BigBrother BigSister came through again this morning meaning last night we were putting stuff into bags for them. Bob had about one full bag of clothes but I felt that was too little, given how cluttered the house was. I was sure we could do better. So we went through all our hats / gloves / coats / etc. and found two more bags of stuff that we just didn't wear. It was nice stuff, like a vest I'd bought on Nantucket, but I just never wear it. So it made more sense to go to a home where it would be used.
I didn't go through my tshirts because I've gone through them so many times in the past that I'm down to my "favorites". But with that being said, I have 23 of them. I work from home so in the summer I only wear tshirts, but I do laundry once a week or so. Shouldn't I only need 7 then, with maybe a few extra?
I have:
2 black - useful for layering under things
1 white
2 that say "kayak" in nautical flags - my friend Debi made these for me and I *love* them, I love kayaking in them. And in the summer we try to kayak daily.
2 Academy of Knightly Arts shirts, my sword school. Necessary school uniform.
1 Fraggle Rock, I love this, it makes me feel dancy
1 blue tie dye, I love this.
1 red tie dye, ditto. I see a trend.
1 'love bermuda' - pretty and summery
1 Nantucket love-to-bike-Nantucket, which I do.
1 Nantucket 'pass for access on remote beaches' which I also love
1 Japanese love kanji
1 Japanese peace kanji
1 Japanese imagination kanji
1 Japanese cutting-through-chaos moon image
1 mountain biking "event official" shirt when I volunteered at an event
1 battery-powered heart that lights up and beats to music, very cool for gigs
1 battery-powered black equalizer shirt that does the same thing.
1 plain black shirt for customizing at some point for the band
1 red-on-black sci-fi shirt from when I ran the SciFi society at WPI in 1986
1 "yes we are sisters" shirt that I made for me and my sister when we went to Cancun, since everyone always asked us that
So I adore all these shirts and rotate through them regularly. I.e. each month in warmer months I will wear each one at least once a month. Except the sisters and sci-fi ones, those are for special occasions. Still, I can't imagine wanting to give any away.
Maybe that means I should accept that this is my standard wardrobe and be content with it. Maybe it also means I should look more closely at the other non-tshirts which I rarely wear and start donating some of those. In the summer I pretty much only wear tshirts. In the winter I pretty much only wear sweatshirts. So the other "pretty shirts" I own are just wasted in the closet. Someone else might be wearing those regularly.
When I want to dress up, I always wear one of my long dresses. I would never wear sweats and a pretty shirt, for example. I'm not fond of jeans. So there's no real "bottom" I would wear with those pretty shirts. If I was going to wear a skirt, I'd just go for the dress as it's easier.
So maybe that will be my focus the next time BBBS comes around.
