The Great Closet Clean-Out

I have big closets.



They're huge. This picture of the one in the girls' room was taken shortly after we moved in and got all unpacked. (Hence the reason everything looks so clean and organized!) My closet is exactly the same...except it's jam packed full of crap.

Dresses: I have a brand new $400 wedding dress hanging up in the garmet bag with the tags still attached. I have the maternity dress that I actually wore for my wedding hanging next to it. I also have all my old prom dresses.

Jeans: HOLY shit, do I have a lot of jeans. Fat jeans, skinny jeans, and every size in between jeans. Lots and lots of jeans.

Hangers: The next time we're at the thrift store, and I say, "Hey, we should get some hangers while we're here," tell me NO! NO, NO, NO! We have enough fucking hangers!

Pictures: The Hubster is a photographer. An honest to God-used-to-get-paid-to-take-pictures photographer. I have so many damn pictures, it's insane. At our old place, we had wall space for them. We had a whole wall dedicated to his hockey pictures, etc. Not here, though. Here, they live in a box. (Some of them were still wrapped in newspaper from our move over a year ago.)

"Time Capsule" Objects: Again, that would be the Hubster. That man...he's a pack rat. I cannot get him to throw shit away. We have the paper from our kids' birthdays every fucking year. The whole damn paper. And maybe, MAYBE, one day, it will be fun to look back on them...but right now, when we're living in an apartment the size of a bathroom, it's not OKAY with me to keep them. Perhaps if he took care of them...preserved them so that they're actually readable in a few years, it would be okay with me...Right now? NOT OKAY.

Fabric: This one is all me. Like I have time to make that quilt, right? Out, out, OUT!

STUFF: Where the hell did all this stuff come from? I don't care what it is. I don't care how it got here. I just want it out of my closet! If it's been on the floor, in a box, or shoved into a corner for the past year, I probably don't need it anymore. (Okay, the handheld Uno game I forgot I had was a pretty cool find...along with the other half of my jewelry box.)

It's getting there...I had to wrap Christmas presents tonight, too. One of these days, my kids are going to wonder why they're banned from my room this time of year. One of these days, I'm going to be able to find all the presents I bought for them. One of these days, I'm going to fit into all those clothes hanging on "The Back Rack."

But not today. I swear, just thinking about getting up to exercise made me start coughing. Must be my body telling me I'm still too sick...right?

Once More, with Feeling

Did I say it last time? Did I?
Because if I did, I'm saying it again. But I mean it this time. For REAL.

Ready? Here goes.

This is it.

This is the day I make the decision to move the hell on with my life. (Okay, so I made the decision a couple days ago.) THIS is the day I tell the world about it.

It's not just my weight anymore. It's everything. EVERYTHING.
My not-so-neat house.
My less than stellar organization.
My paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle.
My EMPTY savings account.

I'm changing everything that I hate about my life. And I'm changing it for good. I really, really am this time.

Not right this second. I'm not naive enough to believe everything will change in seconds when it took me a life time to screw things up.

And here we are again.

My favorite quote of all time is from the BC comic strip a few years ago on New Year's Day.

"Well look here, another year is knocking on our door. And we'll try not to do the stupid things we did before. And when next year comes a'knocking, we shall pledge to persevere. And try not to repeat the stupid things we'll do this year."

January 1, 2007.

If I don't weight exactly the same or more than I did a year ago today, I'm pretty darn close.

I have excuses from here to high Heaven. Shortly after my last post, my husband lost his job. As long as I concentrate on paying $12 a week, I don't think WW is a bad deal. But when you add it all together, it's almost $50 a month, and I just couldn't justify that with our family struggling.

I could have, should have stayed on the play without the meetings, but I didn't.

We moved= more stress.

Work has been hard, home has been hard. I'm fat and miserable.

This time, though, Hubby has agreed to join me. In fact, it was HIS idea. We're jumping on the beach today. South Beach, that is.

We did it together in 2003--God, was that 4 years ago already?--and both of us lost more than 50 pounds, but promptly gained it all back once we slipped off. (Okay, jumped off, head first, into the jumbo sized tub of chocolate covered cherry ice cream with hot fudge sauce and whipped cream...oops. Yum-o. I mean, gross.)

This morning for breakfast, I had a 1/2 cup of cottage cheese, 10 grape tomatoes, a slice of Canadian bacon, and a small glass of vegetable juice. Right now I'm drinking water. We've opened what will hopefully be the last case of pop to ever enter our house.

It will be better this time. It will work.

It has to.