Coyote Siting

I just came back from another orienteering meet yesterday. The last few meets I've been finding that I come away with wet feet. And a resolution to pay attention and plan my route better around water features. I always think of the spring as a time when creeks are gushing full of winter melt from the mountains, but apparently it is also the case in the fall. Anyways, no matter how carefully I try to cross creeks and bogs, I end up with at least one wet foot and this weekend I couldn't help but think it wasn't great to go from wet foot in a stream onto snow. It had snowed last week and mostly melted in town but out in the woods there is still some snow on the ground. Luckily it's still warm out so not too bad. 

As I was out on the course I was finding my mind straying from the current moment, and ruminating about all the stresses from work. I kept trying to recenter myself and live in the moment, that's what I always appreciated about orienteering, you have to be paying attention. 

Well, as I was climbing up an embankment, I heard some noise from above. At first I thought it was another person on a course, dashing through the woods like a deer. The course was compact enough that I'd cross paths with other participants. But nope, this time it actually was deer.  Three of them running across my path just ahead of me. It was quite stunning to see.  They were heading down to the trail I had just left but they stayed in the protection of the trees along the edge as they slowed down, sussing out if they should cross, and actually walking down a bit further before they ran across the trail back into the woods on the opposite side. 

I was torn as I made my way to my control, that with all these people in the woods, we were disturbing the local wildlife and yet still in awe of seeing them up close. A few minutes later, as I was making my way to another control, I had left a path and came across a couple walking the opposite direction who pointed out a coyote just a little ways away in the woods. It looked like she was intent on something and was heading away from us. Not too worried about our presence. She did seem to be heading on a path that might intersect with the deer I had just seen, although she was coming from a different direction. Again another conflict of emotions, awe and worry about what is only the natural course of events in the wild. 

I ended up making it back in good time, even after stoping and watching the wildlife and few stops to talk with others on the course. Interestingly, this was my third meet in a row where I placed in the top three.  Granted, this has more to do with who else is running the course. But the last few courses I haven't had any trouble finding the controls. Usually there is at least one that trips you up and takes a chunk of time. I'm thinking I might be ready to advance on to the next level - the advanced course. It's all woods and no trails. Making it more challenging but also tiring. 

I ended up sticking around and volunteered for the last part of the meet. Partly for my own benefit. I've been working on trying to figure out how to have more energy as I'm getting worn down from work. At work, I've inherited quite a mess of a department and a lot of issues. As I get more tired, I find myself pulled into the weeds and not able to step back as often as needed to see the problem as what it is, in a more balanced light. So in my time not working I've been falling into the habits of trying to relax and rest up but not very successfully. For me, I recognize that I'm on the cusp of introvert/extrovert. I benefit from taking time and hanging out and chatting with people. It gets me out of my head. So staying and chatting with fellow orienteering folks put me in a good frame of mind. I also found that the fuel I have also helps. So on my way home, I stopped by the grocery store and when I got home I went straight into cooking mode. If I stop and rest, I sometimes don't make it back up. I ended up cooking for three hours but have all my meals for the week ready to go. 

And what a difference Saturday and Sunday was. Saturday I went into relaxation mode and slept in, but really well and did a little here and there but didn't accomplish much and in the end felt less recharged. Sunday, having the deadline of having to make it to the meet, I got myself up and out the door and had a very productive day where I felt much better at the end of it all. And slept much better that night too. Which at first glance is counter intuitive. I did more and felt less tired versus laying low and relaxing and felt more tired. 

It got me thinking about misconceptions. As I've been decluttering I realized "retail therapy" was the exact opposite. The concept being if you take some time to be indulgent and shop, you'll feel better. Which is true for the moment, but in the long term you feel worse. It's a quick fix that hurts more than helps. 

And more recently I realized "comfort food" was the same. Yes, you feel good in the moment eating whatever comfort food - often simple carbs.  But later you'll feel worse and it didn't help at all. With the food, I know to stay away from the comfort foods when I'm needing comfort. I need the healthy stuff that will fuel me. It got me thinking of other comfort habits I have that aren't the best habits. And what actually gives me energy. I did notice that sometimes when I'm stressed I'll organize/declutter a specific spot in the house. I think this is a positive because it gives me immediate comfort but also long term, I feel an accomplishment of making something better. I think I have to keep an eye on my Netflix viewing. It definitely feels comforting sometimes, but leaves me decharged. The biggest take away is that I feel more charged after accomplishing something. Granted I need down time and can't just be go, go, go, but need to figure out what a healthy down time is for me. Well, off to feed the cats. 

