Small miracles.

Dear diary,

Sweet Baboo and I got a cleaning woman.

I'm telling you this, diary, not for bragging purposes but to reveal an evolution in growth. I struggled with guilt for years with the idea, finding it compelling and guilty-inducing, all at the same time. In such a case you have a choice: spend your weekends cleaning, or hang up one of these:

My mom never needed a cleaning woman. Then again, my mom stayed home with me until middle school, when she started a part-time job. I never appreciated clean until I was well into adulthood. I realized then that clean = finding stuff you need instead of searching through piles. But it was too late, I had children.

So here I am, a grownup, and there's something to the notion that

My weekends, which I used to use for deep cleaning, are spent running or flying somewhere to run. This is our hobby. We spend our money going places instead of collecting things, so there's that. Baboo and I are both self-made, and make regular, faithful payments to our students loans. Since we both work for non-profits, we have a small house, cheap cars, all so that we can go places and do things.

Now, I prefer clean, but can usually tolerate a bit of clutter and dust for a week or two....After that, the distress starts growing and I'm compelled to clean. And it's not that I don't like to clean, I do. I love our home and get a fair amount of satisfaction cleaning it up. So much so, in fact, that I will put off running to do it. It's a convenient excuse. i should got run right now, but oh, damn, look at that dust...And therein lies a major problem, i neglect running for weeks on end to conquer dust.

We would come back from a marathon weekend to a cluttered house I would feel distressed and anxious because the house was a mess and I didn't have time to clean it. I started balking at our weekends, and it was around my 48th birthday that Baboo suggested getting help.

DreadPirate had also been after me to try this for quite some time. DreadPirate and her mom Roadrash both used the same woman, so I contacted her. She came over and looked at the house. Her first day would be March 29th, and I waited for it like a kid waits for Christmas.

I honestly didn't expect much would get done, that first cleaning. I was prepared for that. I hold myself out as a pretty good cleaner, given enough caffein, but the back of the house was the most neglected part of the house, and I figured that the kitchen wouldn't even be touched.

I came home early that Friday, mainly because I had worked at least 9 hours on every day that week and I was tired. Was it going to be worth it? How far out of the back of the house would she get?

Unexpectedly, she was still there, and lo and behold, had made her way to the front to the kitchen. I didn't expect that, i expected her to still be in the back of the house. But, I guess if you do this for a living, you get efficient. I didn't want to be in her way so i tiptoed to the back of the house..

and,

holy fuck.

It was clean. Cleaner than I could ever get it, that's for sure. She'd even made the bed in the guest room and straightened up in there. Hissy, our gray tabby, was curled up on the guest bed, and opened one eye to me to signal, I approve. Lily, our scaredy cat, was off somewhere being hysterical, Did you KNOW a stranger was coming in here to clean and move things? Why wasn't I consulted about this?!?

I sat down outside with the Chloe the Wunderdog for a bit, who was more than a little anxious. There's a strange PERSON in our HOUSE. Hey MOM, THERE'S A STRANGE PERSON IN OUR HOUSE!

Eventually, she let me know she was leaving, and then Baboo came home. That night and the weekend was spent discovering things that were now clean and/or dust-free, like our very own Easter egg hunt.

She cleaned the trophies, Baboo said wonderingly.

She cleaned the dust out of the cabinet with the components, I breathed.

Hey, the exercise room is clean! (small bedroom with only a treadmill, full-length dressing mirror, and a tv bolted to the wall)

When I went to open my refrigerator, the door handles felt unusually smooth. Oh, that must be what they feel like when they're clean.

She even made the doggie bed.

The hardest part of all this is working my way through the guilt, and forgiving myself for not being a better house cleaner. That feeling was eclipsed rapidly by feeling like I was in my very own hotel. I was inspired anew to get rid of even more junk. I made a carload trip to goodwill that weekend. We stopped wearing our shoes inside the house.

I'm telling this story because if you have the means, do this for yourself, about once every two weeks is all you need. You may have similar neuroses as did I, but trust me, let that shit go.

The morning after Teresa worked her miracle throughout the house, i sat down at the table, dressed for a run. I looked around for something, anything, to provide an excuse to procrastinate.

There was nothing. Dammit.

So, I went for a run.

...

 

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If it were easy, it would be your mother.

Dear Diary,

That was on the best-selling shirt at the expo. They sold out. This was the marathon I did Sunday in Texas.

