Sorting, organizing, down-sizing, trashing ... this is the stuff I love!

It's a sad but true fact that Dorsey and I must be really lazy.

It's only when we have serious motivation to do anything around the house that we do it.

For example, we started painting the interior of our house in 2009, I believe. We had high hopes for doing one room at a time, and we would finish over the course of a year.

We finished a lot of it last year ... 2014.  Life and other more important things to us would get in the way ... like sitting on the patio drinking frozen drinks or something.

Now, we have one more room to do, and that has been expedited because Dorsey and I are moving into it — because Dad is moving into our room and bathroom.

If my dad were not moving in with us, I would not have, for the past two days, rid my closet of 10 bags of clothes and shoes. Last year, when we had a garage sale, I let go of lots of "stuff." I felt hesitant about some of the clothes, because I either liked them or thought I might wear them again. (Of course, there were also the two bags of too-small jeans I wanted to hang onto; I had this unhealthy idea that I still wanted to wear them, when I wore those jeans when I was extremely ill. Dummy. Some ideas die hard, even when you're "old.")

I decided that if in a year I hadn't worn certain clothes, I would donate them.

That's where the 10 trash bags come in. How ridiculous is that? I had clothes from 13 years ago!!!

I realized that, really, I wear about two-weeks-worth of clothes in all. I have all these clothes in my closet, and I always go back to the same ones. Plus, I practically live in yoga pants. (No, I do not do yoga, unfortunately.)



What had been a space I had converted into an over-sized closet is now going to be the "Dad Cave." This is where Dad can have his own chair and TV and books and whatever else. He can escape from us and from the dogs.

Dad has done us a favor.

Dorsey and I had always talked about downsizing. Now, this is our chance to prove we can do it! You know those tiny closets the older homes were built with? That's where our clothes and shoes must fit now. I aim to be a minimalist!! Used to be, it was about more, more, more ... now, I just want to get rid of all of it.

I think that's one of the positive things about aging. Priorities get straighter. Relationships become more important than things. Comfort and security become more important than spending money we don't need to spend, just for "stuff."

I am excited to have gotten rid of all that junk. And we even still have Dorsey's closet to go. That will be a few more bags of unnecessary clothing and shoes.

I now have my sights set on the next minimalization project ... but it will never be our pets.