French Horns

I've been trying to be good and not abandon this blog and post at least once a month. I will say that I find blogging doesn't work into my schedule as well, so I've been exploring alternatives (like vlogging) but haven't found a simple and easy way yet. 

So French horns.  It has to do with the orienteering event last weekend. I just got an email that shared they had posted pictures of the event.  Looking through the pictures, I found I was checking to see if I could see myself,not expecting to since I would have remembered someone taking photos. But, as you can see, I was focused on the course at hand:

It was a great day for being out in the woods. I can tell this photo is later on because I had started off with a hat and gloves but trekking around, you heat up. This event was different and had a great energy in the air. Usually for orienteering, you show up, get an epunch and map and head out and try to be as fast as possible, sometimes crossing paths with others, usually on different courses. It's a rolling start in a two hour window. This event had a mass start which means we were all heading out at the same time. 

The way they make it work is that there are three different courses we all do, but in different orders and they are all on top of each other. So you're in the woods running into a lot more people than usual. Which adds a different energy and can be distracting - you second guess if you are heading the right way or should veer off in the direction the other person is heading, but then they might be on a different course. Anyways, we had a great mass start - instead of starting pistol there were French horns!

How fun, right?!  A great send off as we head into the heart of the forest. Needless to say, I had a fun weekend and so happy I found this sport. I did have one control that took me forever to find, but I did finish which is half the battle. 

It was a great break from the craziness of work. I'm still excited about my job but what I inherited is a mess and exhausting to get back up and running smoothly. That's what I love about orienteering.  It brings you outside and you have to give it your undivided focus or else you get lost. It's a great break for a busy mind. 

Another Dog

This weekend, I realize, I've been mentally preparing for the big procedure tomorrow - my first colonoscopy. Right now, I'm sitting in my bathroom ready for the next phase after just downing the medicine. BTW, my dosage was pretty decent - tasted like a super sweet drink. Speaking of which, I feel like all I've had today is sugar. The clear diet really limits the intake. I had some broth throughout the day but have found when I get a hunger craving I reach for some ginger ale. 

I had pretty much cleared my calendar this weekend in preparation. Figuring I'd need to run errands and get things in order around the house. From what I've heard and seen on tv shows, I'm preparing for being out of commission after downing the last drop of the meds. And know, as I write this, I realize I may have imagined something worse than it really will be... Or I just need to give it time to kick in. 

Anyways, yesterday, after having a nice long consultant with a gardening coach, I was hopping in my car to go pick up the medicine and grab the special diet food at the grocery store. As I was pulling out my driveway, this random dog comes trotting down the sidewalk.  I stopped suddenly and hopped out since I didn't want him (turns out it was a girl)to head into the street or go towards the super busy street. It was a friendly dog and happy to see me as I get out of my car. The strangest thing was that she not only had a collar with tags but also had a leash on that was dragging behind her. I looked around and no one in sight except a jogger coming from the same direction. At first I thought the dog was the joggers, but nope. He stopped and helped me try to figure out whose dog. And even held the leash while I pulled my car back into the driveway. The tags were just rabbi tags and no other info. 

So I ended up having a bit of a detour - my new friend and I went for a walk to the local police station. Along the way there was a lot of sniffing of posts and many marking with the pee. And as we got close to the station we even stopped and had a poop. Luckily, the leash had a built in poop bag holder so I could take care of her business. 

I brought her into the station and the officer had a chuckle when I explained the situation. They don't have tons of random dog drop offs, but apparently this guy is the one that is usually on duty when they show up. My new friend was happy to go with the officer and that was that. 

I did look around my neighborhood a bit more after I got back to see if I could find anyone looking for a dog. And part of my imagination wondered why she was on a leash, like mayber her owner fell and was hurt and the dog ran off. But nothing. And went and ran my errands.  I'm debating about calling the police department to find out if everything worked out. And hope she was reunited and everyone was ok. I'm just happy our paths crossed because I do think she might have ended up in the middle of traffic. 