You know, I just love Texas.

I don't want to live there, because spring is about three weeks long in between windy, dry, horrid winter and hot, humid, horrid summer, but for visiting, it's just fine.

I was born in Dallas at Baylor Medical Center. I moved around some with my parents for a few years, but when I started high school, we stayed put. My first two children were born in Dallas. My first husband is buried there. The second one still lives there, just like the old George Straight song. I left Texas in 1991, heartbroken, but returned nine years later with Sweet Baboo when he was doing his psychology internship at the Dallas VA. Sweet Baboo and I were married in a little church near his mother's house just outside of San Antonio. Sweet Baboo is also generally from Texas and played Texas high school football in Wichita Falls.

When I am in Texas, a twang starts to creep back into my speech and I find myself eyeballing whattachicken sandwiches.

Other reasons why ah luuuv Texas:

First off, everyone is so friendly. They just are. As long as you don't say something bad about George Bush or Jesus the entire state is your new best friend. The passive-aggressiveness is even friendly. Why, she's just as lost as a goose, bless her heart.

Second, in April, there are bluebonnets.

Third, everyone there is crazy about soldiers and gives military members steep discounts. The state is just full of Fort this and Fort that. They're all over. I'm married to one so I get all the benefits of being in the military with none of the aggravation.

Fourth, every athletic event that I've been in, from Lubbock to Houston, from ultra-runs to triathlons, starts with a prayer and ends with a beer. You get brisket or chili at the end and usually some ice cold beer. I don't personally drink the stuff but it just seems like a very nice way to end a day of endurance, dontcha think?

Sweet Baboo and I ran the inaugural Army marathon there last weekend.

We flew into Dallas Love Field the day before, rented a car, drove down to Killeen--which is south of Waco and near Fort Hood. At the expo, Sweet Baboo bought me some new compression leg sleeves and some Newtons, which I got with my/our nice, "I married GI Joe" discount.

I was hoping for a really nice experience after getting caught in wind storms at the El Paso marathon in February and the Corpus Christi Navy marathon in March.

And, holy crap, I got it.

It's a point-to-point, 26.2 miles of gentle rollers, all on blacktop, on a protected course, with a net downhill from Killeen to Temple, Texas. It was beautiful, mostly overcast. The sun out a bit during the last hour or so, and there was some wind in the last ten miles, but nothing to get in a twist about. I finished just under 5:30. I really pushed myself. I was motivated by the promise of a shower before our three hour drive back to Dallas.

During the race there was a woman ahead if me I was determined to finish, my very own White Whale. She was relentless. She never stopped running her slow, steady pace. I gave up trying to lass her until the end, when I passed her at mike 25 ish.

I got a nudge to my self esteem by all the young bucks that took off like rockets at the beginning but that I passed near the end.

There were lots of soldiers. The women I recognized from their tight, neat hair buns and the men from their high and tight haircuts. But like many youngsters, they didn't pace themselves well. At one point the couple I was running near came upon a fellow soldier standing near the side of the road, rubbing his calf. They asked him why he'd stopped running and teased him. He looked at them woefully. "This is some bullshit, right here."

When I finished I crossed the finish line and flooped down into the shade. About 20 minutes later another young soldier stumbled over and flooped down nearby, and started complaining on the phone to somebody. First he complained about the hills.

"I should have trained for the hills," he said.

Elevation Profile -->

Then he complained about "all these old ladies out there, and they were kicking my ass!"

I am pretty happy with my pace. It wasn't blazing, but it was steady. Once I get on too of that whole, "speed" thing, I might be a fair marathoner. If you use the Galloway method I will tell you that i used 4:1 run:walk in the first half, the 3:2 for a while, and then the last five miles, 1:1.

Here's my splits:

What I didn't like, and this is my only complaint: Baboo said that the first shuttle started nearly an hour after he finished, to take him back to the start. He quickly showered and then headed back, which is when he found out that he could park no closer than three miles away from the finish.

As a result, he didn't get to see me finish, and I sat around for an hour, wondering what the hell was going on, and then after beating myself up to my blazing sub six-hour finish, I got a three mile hike to the car.

This is some bullshit, right here.

Boo.

Otherwise, well done. I'd recommend this marathon. Aid stations were well stocked, friendly volunteers, plenty of portajohns, and I believe the cut off was seven hours, possibly longer.

