In today’s go-green manic world, one begins to feel as if you can never get rid of anything.  Everything from milk jugs to egg cartons to junk mail must be put to another use.  But what’s the use of all that saving if your own house turns into a mini land fill?  Keeping clutter does nothing to save the earth – it just turns your own beautiful home into an unregulated trash dump.

For 2009, one of my new years resolutions was to clear out the major clutter in my life.  I’ve succeeded in doing that in a large way too over the past 7 months!  I’ve managed to rid my home of over 150 lbs of clothing (50lbs of which I tried to sell on ebay), talked myself into throwing away all of those old class notebooks from high school and college, donated 35+ large trashbags full of miscellaneous items to Goodwill, donated a huge amout of goods (including a black & white laswer printer and a home theater set) to our church yardsell, and kindly left 27 clothes baskets at the laundromat with a “Take me! I’m Free!” sign over them.  (My mom is a clothesbasket-holic…and I somehow inherited many of her basket’s children).

With all of this stuff gone, you would not believe how free I feel inwardly.  It’s akin to walking out of a 5×5 dark smoke filled room and into the fresh air of the wide open Appalacian mountains.  Seriously, getting rid of needless clutter definitely feels like a spiritual awakening.  I can finally breathe deeply.

To have come this far in getting rid of things is a major feat for me.  I’m a self-proclaimed packrat.  A junk keeping, non-trashing, hoarder of the 3rd kind.  When I was younger, I use to feel panic attacks approaching at just the thought of throwing away a paper plate!  For real.  I mean, that paper plate had memories attatched to it.  Plus, wouldn’t it be useful for something else one day?  Perhaps it could be painted on or rolled up and used as a vase.  Anything to keep it in my life!

Memory attachment & perceived usefulness.  And there in lies the trouble for the hoarding mentality.

Overcoming the attachments and ridding yourself of thoughts of “saving it for a rainy day” will take you a long way in your journey of clearing away the clutter.  It’s been a long internal process for me, and has brought me through a complete mental shift in how I think about objects around me.  Perhaps in the future I’ll do a post on some specific focus thoughts I used to rid myself of my hoarding tendencies.  But for now, I wanted to show a small look into one thing I got rid of last week.

You know how no one likes to gift wrap nowadays?  Every present you see now comes in a bag.  A big, charming, beautiful, cutesy, gotta-love-it, themed gift bag with nice rope handle.

Now how many of you, unable to throw those beauties in the trashbin, fold them up and stash them somewhere in your house instead with the thought that you will re-use it for someone else’s present in the future?

*RAISES HAND HIGH*

Yep.  That’s exactly what I did too.  And considering that I had 2 bridal showers and 3 baby showers in the past 3 years – on top of all the normal birthday / Christmas bags received – that makes for a LOT of bags.  In fact, more bags than I will ever use in my life.  I even had bags I’d been saving from as far back as 1997.  Nice bags!  I just never thought to use them, they were never accessible when I needed them, I forgot about them, or the theme wasn’t appropriate for the few times I give gifts in bags.

So, whilst going through my house a few weeks ago, scouring every corner for more stuff to get rid of (it’s quite addicting once you start!) it hit me – those gift bags were just clutter.  They were of no use to me and there was no good reason to maintain an emotional attachment to a bag.

CLUTTER:  Something in your home that is taking up space that you have no immediate or proven need for.

The day after I had that revelation, I hopped on over to my local Freecycle yahoo group and posted an add for “Various themed Gift Bags”.  At that time I hadn’t counted them, but estimated in my post that I had at least 30 of them.  I received 10 responses immediately!  Many of them were from homeschoolers stating they wanted them for crafts.  How good it felt to offer something to someone who actually needed it!  The bags ended up finding a great home with the first person who got an email through to me.  And with great relief I passed on those bags – 58 in all, of sizes ranging from small to medium to XXLarge! – along with some wrapping paper and other assorted gift wrapping accessories (bows, ribbons, tinsel, tissue paper, etc).  Even after all that, I was able to keep some of my absolute favorite bags – and once all the other unimportant ones were gone, I was able to find a proper home for those bags so that I can have easy access to them.  And lemme just say,  10 bags take up sooo much less space than 70 bags!

Gigantic bag full of the 58 giftbags I gave away.

The bags I gave away.  This photo doesn’t do the sheer size and bulk of these justice!
I had them folded tightly and stuffed in the outter bag, which was one of those XXlarge
bags about 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide.

My leftover bags in their new container.  Yay!

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Last month I had the seemingly bright idea to sell my clothes on Ebay in 2 huge lots – one for my “career” clothing, and one for my “casual” clothing. Both lots contained around 35 pieces each and weighed a TON  (well, ok, only about 20lbs each, but it felt like a ton!).

Now, I only hop on Ebay a once or twice a month, and this was my first venture in selling clothing. I’ve been a happy Ebayer (typically I just buy, but sometimes I sell random things) for the past 7 years on the same account and have always had a 100% feedback score (hey! I’m a decent, honest person!).

That is…
until now.

I logged into my ebay last night and saw ::::::gasp:::::: a negative review. My heart about stopped!

The negative review claimed that all of my clothing was shrunken, stained, and couldn’t fit a 10 year old.

Uhmm.. considering I’m 26, 125 lbs, 5’4″ and all the clothes fit me fine…I found that rather harsh.

It went on to say I refused to answer their emails. (“What emails!!??” was my thought train at that point).  I almost thought they had given feedback on the wrong auction because they couldn’t be talking about my auction!

After reading that review, I checked ebay’s message system and sure enough, there was a lonely little message with their complaint dated March 6…… a few weeks ago.  *sigh*  

I have sent her a response now, but there is no way I can redeem myself in Ebay’s eyes.

So where did I go wrong??