Well, I don't want to tempt fate, as I feel my tummy working through the meds. So I'll sign off and post this and queue up a fun movie to watch in my new hang out space on the throne. Wish me well. 

Decluttering Books

In my decluttering journey, I feel like I've come along way but also am aware I'm only part way through the process. Books is a good example of where I feel I'm in the middle. I used to keep almost all my books and only thinned them out occasionally. With more books coming in than going out, overtime, my bookshelves were overflowing. I used the Ciscero quote to enable my book acquisition - "A room without books is like a body without a soul."   Side note, I first saw the quote in my local bookstore in college - tricky marketing. 

But these last two years, I've been slowly unpacking my relationships with books and what's behind the surface. Logistically, I took all my books and sorted them into two main categories - books I've read and books I've not read or not finished yet. Of the books I've read, earlier this year, I sorted them again into, books I read and I really enjoyed and would want to reread and worth carrying up several flights of stairs when moving. I was brutal and really questioned if I'd reread the book again.  Making it clear that for every book I reread that meant I couldn't read a new book during that time spent. And interestingly, I was able to weed out quite a few books I enjoyed and liked and would recommend but didn't need to own any longer. My keep pile is suprsimglu small and I feel like I could revisit again and make it smaller. 

What really helped was that in the pile of books I had read I noticed some mental themes. For me I was holding on to a lot of books from two periods of my life: young adult books and books I read in college (not text books). I split the books into three piles and found I could be ruthless weeding out books I've read these last twenty years but the other two groups I was much more sentimental. Was I really going to reread Little House on the Prairie series, and if so, couldn't I just get a copy from the library. Same with some of college books - I loved the Russians and Dickens, but haven't ready any in years. I still have books from these two groups but they are now separated out and I have a time limit.  I'm giving myself some time to see if I'd reread any, otherwise they go. And I'm slowly, mentally, uncoupling the sentimental side of keeping the books. 

But the biggest pile was books I had aquired that looked interesting but I hadn't gotten to yet. I'm slowly realizing they are part of my "fantasy self". The self that knows what's in the books - I've read them already.  Just like with beautiful things, I can't have and own every beautiful thing I see. I don't have enough space (or money). Same with books, I can't read every book I find interesting, there literally isn't enough time in my life. So again, I've been learning to add the filter to prioritize. 

Which gets me to the point of my post. I've been volunteering at my local library helping organize and prepare for their annual book sale. I like the work because it's basically sorting the books into categories and then organizing them on the tables. Last year, I ended up with an armful of books I took home. And had resigned myself that I'd probably do something similar but hopefully not as many, especially since I was out of space on the bookshelf that housed my unread books. 

But surprisingly, this last week. I found myself using some good questioning techniques. I was sorting through the cookbooks and would set aside a few I was interested in and at the end I looked at the books and found that, one, I liked the cookbooks I already owned better (prioritization), and two, that often I was sucked into the idea of the lifestyle (fantasy self). Either through beautiful pictures/graphics or with the idea of the dish. I'd love to eat it and even be able to cook it, but in reality this was a big jump from my current cooking style. Granted, I may want to shift my cooking style, but you only need one cookbook or handful of receipts - not a mini library. If you have more than one book to experiment with, you start feeling burdened for not being your fantasy self, that you've already failed.  And in the end, I put all the books back. 

As I worked through the other sections, same thing - I saw a book that looked interesting. Set it aside. And in the end decided I had enough at home. And at the end of volunteering, I left empty handed. The questioning of priority and fantasy self helped me but also the time delay. Waiting and reflecting after the initial discovery helped the endorphins settle down.  

Now the question will be, will I escape without any books in the next week - the book sale is next weekend and I still have a bunch more volunteer time. And I'm ok if I bring home a few - it's not an absolute. But more about understanding why I want to have the book and being more mindful about my acquisitions. But I feel pretty confident I won't have a huge stack like last time. It's all about progress and not being perfect. 

Weekend Update

Saturday was a beautiful day for the bike orienteering. I had a slow morning which turned into a rush to get to the orienteering meet before the event started at 10. Which meant I took a look at my bike and thought, "the tires are fine". They could use a little air but not having much time to spare I rushed out the door figuring it would be good enough. As I'm biking to the meet I can clearly see my front tire is a bit flat and more importantly, it was a challenging ride. I lucked out and found a hard core adventurer who was pumping up his bike tires before the start and borrowed his pump and fixed my bike tire situation. So that was the first mistake I made, but fixed it before the race. 