Next up: the Lincoln Marathon in Lincoln, Nebraska.

 

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The older, wiser me.

Dear Diary,

Two things happened this week that made me feel old and wise.

First, I was part of an interview for a PRN social work position at the hospital where I work. That wasn't the part that made me feel old. It was her resume. On it, she wrote that she had graduated from high school in 2004. I read it and re-read it, sitting in the conference room before she showed up.

What the hell--why, that's not even possible, is it? I asked the other social workers. I counted on my fingers.

, it was 9 years ago. So, yes, said one of my fellow employees. I leaned forward to touch my forehead on the table so that I could silently mouth the words to myself: oh, fuck, I am OLD.

While my collegue nit-picked and asked the candidate to clarify every answer to every question during the interview, I smiled kindly at her, wanting to apologize for my collegue who apparently does not remember being that young and new. Shit, I wanted to say. It's discharge planning. It's not rocket science.

The second thing that happened is that I agreed to take on a master's level counseling intern. She starts this summer, and I'll be supervising her. I interviewed her, and she was disconcertingly perky. She hasn't had her young soul crushed by the reality of managed care. And YOUNG. at one time she asked me about how I would be supervising her, and words just came out of my mouth, on auto pilot. The right words, words that put her at ease. We spoke for about an hour. She had lots of questions. I had answers to all of them. When she left, I leaned forward and touched my desk with my forehead again. Fuck, i am old. But WISE. when did I get so smart?

Followed closely by, this is real grownup stuff. I can't believe someone trusts me with someone else's life, career, and future.

I have those thoughts from time to time, like when I'm doing therapy with a kid, suddenly I'll think, if my high school teachers had anything to say about it, there's no way they'd let me be doing this shit.

I'm settling into my age, finally. Approaching 50 was causing me quite some anxiety. I was desperately trying to stave it off. When I turned 48 three weeks ago, I stood in front of a mirror, pulling my facial skin back toward my ears, wondering how much a mini lift would be.

The teeny boppers on my unit, with the history of absconding, batted their eyes at me today, and said, you're so pretty. Are you 32?

Nice try, I said. You're not making any phone calls.

It would be awesome to think that I actually looked 32. But if I can be the wise woman, that's good. I can live with that.

 

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Blow me was just an expression, dammit. Another race report.

Dear Diary,

Sweet Baboo and I ran the inaugural Navy marathon in Corpus Christi on March 24. this is marathon number three for the year, of the dozen or more marathons we'll be doing for 2013. NOWDON'TMOCKMMEFORNOTWRITINGTHISSOON I don't really think anyone reads this anymore any way *snif*. And by the way, when I say 'ran' I mean that Sweet Baboo ran it, while I did my patented shuffle-jog and spent most of that last half swearing and hating south Texas and nervously watching seagulls, hoping they wouldn't shit on my head.

*Whispering* shhh, see, the day before the marathon, we'd had a stressful day. I'm convinced that pilots have conspired on Dallas to fuck up flights in the rest of the county. When we arrived in Dallas, our flight was listed as being over an hour later. Twenty minutes later it left without us. Fuckers. We had to sit separately. Then we arrived in San Antonio, rented a car, and drove to Corpus. Baboo was totally stressed, so he sat down behind the motel...relax...listen to the waves...and...

SPLAT.

a gull shat on my Sweet Baboo. He calmly accepted that this was how this day would end, and returned to our room to shower, where I tried not to laugh but instead to show the appropriate amount of sympathy, as a good wife does.

Anyway.

Sweet Baboo finished just under four hours, which is something I will never, ever, ever personally do. For him, however, it was a personal worst in road marathons for the last year. I spent much of the first half celebrating my awesomeness and the second half whimpering and wondering why I ever do this shit.

This may give you some hint:

 

At marathon start, there were THIRTY mile-an-hour winds rockin' and rollin' and we walked/ran against them for a mile or so. As you might recall diary, I had a bit of wind in the El Paso marathon in February and GodDAMMIT I'm sick of wind. I ran up and over a suspension bridge, which was pretty cool. At that point the wind was at my back and it basically pushed me over the bridge. Awesomeness. Except...something it pushed too hard, and I would stumble.

I ran down the road that winds along the fancy people homes along the coasts, and it was here that I finally accepted that the entirety of Corpus apparently wasn't a superfund site. Miles one through thirteenish were pretty great. I had about a 12 minute pace. I was a running GODDESS.

