Day One Hundred Fifty Two

A while ago someone posted a link for me showing the "100 Thing Challenge". Yesterday a friend posted a link for me about the "50 Thing Challenge". As far as I can tell, the guy who started the first challenge decided last February to cut his stuff in half, going from 100 to 50 personal items. This really got me thinking. His rules say that the things that get counted are "...personal things, that belong only to me. Doesn’t include household furniture, dishes, cleaning supplies, or other shared items such as our family digital camera and the TV." Also, books aren't counted. I went surfing and found the lists of several people and find that the things that clog up the system the worst are clothing items. When he decided to go from 100 to 50 the place he cut was clothing...got rid of 50 articles of clothing. Socks count as a group and so do underwear.

This brings me to an idea that I've had floating around the edges of my mind for a long time. I have a wonderful friend named Ruth who makes her own dresses. Every time I see her she is wearing the same thing - a dress she made. Sometimes she has leggings under it and she wears beautiful shoes that look handmade. If I remember correctly (sadly haven't seen her in a few years) they were all the same basic style. It has always stayed with me. This reminds me of being sent to Catholic school for a year when I was in high school. I was running a little hot in public school and my mom wanted to cool my jets. Surprisingly, my two favorite things about Catholic school were the religion class and the uniform. I wasn't one of the girls with cute outfits from I. Magnin or Lerner's. I had a mom who shopped two places - K-Mart and thrift stores. Luckily I have a winning personality and made friends with all kinds of kids just like I am now friends with all kinds of adults. However, the clothes thing was still a little stressful and for some kids it was downright painful or humiliating. At best it created a longing that was a real waste of energy. So I'm going to set about determining my "uniform". I have a few articles of clothing that I really like and I am going to try to make a pattern from them and reproduce them. Of course now I've given away tons of stuff that I could have recycled into new clothes so I'll have to figure that out. Sewing isn't inexpensive anymore like it was when I learned how in the 70s.

I don't have any desire to limit the number of personal items I have to an arbitrary number. While I understand and applaud the beauty of minimalism I'd rather not have a limited focus. For me the right number of things is the number that satisfies my basic needs and also satisfies my soul...

Even though books don't count, I'm still purging.  My five items today are:

1.  The Story of the Stone by Cao Xueqin

2.  Amazing Irv's handbook of Everyday Magic by Irv Furman

3.  Roosevelt - A Rendezvous with Destiny by Frank Freidel

4.  Amusing the Million by John F. Kasson

5.  The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot

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