We're given the maps ten minutes before the start and the time rushes by as you try to figure out the best route to take to maximize your points, avoid the steep hills and busy roads. This year I was trying out a new strategy - target the bonus points. The more you get, the more your score goes up exponentially. But the bonus controls, of course, are in the far corners of the map. I ended up deciding to go clock-wise, and hit the north west corner first. 

I do have to say this happened to me last year. It's strange bicycling for three hours in near by towns, using a map that has roads and topographic features but no labels. You don't know from the map what town you are in or any of the street names. So I get focused on the course and then realize I'm near where I go for my cat supplies and recognize an intersection - it just suddenly appears and is a bit discombobulating.  

An hour into the race and I'm doing well.  I avoided any steep hills, I'm feeling in shape and finding all the controls pretty well. I enter this one park to hit the next bonus control and it's just so beautiful. There are so many beautiful marshlands with the gorgeous plants. It's so picturesque, I want to take a picture, but I'm focused and plus I know it wouldn't capture the moment. As I find the control, I think, I should come back and explore this park. Lots of great trails to explore and beautiful setting. As I'm biking through the park to hit the next neighborhood, I pass a classic middle-American landscaped portion of the park with an American flag and I think wow, this looks just like a similar corner of the park I was at last weekend for orienteering. I thought it would be neat to take my next visitor to both places so they can see how similar they are. To my defense, this part of the park is very much like a big box store - you see variations of the same thing everywhere. Not very unique. It's not until a little bit farther down the path do I realize - yup, it's the same place I was at last weekend. 

I came to the park from a different direction, but comparing the two maps from this weekend and last weekend and looking at my route, I should've recognized parts sooner. You know what it was, the perspective is different when you're on foot versus quickly biking. I was so surprised how certain I was there were two parks that looked alike versus realizing it was the same place. I have to say I chuckled over that for a good fifteen minutes of my ride. 

My next mistake was I forgot two things I did last year.  One was to set the deadline for getting back to the finish 20 minutes early. You get penalized for every minute you are late. And because I'm bad at estimating how long it will take, I built in a buffer last year - got back to the general vicinity of the start area and picked up a few extra controls near by, without feeling too rushed. Somehow I forgot I did this and this year, I was just hoping I'd squeeze everything in in time. Near the end I was starting to re-edit my route but even so, I was feeling rushed and by now I was getting tired, two hours in. But a quiet kind of tired. The kind you don't notice because the thrill of hunting for the controls overshadowed them. Which leads me to my second thing I forgot. I forgot I had packed a lunch last year. I remember packing a trail mix of sorts and snacking on that. And I was lazy and just had leftover breakfast which was just waffles and not a good hearty breakfast of veggies and protein. Lesson learned, fuel the body. 

I think it's because I'm in better shape, my muscles weren't sending up any signals of being over worked, like last year. Actually, two days later and my leg muscles aren't even that sore. A little but not as much as I thought they'd be. Last year that was the first thing that went so I'd slow down and conserve my energy.  And last year I told myself I should train before hand so my muscles for biking are in better shape. I forgot to do this and had wished I had, but then found I was farther ahead than last year. Don't know how that happened. 

I think I went wrong where I should have had the advantage. By now I'm in the south west corner of the map. Well not really, I cut out a whole section because I'm not that good. But I knew where some of the spots were because they were along where I'd commute for work. Looking back, I should have skipped these because I didn't really have the time. I did them because I could see where they were in my mind and they didn't seem that far. One control was in the park just down the street from my house. In the park that I know is at the top of a pretty steep hill. But I'm always in my car so don't really absorb how steep the hill is. After getting off my bike twice to push it up the steep portions of the hill, I eat up half an hour and finally get to the control in the park in my backyard. And it's dawning on me I'm not going to have enough time and the next bonus control is on another even steeper hill - near the water tower in town. The hill with the view of Boston - it's that steep. I mean not only do I have a topographic map that only has the steepness of hills, I've literally driven up all these hills hundreds of times. 

