This is going to be harder than I thought!

I wanted to start that clothing challenge from something manageable and relatively easy. I was going through some items of clothing in my head doing a rough estimate how many I think I have. I know there will be very difficult ones! Like T-shirts. I love t-shirts. I wear them pretty much every day. I'm wearing one right now...

[It has a Superman logo on it, so it's only for home. I won't be caught publicly supporting the wrong superhero. I'm a Batman kinda gal!]

...so there will be a lot of them. I'm pretty happy in my ignorance when it comes to the amount of them. There might, or might not, be an entire drawer for t-shirts.

I started thinking something I don't wear that much... Shorts? I think I have 5 pairs or so. Three of which are for sports. They are in the basement with the out of season clothes, so I'm not going to bring the box and more stuff upstairs right now.

Ok, skirts. I think I have 10.

These are very typical skirts for me in the colder seasons... A lot of black, zippers and fun textures

No. Wait. I forgot about this one. So, elev... No, I forgot that one too.

Screw it. I'll just go count.

...

18 friggin' skirts!

These, on the other hand, are not typical at all. Even the shapes are unusual for me.

It's even possible that there is one more hiding in that out of season box...

I do wear a lot of skirts in the summer, so I knew there would be quite a few. Eighteen just seems a lot!

I might do an actual post about the specifics of this challenge if you guys are interested. I just wanted to share my astonishment and building dread about what I got myself into!

How about you try this out too! Just pick one category of clothing, make a guess and actually count how many you have! Please share the results! I'd love to hear about it!

What's in my closet and why isn't it working for me?

In my need to reorganize and streamline my life, I know there's a huge challenge waiting for me. My wardrobe is not working for me as it is right now. I am working on getting rid of things that don't serve a purpose and I am dreading the project that is my closet!

This is a photo of my closet taken just now as I was finishing this blog post. 

(Sorry for the quality... I'm still testing the various photo editing tools)

I read about an interesting clothes challenge. It's in Finnish, but that doesn't really matter. The gist of it is to challenge you to count all your clothes and share how many you have. There's no exclusions, you're supposed to count every item including underwear, socks, mittens and scarves.

Now, I like numbers. Statistics and percentages. I like to keep track of things. So, clearly this sounds intriguing to me. It also goes nicely with my need to get rid of stuff.

With somewhat limited free time, I'm not committing to doing this whole challenge, at least at one go. I will, however, go through parts of my wardrobe. If I get really into it, then maybe I'll keep on going... If nothing else, I'll get rid of some additional stuff. This is just a start in a larger quest to really figure out what my style is, how will it work for me and how to reduce the stress of getting dressed!

Some of my shoes... You can see exactly the two types of shoes I love, crazy heels and (Adidas) sneakers!

I've gotten rid of a whole lot of clothing since the move to Toronto just over a year ago. It has been an ongoing project since moving and every time around I get rid of a few more things. What I do with all of the clothes is another topic that I'd love to get into another time, but for now it'll suffice to say they will no longer crowd my limited storage space.

Like I said before, I dream of a closet where everything fits and has a purpose. I'm OK with storing out of season clothes in the basement, but those will have to be in good working order and functional without any crazy prep-work. I also mentioned that since I absolutely hate clothes shopping, I have a lot of things that are almost what I need. Fact is though, that 'almost' means that it'll either stay in the closet or I don't feel fully comfortable in it when wearing that piece of clothing! And neither those sound like a really good outcome to me!

I love fashion, but trying things on can be such a drag. I have admittedly on more than one occasion bought things that are "close enough" instead of waiting for the right one. I am working on my bad shopping habits, but that's what I have to work with right now. 

I promise to share at least some of my clothes counting and wardrobe overhaul results with you!

Do you know exactly what's in your closet? Does everything have a purpose?

Sleepless

How are you today?

I am, as the header states, having trouble sleeping. It's my own fault really. Combine a love for zombie TV shows (OK, the Walking Dead*) with an overactive imagination and you get a lot of very vivid zombie apocalypse -type scenarios going on at 5am. The good news is that they aren't really nightmares, but scenarios that I, immediately after waking, must put together a plan for. This, in turn, usually wakes me up fully.

Things are starting to fall into their places over here. We got all of out stuff on Thursday, so I spent a good portion of yesterday just unpacking. The kitchen is almost done and a few pieces of clothing have already found their places. Most of the furniture is already at their designated spots. I can't wait to get more of the boxes done, get my studio set up and, of course, put up the Christmas tree.

This is Gossamer headed over to the solarium. That's where my studio will be set up. Eventually.

I'm also missing the cable for my camera. So, even though I do have some new photos to share with you, I can't get them out of the camera yet. So, unfortunately, all I have for now are some less than stellar photos taken with my phone.

Got any helpful tips for problems with sleep?

*) Frankly, I am shocked half of the characters are still alive. I believe seeing, and usually loudly pointing out, the flaws in their survival strategies has equipped me with the necessary skills to survive a zombie apocalypse should one start at any point.

Organizing - The best way to keep your mail supplies in order

Sometimes it's the simplest ideas that are the most effective.

The problem: All the small items, like address labels, priority mail labels, decorative stickers and most of all, postage stamps, are all over my desk. I can't find the ones that I need if I'm working on something else at the table. I used to keep them in a box, but then had to go through an entire stack of things when working on something.

The solution:



A photo album. I can't believe I didn't even think of this before. I actually bought this album a long while ago for another project. I ended up never doing that project, so it's been sitting on my shelf all this time, taking up space.

I organized it to have the large sticker sheets of postage stamps* in the first few pages in the front. Then there are mail related stickers like priority mail stickers and address labels. Then we have other "office supplies" type stickers (square and round blank labels, highlighter tabs, file organizers, color-coded dots, etc) and the end of the album is reserved to all sorts of random stickers, like the silly Korean ones.

I feel there are two major benefits to this; I have all the materials in one place, so 1) I can easily browse through what I have and 2) I won't have to look for things when I'm sending something out.

Do you have a great organizing tip to share? I'd love to hear about it!

*) I have another solution for non-sticker stamps. I'll share that with you next time!