Clothes - Making Progress

I had a useful session this afternoon sorting through my shirts. I'm almost down to my target of 17.

I'm also now gearing myself up to tackling the guest room cupboard where most of my stuff is stored. I feel I've got some tough decisions ahead of me.

On a happier note, my first eBay auction ended today with most of the sale items going - all for more than I'd been offered by MusicMagpie. The second auction is now underway...

Photo storage, what to do with the old ones

I was sorting through the cavernous cupboards we seem to have, I have no idea however but they do seem to hold huge amounts of 'stuff'  I am sure when they're cleared out it will be covering up the motorway to Narnia!

I was picking through a huge plastic crate filled with photographs from years back, this was just as the digital age was arriving but people were still hurtling down to boots with excitement, thoughts of what was on their undeveloped film, more often than not they had photos with lots of of thumbs and family members without heads!  For some inexplicable reason I decided to keep every one, perhaps I was thinking I'd paid a fortune for developing costs so I was going to keep everything.   Amongst the photographs I had country scenes where I had no idea where they were, pictures of random farm animals and a host of pictures of my late great aunts next door neighbours.

I decided to be ruthless again,  I commenced 'operation photo,'  if it was a bad picture-binned, random scenery-binned, any picture of a relative (be it alive or dead) was put to one side.  Soon the pile had been whittled down to 5% of what it was!  I still had a large pile of photos, various ones of me at various stages of growing up, from early pre-teen to late 20s.  Oh my, how I've changed, I did feel a mix of emotions about what I was doing at that point of life, how was I feeling?  What would I tell that 15 year old Jonathan?  Mmm perhaps not making Mrs Standway my English teacher cry..... but no, all those events are in the past and they make me who I am today.  However these photos mean something, which is good,

I discovered, in the box, an unused photograph album still in plastic wrap, so sorting through the remaining 5% I have a memory album of Jonathan past along with relatives.  I know this album counts as one item, but the wash of emotion and feeling that it creates I know to me that it is important.  I know these photos could be scanned into my computer and kept on line, but there is something about the tangibility of these photos.  I can remember excitedly opening the developing envelope in the street just after I'd collected them,  and still relive the disappointment when I kept discovering overnight I had not become David Bailey.

With the current digital age, you can keep all your pictures on-line, albeit on a hard drive or on an online gallery space, the 100 Item Challenge isn't the 100 Gigabite Challenge so you can have as many as you like.  Rob and I recently tied the knot, and we had all of our wedding pictures saved on-line and set up a gallery www.lifewith.co.uk so all our friend could have a look, and have the option to download the ones they liked.  Oh no I hear you cry, 'I'd like a photo album of the day' well we have created one, there are marvelous application where you can create a hard back book of your day with a dust cover for a few pounds, so we ordered 3 copies, one for us and one for each of the parental units.   The marvels of sharing your pictures on-line with friends is that they can actually use them for their on-line profiles. I know we felt really proud and happy when a large selection of our friends were all using pictures of our day on their facebook accounts, we feel that each time they look at that image they'll think of our important and exciting day.  And an on-line picture doesn't count for your 100 Items so it's a win win situation.

How many shirts?

How many shirts should a man have? I suppose the obvious answer is how many shirts do I wear a week? And how often do we do laundry?

I need work shirts and casual shirts, and we obviously don't want to be washing and ironing every other day!

Thomas Fink, in The Man's Book suggests that the number of shirts required for any specific purpose is equal to the square root of the number of days involved. That would mean 19 shirts in total. 15 would be work shirts, and as I change when I get home that would mean 34 shirts in total - eeek! But I don't necessarily put on a clean shirt every day (is that bad?) as I work in an air conditioned office, so maybe I can get away with 7 work shirts, and 10 casual shirts?

At least trousers are simpler...

Wardrobe task could be daunting...