But again perspective. It's one thing when you're in a car. And another when you're on a bike. I figured I could hit the last control, scrap the rest and head straight back and hopefully make it just in time or only a few minutes late. I'm thinking all this in the park as I'm walking my bike up yet another hill, in the park. I get to a point I can bike and start biking, not too fast mind you, and as I'm about to leave the park, the dirt path turns right, onto paved sidewalk/driveway of sorts, I wipe out. It was going downhill a bit, I wasn't going too fast, but there was a bunch of loose gravel on the paved portion which causes my bike to slip out from underneath me as I take the turn. I wonder if this had happened at the beginning if I would have been able to recover in time. It all happened in slow motion - I fell to my right and was able to catch my fall on my hands. 

And then a wave of just being tired hit after the initial pain. For a second there I was like, no problem, I can pick my bike up and keep going, I have 30 minutes still, I can make it to the last control and then the finish. And then a moment later, I was like, nope, I'm done. I realized I wasn't in a rush to get anywhere any more. Even outside the race, no rush to get home. I had no plans for the rest of the day. So I picked my stuff up and just lay on the grass and chilled. It's weird, because I don't really do that much in any portion of my life. But my body definitely needed a moment. It was weird because it took me a bit to unpack my previous plans. I was like, I'm just a few blocks from home, I biked to the event so it's not like my car was there that I had to pick up. Literally, there was no reason not to just go home. 

I took it easy going home and by then I was so hungry. Also, another mistake, I didn't have pre made food ready for the post race. And since I'm pretty healthy these days, I didn't really have anything to just munch on. But I got myself fed and started cleaning up my wounds. My hands barely have any scratches. No one will notice them at work. Even my legs escaped pretty unscathed. I have a little bit of a raspberry on my right side of my right calf.  I'll have a bunch of bruises along my right side - a big one is forming on my right buttock. What really took the bulk of the hit was my right elbow. I just slid across the pavement on it and gauged it pretty deep. And man it's hard to clean an open wound on yourself. Luckily, I found the trick was to take a shower. I wanted to clean up anyways, plus I was concerned the sunscreen could get into any wounds. I found it was the best way to easily clean the open wound. 

The other injury is my thumb on my left hand.  It feels like it's sprained a bit where the thumb connects to the palm. All in all nothing too bad.  Some soreness throughout the body but not anything out of the ordinary. And the timing to take a nasty fall like this could not have been better - I mean if I had to take a fall in the first place. The next day, I was helping a friend organize a room and her husband is a sports injury doctor. So I had him take a look at my injuries. He did a bunch of poking and prodding and lots of questions. He went from joking around as my friend's husband, into Doctor mode. I felt like I was having a private, at home, consultation. And the verdict is all good. Give everything some time to heal and if things don't improve in three weeks come in for a follow up. Already, after two nights sleep, things are feeling much better. My elbow is starting to scab over and doesn't hurt unless I bang into it. And the rest of me is my normal bruising feeling I'm used to. And on Sunday I was till able to whip my friends bedroom into better shape. I was a little slow, but still at about 90% of my regular self. I took it easy, but the point is most things weren't impeded by my injuries. Turns out we weren't tackling her closet of clothes, it was just all the clutter and extra storage of stuff in the bedroom. She was quite. impressed with what we accomplished and reiterated she thought I should go into business as a side hustle. I was curious which of my lessons learned I could share, and would stick. It was the old adage of "like with like" that we came back to each time. It's a good place to start. For her, she had a lot of plans for things - to mend, to fix, to turn into something else.  So they all went into the same spot - "incomplete actions".  

So all in all a great weekend. I'm hoping I'll still be up for orienteering next weekend - it's the only canoeing event all year. But talk about an activity where you need a healthy elbow. I'll have to wait and see. And nothing like a bonus day (Labor Day), to take it easy and chip away at some chores. The weathers nice, so some more gardening for me. My hope is to get everything in shape before snow comes so next spring, it's not too bad. 