Each piece of clothing was meticulously photographed, and I detailed the exact size as stated on the label, color, and flaw with each piece…even stating pieces that I thought fit snug on me. Only one piece had a stain that I could tell – the rest was simply typical gently used clothing (many of which I had only worn 2-3 times!). I didn’t consider any of them “shrunken” so of course I wouldn’t have stated that in my ad. I even had the clothing freshly washed, folded extremely neatly, tied in bundles with colorful ribbon, and wrapped in plastic.  

It didn’t even occur to me that someone would take issue with any of them as they were all great clothes, in my opinion.  The email even stated that she had thrown some of them in the trash!  That makes me sad in itself.  I can’t even imagine which articles she deemed trash worthy.  Sheesh.

And considering that the lot in question included 37 articles of casual shirts & brandname jeans for a whopping total of 35 bucks, including shipping? What do people expect from used clothing?   Pristine Gucci??!  

I have never ever given any negative feedback on Ebay (and I’ve been disappointed with a variety of my own purchases).  It’s USED things we’re purchasing on Ebay, no?  And it’s the general public.  We take a chance, and take a risk.  Too high expectations on Ebay never served anyone well.

But now.. now my Ebay feedback is 85%.  I myself wouldn’t even buy from someone with an 85%.  I also would hesitate to even sell to someone with that low of a score.   Yet here I am – stuck with an 85% because of ONE single negative feedback in 7 years.  ONE single negative feedback out of over 45 transactions.  And it annoys me.  Especially after all the work I put into selling those stinkin’ clothes - photographing in detail, designing the auction listing, taking the time to examine and describe each piece in detail, washing, folding, bundling, packing and shipping it all.  After all was said and done (ebay fees, paypal fees, and very high shipping) I ended up making absolutely no money whatsoever off of either auction.  Actually, I think I lost a little.  (Don’t laugh!) *sigh*

The only good thing that came out of it was that the person who purchased the “career” clothing gave me a positive feed back that said “Awesome lot! Thanks for the nice packing and great items!”.  Yay.  At least I feel redeemed on that part.

So, anyway…to make a short story long…

I must say, my days of selling clothing on Ebay are over.  Done.  Poof.  Gone.  It’s simply not worth it to me.  I just want to scream in frustration!   I know some of you out there have succeeded in turning a profit on Ebay, but I have never been able to – and this experience only hammers in the lesson that Ebay’ing is just not worth my time or efforts. 

From now on, all of my clothing will be going to the curbside for the local kidney foundation truck to pick up on donation day.

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5. Use spell check.
4. Weigh your clothes before auction begins.
3. Purchase your shipping boxes before the auction ends – or, in your haste, you may end up with two expensive “too big” unreturnable boxes.
2. Have someone with you to help haul the packed two 20″x17″ 20lb boxes into the post office.
1. Don’t cry when the postman tells you the total shipping cost for the two said boxes is $40.00 parcel post.

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Do you ever get one of wild hairs that makes you itch to do something crazy?

Well, being the wild, crazy, hip chick that I am, I am selling off half of my closet.

Am I daring, or what?

Ok, perhaps not, especially since I will still have a whole slew of clothes that I really don’t need. But I’m working on it people!

You see, this past month, I’ve had an epiphany of sorts. I realized that stuff is just that. STUFF. And it clutters up our lives far too much. I even laughed aloud at myself when the fact that I was nursing emotional attachments to far too much STUFF slapped me hard in the face.

For instance, is it really necessary that I keep my prom shoes from 10 years ago?  Or those three nifty black shirts simply because I remember the moment I purchased them (and the shopping high that came with it)?  How about all 18 pairs of jeans in various shades?  

Before, I would have answered “YES!” and gasped my heart ala Fred Sandford style.  But now, I find that I no longer hold the same attachment to things that I use to.  Perhaps it’s part of growing up, perhaps it’s due to becoming a mother and forming an even stronger “attachment” to a living being, or perhaps (just perhaps) I’ve wisened up to the fact that too much clutter makes it hard to keep a clean house. Doh!

So here are 2 of my listings so far.  One of the auctions is for a 31 pc. set of career clothes (button down shirts, slacks) and another is for a 37 pc. casual clothes (jeans, cargos, pullovers). The career set includes a pair of brand new Banana Republic fully lined pants with all tags still attached ($88 price tag).  Both auctions start off at just .99 cent and I have no reserve price.  Shipping on one is just $6.95 and $8.95 on the other.

31 pc. CAREER SET

Not sure if it’s a real Furstenburg? Picked it up at a thift shop.

American Eagle

Clorox stain on inside collar, not visible when wearing.

Tag torn out (was itchy). Think it is from Express.

Buttons are diamond shaped.

I loved wearing these. All except for one on right are slim cut / trendy.

New white pants, with tags, from Banana Republic.

NWT, Banana Republic, fully lined pants

NWT, White Pants, Banana Republic, $88 Retail

Shirt is sheer / see through! Needs a tank.

Skirt on left has pockets. Flowers on right skirt are velvet.

37 pc. CASUAL SET

McDonalds Tee, made to look “beat up” and stained.

Yellow tshirt has dipped neck in back with criss cross straps.

Says “I (heart) Nerds” referring to the candy.

USC (University of South Carolina) Collegiate Tshirt

Humpty Dumpty (Orange), Pink tshirt says “Cute but Psycho: Things Even Out”.

Clemson University collegiate tshirt

Calvin Klein

Cargo pants – one on left is a faded brown thin cordoroy.

Two Old Navy boot cut jeans, one Sonoma jean

Four casual capris – 2 dnim, 2 khaki

These capris can roll up and button to make shorter.

Jean capris, tan shorts, red shorts, cargo shorts.

The back of this slinky black shirt dips very low.

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