said I wanted it.

"Amanda, this is humongous."

"No, it's not.  Here, I'll show you."  I put it on.

"That's huge on you.  It's too big.  Take it off we're getting rid it."

"But....."

"Take that off!"  I took it off and put it in the donate pile.

Once we had the clothing gone through we started on my shoes.  I was better about my shoes.  I insisted that I keep the red flats with the little hole in the bottom because they're the only pair of red shoes I have.

Purses were next.  She thought I had too many pocketbooks.  I became offended.  Too many handbags!  There's no such thing as too many handbags!

All told, we filled four kitchen trash bags with clothing, shoes and one or two bags.

We scavenged around in the garage and found containers for my hats, purses and the craft supplies I had in there.  Now it's all lovely and clean.  I have a little, child size chair in there that I like to sit on when I need a cry.  I cry and hug my grandmother's coat.  It's dark and small and it makes me feel safe.

I'm sure that sounds silly and juvenile, but I like it.   Now that my closet only contains things that fit me and my friend tells me look good on me I can leave the house with a little more confidence.  Thanks Kiki!

Amanda's beauty tip of the day:  Wash your hair every other day to prevent it from drying out.  You can use Suave dry shampoo if you have oily hair to control the grease.