Obviously, that wasn't going to last.

Eventually, though, all good things come to an end, and I headed down across a causeway for four miles, during which the wind buffeted me from the side, so strong in fact that sometimes when I picked up my leg the wind would push it into the other leg. Yes, that's right. The fucking wind tripped me. Apparently, I'm built like a billboard. Or a sale. People I had passed gleefully the last six miles inched ahead of me.

Then, I turned around. Another long four miles of cross-winds, followed by five miles heading directly into the wind. I sniffled and wept and felt very, very sorry for myself as I watched my per-mile pace on my Garmin tick upward...upward...upward.

But I felt even sorrier for the people still heading out to the turnaround, one time shouting to one woman, aint this some shit? She just shook her head and tried to stay upright. I could run maybe for thirty seconds at a time against the wind before I would just give ip and walk.

Eventually, I trudged across the finish line around 5:42, which I have mixed feelings about. Got a big hug from Sweetness, and a rediculously big medal:

Then I got a wetnap bath, a subway sub, we drove back to San Antonio and flew the hell out of there. As soon as the late planes in Dallas let us. When we got home, we found out that inexplicably we'd left our car running when we parked it. Which is a story for another day.

 

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Drought, my ass, a race report.

Dear Diary,

The second weekend in March Sweet Baboo and I flew to San Antonio to run the Prickly Pear 50k. This consists of three 10-ish or so mile loops in Macalister park.

The first loop, well, kinda sucked. It rained almost the entire time. It was a light rain, but steady. The mud was thick, and the combination of mud and grass made nice, heavy bricks stuck to the bottom of my feet.

I came into the aid station, where volunteers were wearing ponchos and holding umbrellas. hey, where's this draught I keep reading about? Draught, my ass. My clothes were soaked. My glasses were constantly covered with fine droplets. The good news is that the anti-fingerprint and anti-fog coating I paid extra for was well worth it. When I wiped my lenses, they were instantly clear, no smearing. I finished, shed one of my soaked shirts, swapped my giant-ass hat for a regular running hat, and drank my Ensure Clear. My hair was soaked, and I was glad that it was shorter.

The second loop was good. It stopped raining and I actually made better time. The trails were drying up rapidly and running on them was more like a sticky movie theater floor. I pulled ahead of several people doing my whole, run-walk-run thing. Around mile 17 or so, I sat down for a moment to dump the rocks out of my shoe. Then I stood up and startd jogging, and--OW. Ow, ow, fucking ow. A sharp pain stabbed through my foot and I could barely move. Clearly, I had strained something slipping and sliding on the wet mud and rocks.

The next three miles were agony. I hobbled into the end of the second loop and, well, there was Baboo, finished already! Or not. Turns out he was waiting for me so that he could finish with me. He had been waiting, in fact, for over 90 minutes. I sat down to inspect my foot. Nothing. No bruise, no redness, no swelling. When I retied my shoe, it stopped hurting. Turns out that I had tied my shoe too tightly before. Who'd have thought that would be so painful?

Not that the final loop was better. All my toughness from last year's 100k runs was eclipsed by a winter of sloth. I had not put in the time on my feet and kegs, and buddy, they let me know. I got an ache that started in my hips and began working its way down to my lower legs. Ow, ow, ow.

Baboo was unfailingly cheerful. Whereas I whimpered, it's never going to end. It's a diminishing function. He replied, There's more behind us than in front of us!

When I whined, I'm never going to make it, he soothed, you're doing great, sweetie!

After I shuffled ten or twenty yards slightly faster than a walk, I heard, great run, sweetie!!

Obviously, it did end. We did finish. Three minutes under the cutoff, I dragged my whiney ass across the finish line, Sweet Baboo running easily and lightly just behind. He told me he was proud of me. (I live for that) we got a neato glass finisher's medal, and fajitas.

The we we went to see "silver lining playbook." I had my very own bucket of corn, with butter. Awesome.

----------

Next week, the Inaugural Navy Marathon race report.

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The saddest thing, ever. A race report.

Dear diary,

 

 

 

 

 

This is Burn Lake.

Burn Lake is in Las Cruces and it was formed while they were constructing I10 through there--they were excavating dirt for building overpasses and hit the water table, and hole started filling up. No word on what they planned to do with that giant hole--maybe it was slated for a runoff pond for flooding but in any case, the lake formed, and according to Google maps, at one time looked like this (below).

