Saturday, May 17, 2014

A Clothes Horse or Clothes Whore?

I've never understood the phrase clotheshorse.  I think of a piece of furniture, kind of in the shape of a rocking horse, that's meant to catch all of your clothes as you carelessly toss them around your bedroom.

For many, it's also called a stationary bike or treadmill, right?

The definition of a clotheshorse is a person who likes to wear stylish clothes.

I seem to have a lot of clothes, but I am not one to wear stylish clothes, per se.

So really, I think we should change the word to clotheswhore.  As in one who will take any old piece of clothing and make do, pretending to enjoy it whether she really does or not, especially if it was cheap.

This came to my attention when I decided this is the weekend to bring out the warm weather clothes.  This will ensure that the 70 degree weather we've had will go right back into the 40s and I'll wish I hadn't put my sweaters away.

In the fall, I bought a few of those space saver bags, the kind that you can put a million things into, suck out the air and they become as thin as an envelope for easy storing.

I've never believed in these bags because, for a long time, you could only get them on the home shopping channel or through secret websites and I thought it was just a sham.

Since we have little to no closet space in this house, I usually put most of my sweaters into a rubbermaid container in the summer and then put all of my shorts and capris in it when it's cold again.  They don't really all fit well in there and the cover is always askew, so I never believe they remain dust free.

So, when the cold weather came, I took out one of the extra large space saver bags and put all of my shorts and capris into it.  And then I sucked out all the air and was shocked at how compact the whole thing became.

So, I quickly did the same thing with some blankets and then a vast assortment of clothes that I can't get rid of but don't really want to wear.

When I retrieved the shorts and capris bag today, I was amazed at what actually came out.

Here was this bag that I could carry under my arm, weight about 30 pounds but much easier to carry than the big rubbermaid tote.

And then here were the contents:

20 shorts
14 capris
1 pair of linen pants
1 pair of overalls cut into shorts that I will never wear again but just cannot throw away.
1 very old cat

That's way too many clothes for just one season.  But here's the reason and you can all throw stones at me if you'd like when I whine about this.

I don't really change sizes.  And haven't in about 20 years.

I know, most of you have left by now because no one wants to hear about that.

While I get toned and less toned and toned again, and I gain a few and lose a few, I stay right within the size of most of my clothes.

And since we have a ton of places here like Marshall's and TJMaxx, for a long time, I would buy clothes that were super discounted even if I didn't need them.  I guess I thought clothes wouldn't last or something.

And, while my underwear doesn't last, my other clothes do, so I wear them over and over but they just seem to multiply.

Now, some of those shorts won't be worn this summer, like the 3 pair of short denim shorts that I don't really wear, or the strange black pair that I bought eons ago when I did promotions but can't part with, but I put them in my pile anyway, in case I have some rare urge to wear them.

I did, however, put these back because I know that they will not suddenly become in style in the next 3 months.
Or ever again, let's hope.

But I keep them just in case...

Now, when I first discovered capris, I thought they were dumb.  Who wants to wear pants that are too short to be pants but too long to be shorts?

Umm, teachers, duh!!!!!  They are the right thing for spring and fall when you'd really like to wear  a bikini because of the heat but the school district frowns upon that.

So then, I went a little crazy.  And I thought it was appropriate to buy things like these.

So, for years, I ferreted them away because I could not wear them in middle school.  I was already lame enough because I'm a teacher.  Being a teacher who thinks it's cool to wear flipflops on capris would push it right over the top.

But now, I am in 4th and 5th grade where I can get away with pretty much any kind of clothing, so out they came.

After I took out the 400 pairs of shorts and capris, I decided to put away most of me sweaters and the pants that are dark and very wintry.  Since we still have crazy cold weather in May, and then again at the end of September, I kept a few cardigans out of the lot.

But it appears that I have just as many sweaters and pants as I do capris and shorts.

To illustrate just what these bags can hold, I put in:

17 sweaters
4 sweater dresses
8 pairs of pants

And when I zipped it closed, this is what it looked like.  I put the books next to it so you can see what happened when I vacuumed out all of the air.  And because there are random stacks of books on my bedroom floor, so it was easy to grab!

After sucking out every bit of air that I could, it shrunk down quite a few inches in height and in length.

And this is what it looks like when I pick up the whole thing, again weighing like 30 pounds, and carry it upstairs for storage in the aforementioned rubbermaid container.

It's possible that I took this picture with my toe, which we should not tell k-ster because he thinks using  toes like fingers is inappropriate.  But how else can a person take a selfie with an ipad?  They are just too heavy otherwise!

You might wonder if all this compacting of the clothes makes them permanently wrinkled.  For the 6 months that my shorts and capris were in the bag, they came out and after a wash, were no more wrinkled than when they sit in my closet without ironing.

If we had under the bed storage, this would slide perfectly under there, it's so thin, but alas, we don't have under the bed storage.  Good for keeping out the dust, bad for storing things that otherwise have to be dragged upstairs for storage.

For the past couple of years, I've greatly reduced the number of new clothes that I buy and usually, I just buy one or two things each season.

I can't get rid of some of these clothes because they come back in style!  Remember babydoll dresses?  They're coming back, I see.  I can't find my most favorite one because I think I gave it away when I thought they were out of fashion.  How said.

That's why I've become a clotheswhore.

Linking here:
http://www.lovebakesgoodcakes.com/2014/05/freedom-fridays-with-all-my-bloggy_15.html#more 
http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2014/05/clever-chicks-blog-hop-87-with-chicken.html

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