The great purgeathon of 2009

For one of my New Year's resolutions I pledged to simplify my life in 2009. It was something I've been meaning to do since I moved into my house in June -- get rid of the junk I've been lugging from house to house that I never, ever, ever think about except for when I'm moving it. My resolutions got put on a hold a bit when I found myself reeling from a breakup, but now that that's more or less out of the way it's time to focus on them again -- especially since I'm about to be faced with moving again.

Moving again? I know you're all like, 'whaaaaaaat??' More on that later.

I worked on my closet Friday and started systematically trying on EVERY SINGLE PIECE of clothing that was in there (I made it about two-thirds of the way around before I became exhausted). I thought hard about every item: when did I last wear this? does it fit properly? do I have anything to wear it with? do I even want to wear it? If the item did not pass all of those questions it went into the Goodwill pile, and let's just say the Goodwill pile is rather wieldy right now. But even just getting through two-thirds of the closet, I felt incredibly lighter looking at what was left hanging.

I plan to do this with every nook and cranny in my house over the next month or two.

Anyway, my point was to mention this article, which offers advice on when to keep things, give them away, try to sell them or just toss them. I'm sure most of it's common sense, but I think just reading it gets me even more fired up to purge, purge, purge.