The lake was used as a runoff pond, and had no outlet, and there are lots of farms around here, so around 2006 or maybe before, swimming was banned due to high amounts of e. coli found in the water. They built soccer fields around it, meanwhile, and lots of picnic shelters.

Then within the last year or so, it just dried up, they said, due to the drought. But you have to figure, this means that the water table in Las Cruces has dropped twenty feet of more. Such is the case when you move in a bunch of gringos who insist on having green lawns in the southern Chihuahua desert.

Srsly, the saddest thing ever. No swimming, y'all.

Te El Paso marathon, which I did last weekend, is also just the saddest thing ever.

First, it's E Paso. Sweet Baboo spent this weekend doing health screenings on lots of guardsmen and women who live there, and not one person he met likes El Paso, even ones who were raised there. Even on a Sunday afternoon, the place seemed lacking in human activity in the downtown area. It's flat, it's dusty, and the wind blows constantly--it doesn't have the romantic charm of, say, Santa Fe, 300 miles to the north. It makes Albuquerque look like a lush, tropical paradise.

The marathon itself is okay. It's a point-to-point, and they bus you to the start line. It's well organised in that respect. What makes it sad is that in El Paso, a city of over 600,000 which may, or may not, include the very large Ft. Bliss and bedroom community to the north of Lac Cruces--only about 400 bother to sign up for the full. Anyway, they bus you to the top of the mountain and about sunrise you start running down the mountain. The first five miles are spent running downhill, and hopefully you've trained for this so that your quads aren't blown. Then you make a few turns, and around mile 9 or 10 you start running on this runway looking thing, I think someone told me that it's a highway for tanks. The next ten miles are straight down this thing into a headwind that is picking up speed. I couldn't run against this, I just couldn't. But this is why I do racewalk training, so I started doing that, passing a few along the way. Then you're on post, running through the base, and around mile 19 you turn and leave the base and for me, that's where it got very interesting.

When I left the tree-lined shelter of the base, I ran into a dust storm. It picked up until the wind was roaring past me. I walked with one hand holding my hat, one hand in front of me in a futile effort to block the sand, and occasionally looking up to make sure I was going in a straight line.

Now, there are no course markings. Instead, there are El Paso police posted at every intersection, and they stop traffic and also point the way. They did a terrific job keeping traffic away. The aid stations, after mile 16, were every mile, which was important because I was counting on that since I didn't have a bottle. By mile 20, though, the cups of water and gatorade were in boxes to keep them from being blown away, but still had a fine, thin layer of sand in them. It couldn't be helped.

Around about mile 22 or 23, a van pulled up next to me. It was full of runners, and the driver asked me if I wanted a ride. Then he said something else that I couldn't quite make out over the howling wind, but I just shook my head. I wanted to finish. He gave me a strange look and lingered for a moment, and then drove away. I continued on, blocking the sand and wind and then...

And then...

I was alone.

What the guy had been saying to me was that they were shutting down the course. I didn't hear that part. I stood on a street corner in downtown El Paso, waiting for traffic, and looked around, and there were no police, no aid stations, and of course, no course markings. I continued down the street, blocking the sand from my eyes, following empty sports gel wrappers too stuck to the road to blow away.

Now, around about this time Sweet Baboo, Bones, and Miki (who had finished between 3:30 and 3:39) were in the stands, waiting for me, when two motorcycle officers escorted the "last" runner in...and it wasn't me. My friends and Baboo looked at each other. Where was she? They asked one of the police, who informed them that there were a couple of runners out there who had "refused" to take a ride, "but they're miles away." Baboo asked him what their bib number were. "Bib numbers? I don't know." He got the car and went looking, and as he told me later, was immediately lost.

Eventually, the gel package trail stopped. The streets were deserted save for one shaky-looking couple walking towards me, the man carrying a large stick. "Hey...any chance you guys know where the finish line is for the marathon?" I shouted at him over the wind.

He walked up very close to me. "Oh, wow, man, I think it's over by the bus station, man," he waved his arm towards the central part of downtown, and then held the stick out towards me. "You better carry this, man, there's a dog down there that wants to bite you on the leg." He gestured towards an empty lot where I could see no such animal, but I took the stick, thanked him, and continued on my way.