Hobby Update

I didn't know what to call this post. And then it dawned on me that both topics are hobbies in a way. First off, I was going to share I think I have a garden gnome breaking into my house and stealing my gardening tools. Basically I have no explanation about what's happened. Last year I acquired two sets of hand held pruning sheers. They were great and I pruned away all last year. This year, I took them out in spring and started pruning.  And then I started my job and they have gone MIA. I looked everywhere. I'm good about bringing my tools in every time. I put my tools in their home and they are just not there, or anywhere. I looked everywhere and fell further and further behind on my pruning after a few months, I gave up and bought a new set of sheers. I used them once and remember thinking, I'll bring them up into my place instead of leaving them in the basement with my other gardening tools. They are too precious to not keep locked up. 

And then this weekend I went to garden, and nada. I couldn't find the sheers. How did a third pair go missing? I even found the packaging of the third set so I knew I hadn't imagined buying them. Granted, I had enough gardening too keep me busy even without my pruning sheers. I started thinking I'll just use giant loppers for even the small trimming. I mean I can't lose my loppers - they're huge. It's like when the gas station attaches a hub cap to the bathroom key so it doesn't go missing. 

And of course, just writing about the shears, and taking a day off from looking for them, and my brain relaxed and I remembered tucking them away in my back closet. But in amongst my cleaning supplies. Which makes no sense - it was just the closest place when I came up after the last gardening jaunt. Lesson reinforced, everything has a home and put everything back in its home, even if it's an extra step or two. Your future brain will thank you. 

I'm still way behind on the gardening, but I'm slowly getting more comfortable about what to keep and what to get rid of and I've started formulating a plan for planting. A bunch of plants I want to move.  And I'm realizing it makes sense to just tackle a little bit at a time. I was pulling the crab grass in the strip of lawn between the sidewalk and street this evening after work. I haven't mowed all summer and the crab grass took over and killed off the regular grass. My plan is to move some lilies like my neighbor which hopefully will give the tree a little less competition. 

And in other news, orienteering started back up for the fall. I was out all day yesterday. Even though it cooled down last week, to the point I was putting away some summer clothes, I should have looked at the forecast.  It was a warm day yesterday and all this week will be hot and humid again. But I did pretty well. I ended up starting out on the same course as these two other people. One was ahead of me and the other one I could hear running behind me which kept me running a bit longer than I normally would have. I wasn't good about staying in shape in the off-season. I should have been running more this summer but then again I did have my toe injury (I dropped my vacuum on my big toe - it's healed pretty well). I found all the markers pretty well. Number six was the most challenging and that's where I left one of the guys (who had been running behind me and passed me). I kept thinking I knew where it should be and then it wasn't in the spot so I took a lesson I learned earlier which is to give up early, go back to a point where you know where you are on the map and start again to try to find the spot. I blame the bugs because number six was in the woods and flies where on me the second I stopped to look at my map. I basically just kept running around, to get away from the flies. 

And at one point I came up to the marker and the other fellow had gotten there before me but was sitting and studying his map so I took advantage and went off running to the next spot. He ended up catching up to me and we found the next spot together but then took different routes to the following marker. I kind of had an advantage since this is the third year I ran this location. So I knew the way you think you should go according to the map is tricky because the paths aren't clear.  I took the longer way around, but think I got to the spot first. I should add that each year the markers are in different spots, but you get familiar with the areas. 

Anyways, you don't need the play by play. The nice thing is I hung around after I was done which I usually don't do. I said I'd help with clean up and I was meeting up with a fellow orienteering person that I'm helping run a local meet in a few weeks. Im shadowing him this year and the plan is I run the meet next year. The fellow I passed on marker six (he spent over 20 minutes hunting - I've been there before) showed me an app you can download on your phone which tracks your route and then afterwards you can overlay the route onto the topo map and study what you did. I think I'm going to try it out next time. 

Speaking of which, next weekend is the bicycling event. I liked doing it last year but noted I should train  prior since it's a lot of biking. The event is 3 hours plus biking to and from is another 1.5 hours. Not only were my legs sore, my butt was super sore. Somehow, the event snuck up on me, even though it's usually Labor Day weekend. I'm hoping to get into the gym this week to train a little. I'm still sore from yesterday - a few steep hills I ran up and down. I'm writing this down in the hopes I remember, next year, when it's strawberry season (June), I need to start training on my bike. 

And the weekend after, is canoeing orienteering. And the weekend is the event I'm helping run. So lots of exciting weekends planned full of orienteering, and hopefully some gardening. My moss in the backyard is thriving which only makes me want to get out and weed out the grass in the remaining portion. And yet, I haven't made it out back as much as I've wanted to. It's the one nice thing about the weather getting hot again, it feels like it's still summer and I still have time to catch up on my gardening. 

