A sizing up, if you will, of 2011…

~Saturday~  I spent a good deal of today finishing up the task I started yesterday, which was to get a donation together to bring to Goodwill today.

This year’s source was my master bedroom closet, and although I ended up with a good “take,” rest assured that there are still more places to mine for a 2012 donation.

Today’s task brought out thoughts including, but not limited to these:

  1. In my walk-in closet, I only cleaned out the clothes hanging on the left side. I didn’t get to those hanging on the right side, which is the side that includes clothes that actually still fit me. It did include the three wire shelves along the back of the closet, and three plastic tubs full of clothes that were on the floor under those clothes that hung on the left side.
  2. With the donation of a total of 54 shirts and 13 pairs of pants/shorts, comes the final acceptance, by the only person who has really had any hope of that for a long time now—me, of the fact that I will more than likely never fit back into clothes with such tags on them as “M,” “L,” “32,” “34,” and “36.”
  3. It was particularly sad for me to donate my ski clothes, as this too, is a final acceptance that I most likely will never snow ski again, as I really don’t want to risk accidentally hurting my knees while doing so. I couldn’t let go of a fairly expensive pair of snow goggles, and I haven’t yet donated my equipment—my skis, poles, boots, ski bag, and boot bag. I envision all of those being in my 2012 donation, though.
  4. This is not an exaggeration, as those closest to me can attest: I wear no more than 2% of all the clothes I own.
  5. There were about 10 or 15 articles of clothing that I had to throw away rather than donate, some due to being worn out, or discolored, or missing (a) button(s), and at least three dress shirts with this issue:

    Short-sleeve black dress shirt with white stains under arms

    If there was ever any doubt that antiperspirants contain chemicals that might cause harm, this evidence sure makes you think. There were two shirts like this one, and then there was one that had what looked like sparkling silver glitter (flecks of aluminium chlorohydrate?) under them.

    Close up of white stain under arm of short-sleeve black dress shirt

This was the final fruits of my labor, all of which ended up at Goodwill today:

4 white garbage bags full of clothes for donation

And, of course, those shoes from yesterday, which I ended up putting in the Share Our Shoes box in the lobby of my office building.

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