I ran across a bridge over a highway, and then stood on a corner for a while watching traffic go by. I had misgivings. Then I turn and went up a hill towards a park, hoping to be able to see the convention center from there. I asked a man walking his dog, the tiny dog nearly blown off the sidewalk by the wind. "Oh, my goodness, let's see..." And began turning in circles, scanning the city. Well, shit; I can do that. I left him there and continued up the hill. I found myself standing on a corner waiting for the light, and next to me was a man in dusty clothes, scraggly beard, carrying a ragged backpack.

I asked him. He was surprisingly eloquent, "why, I believe, yes, I believe it is over by the bus station." He waved his hand in a southwesterly direction, back down the hill, so went back down again, crossing over the freeway and heading west.

Eventually I encountered a woman trudging up the hill, wearing her finisher's medal. She looked startled to see me, being as she was the "last" finisher. She pointed, and I ran down the hill and turned left, and ran into Miki. Now I was just pissed, and didn't feel like running any more, but sure happy to see someone I knew. It was well beyond six hours since I'd started, so when I came to the finish line where the tracking was being taken apart, I kicked it over and then went to sat down and asked for my medal. It didn't seem of interest to anyone working that I had finished and was accounted for. But a very nice man with a beard got me a medal, and miki brought me some water and chocolate milk.

Miki got on her cell phone and contacted Baboo and Bones, and they drove over to pick us up. Baboo hugged me tightly. I gazed into his face and said, "get me the fuck out of this town."

In case you're wondering I did get a gracious letter of apology from the RD. It was just a miscommunication and a comedy of errors. He's going to take steps next year to make sure It doesn't happen again. I had to guess my time, so I was added to the list of finishers with a time of 6:10. Not a PR.

Oh, and did I mention I had woken up that morning with a headache AND a cough?

Yeah.

...

 

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So far.

Dear Diary,

Here's what I've learned this year so far: Simplifying your life, easy steps in four weekends.

1. home entertainment

A. Buy an Ooma hub and get it working.

B. Get an apple Tv and get it working, or a streaming net box. (Or a smart tv that does all that)

C. Tell your cable company that you no longer want telephone or cable, just internet, thanks. Shop around for a better price on internet if you have to.

--How this simplifies your life: you will spend less money (100 a month in some cases), and be free of the barrage of commercials that seek to convince you that you are too fat, ugly, sad, or hungry when you really aren't. You'll be more thoughtful in your entertainment, instead of just watching whatever garbage is on. You'll watch more indies and documentaries. If you need noise while you're working, Pandora is available on those streaming boxes, for free.

 

 

2. Simplify your 'friends'.

A. Delete people who you honestly don't like, or who have over 600 "friends" and you haven't communicated with in quite some time.

B. Uncheck "show in news feed" on anyone who fills your newsfeed with posts that waste time or piss you off. They won't know, and they won't be unfriended.

C. Go through your settings on Pinterest, Google+, and Twitter and get rid of all notifications. You won't get an alert or email everytime someone breathes.

--How this improves your life: you will get updates on people you truly care about and have less aggravation from wanting to argue with others. Less clutter in your email inbox. Seriously...if you weren't friends with them in school, are you friends with them now?

 

 

3. simplify your house.

A. Go through your house, room-by-room, and pull out five objects that you totally don't want or need from every room. Ask yourself when was the last time you used it. If it's more than six months, put it in a box, tape the box, and date it. In three months if you haven't gone into that box specifically to get one object, donate the box to goodwill without opening it.

B. offer cherished knick-knacks to those closest to you.

C. Ask yourself if you're really going to read those books again. Probably not. Most information is on the Internet, and books collect dust and powdery mold. So, list them on Half.com and buy some mailing envelopes. As you sell them, enjoy the empty spaces on your shelves.

D. Clear off horizontal surfaces.

--How this simplifies your life: it's easier to clean, and easier to find things, when you don't have to navigate around clutter.

 

 

4. simplify your closet

Go through your closet and make four piles: things that don't fit, things that fit but are out of season, and things that are in season and fit. Remove anything you haven't worn in a year for the fourth pile. Put the no fit and no wear piles in a box, as in step one. Put the rest back in your closet, with out of season clothes in the back. Do NOT get caught up in thr lost money. That money's already gone, so get rid of the closet clutter.

How this simplifies your life: It's easier to get dressed when you only have clothes that your wear and that fit to choose from.

Geeky simplifying reference-->

...

 

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