Decluttering: Clothes

A friend of mine reached out asking if I could help her tackle her closet. She's the friend who I helped organize her pantry this spring and she reported the pantry is still super clean and tidy. Which is great to hear. 

Her ask got me thinking about my path to decluttering my clothes. I'm still not there but I've come a long way and tried a bunch of things along the way. I was just noticing the other day how as things were ramping up at work I was pulling items out of my wardrobe and just bringing it down to the core. The crazier work gets, the smaller my wardrobe became. A nice solid core of about 8 tops, 2 bottoms, 1 dress and 2 pairs of shoes. I never thought this would be enough but it is. I should note that this is my summer wardrobe, when it's hot and humid out, And not my entire closet. 

So here's what I found in my path to where I'm now:

1. Taking everything out. I made a pile in my living room of all my clothes, shoes, etc. everything from all my closets, dressers, storage, etc. I was blown away at how much there was and weeded through and took out the not for me anymore items. I think I got rid of about a third. It felt so good but this was just the start. People often stop at this point and don't revisit which is key to not end up back where you were before. 

2. Figure out your categories. I tried a bunch of things on where I store my clothes. From keeping everything active, including out of season clothes, to packing away stuff, including extra clothes I considered my "store" to shop from. What I found, for me, is that if I have too much to chose from, it can get overwhelming and I get into "I don't have anything to wear mode". I divided my clothes into modules that I rotate out. For me I basically have four work modules for each season and four casual modules for each season and a few specialty categories. Specialty categories include: fancy (for a wedding or Christmas party),  shoveling and for each I only have on or two outfits that I don't wear that often. Right now, I have two modules out for summer: work and casual. 

3. Do the math. This was a big aha moment for me. I don't want to have a closet where I only wear items only once or twice a year. I want a closet where I wear things a bunch. I calculated the number of days per season for work and for casual (basically weekends). The first thing I noticed is that I have too much casual items for every season. I had so many tops for casual that I was only wearing an item twice a year This helped me rebalance my closet for my needs. 

4. Holding Pile. I spent a weekend trying everything on and figuring out outfits, head to toe, including jewelry and shoes. At first I just found outfits that worked but after a little practice I became ruthless and the outfit only passed if I felt 100% - dressed to impress. This resulted in a few items I still love but haven't figured out an outfit yet. So I took the pieces out of the closet and bagged them up. This is my working pile that I work on periodically when I'm feeling creative to find an outfit that works or else let the piece go. I only have the pieces that work for me right now in my closet. It's so much simpler. 

5. Sentimental Pile.  This I just did recently and it helped more than I thought. I went through my closet and pulled out pieces that had a story and I'd be hesitant to let go of. Everything from pieces I picked up from my trips abroad to my oldest piece of clothing from college to my first sweater I knit. If I can find a way to use the piece where I feel 100%, then in the closet it goes. For instance my first sweater I knit I wasn't wearing much f at all and then I turned it into my go-to shoveling sweater and wore it tons last winter. But if I don't have a use for it, it goes into my holding pile. This includes my fantasy self items too. Clothes I don't fit into at the moment, too big or small.  Everything I'm not using gets packed away and if the holding pile gets too big, I weed it down but now I know why I'm holding onto it which lets me let go. I don't need three pairs of jeans that are too small, just one. 

6. Know Your Style.  I realized I often bought pieces as experiments but didn't realize they were experiments. So they just lingered longer than they should have. It's easier said than done about finding your style. It's an iterative process of trial and error. The key is to be conscious of what you're trying. And that your style shifts. What used to be a favorite may no longer work, especially with clothing, fashion comes and goes. I had a good quality blazer I loved for work and wore all the time. It took awhile for me to realize it wasn't my favorite anymore. The cut had gone out of fashion gradually so I wasn't reaching for it but the history had me keeping the piece. Recently I had picked up a few key core pieces but I realized a skirt was not in my regular go to category so I to.d myself, this is an experiment piece, let's see how it goes. I've learned to limit the number of "experiments" I purchase. Along with style is knowing what colors, cuts and fabrics work best. I still have a ways to go but I'm getting there