Well I have just come back from lunch and a peruse around the shops with my best friend, Paul, I have really surprised myself by not buying anything.  I was explaining the 100 Items challenge to my pal, and he was nodding and then perked up by saying that he already lives like that, he only buys quality clothes and wears them until then need replacing.   He's a librarian, so music is borrowed from the library, he's got a vast collection on hard drives. His weakness is books, he's always bringing books home from the library but he does go a bit crazy in the book shops.  We did venture into Waterstones so I could get some tickets to the Armistead Maupin book reading in November, but even Paul who was sorely tempted with a few of the new releases held himself at bay.  So I may well have a convert.

I've taken a look at the wardrobe and it's going to need a bit of a cull, we both have a substantial amount of clothes.  Photos attached, inventory to follow.

Shoes the big clear out

Right, first phase of the 100 Item Challenge,  my shoes, when we moved back into our apartment I had a clear out before I escaped from the suburbs back to the city.  But I still bought some items that I didn't need and had been boxed up since... well forever.

So the inventory

1. Brown Pair of size 11 (45) Prada leisure shoes
2. Cream Pair of size 11 (45) Prada leisure shoes
3. Blue Pair of size 10.5 (44) Blue Harbour leisure shoes
4. Black Pair of size 11 (45) Firetrap trainers
5. Black Pair of size 11 (45) suede slip on shoes
6. Silver Pair of size 11 (45) Nike Trainers (disco shoes)
7. White Pair of size 11 (45) Nike running trainers
8.  Black pair of size 11 (45) leather leisure shoes
9.  Black pair of size 11 (45) Leather Business shoes
10.Black pair of size 11 (45) German Leather Army Boots

Okay now what to get rid of.... I think both pairs of Prada shoes can go, I had an ill faited romance with a Romanian Cancer Surgeon, and went on a designer brand spending spree, spending around £4000 in one month on designer clothes and shoes that I didn't really need or want.  The German Leather Army Boots can go, another story about an ex there... I went out with a German Teacher and he was into the leather & rubber gear and that whole scene, I have a leather shirt and a couple of harnesses kicking around (which can also be disposed of)  I am spotting a theme here, I went on shopping sprees to buy the accessories to impress a partner, perhaps now I have found my true soul mate I can actually live the life I determine and not trying to become someone else to please others.  Any how I am rambling, so I am down three pairs of shoes. 

The ones I definitely need to keep are the Business Shoes, essential for formal meetings, no matter how rare they're needed.  I am normally found in jeans, polo shirt and trainers.  The casual leather shoes need to stay, they're just so comfortable and a bargain buy from my last visit to Florida in December.  The white trainers need to be kept, just for the rare trip to the gym or if I decide to pound the streets jogging at some ungodly hour in the morning. 

The disco silver sneakers are fab, but I very much doubt I will wear them again, so ebay will have a new visitor.  The firetrap trainers and suede slip on shoes can be set free too, they're getting a bit ragged.  I think it's wise to have another pair of shoes so the Blue Harbour leisure shoes it will be.

So what I am keeping is

1. White Pair of size 11 (45) Nike running trainers
2.  Black pair of size 11 (45) leather leisure shoes

3.  Black pair of size 11 (45) Leather Business shoes
4.  Blue Pair of size 10.5 (44) Blue Harbour leisure shoes

This is the first logged 4 items, in my 100 Item Challenge

Jonathan

DVDs on Ebay

I've been looking through my DVD collection, which although not large contains a number of titles that I'm unlikely to ever watch again (and a couple still in the shrink-wrap).

So the most valuable of them (courtesy of a search on Amazon) are now on Ebay. The rest (and any that don't sell) will be off to MusicMagpie before you can say "declutter".

My Ebay name is obba2020 if you are interested!

The Start

Well this is the start, my husband and I are about to set about the 100 Item Challenge.

We are Jonathan and Rob, a recently married gay couple from Manchester in the UK.

Our philosophy for the '100 Item Challenge' was that our lives were being ruled by our possessions and this was slowing us down, we wanted to create more life experiences and by reducing the burden of owning possessions and setting a priority of what is actually important to us.   We are reducing our possessions down to 100 item each (this is excluding furniture and kitchen equipment, we're not Monks by any stretch of the imagination!)

This has been inspired by Dave Bruno the American creator of '100 Thing Challenge'