breaking the blogging fast... and summer goal #1

i have no excuses for the sabbatical, although i think the increase of tweets and status updates has a definite indirect relationship with the decrease in blogging...
i debated the best way to break the fast... should i write one massive blogging binge with all of the thoughts, stories, projects, and ideas that have passed since my last entry?  who would even venture to read such a thing??  so instead, i will just start right back up as if no time had passed, beginning with my #1 goal/project for the summer... tackling the dreaded closets.

i have been putting off the extensive purging of the closet for some time now.  as my fellow perfectionists well know, it's impossible to take on a task under the following conditions:

• the desired end result is yet unknown
• there is not sufficient time or energy to do the job "right"
• there is not sufficient time or energy to do the job all in one sitting

as a result, my closet looks like this:

 there are several problems:

• space:  the closet is spacious, but very deep, with two parallel clothing bars; i tend to use the one in the front and forget entirely about the bar in the back. 
• organization:  there is NO organization system.  and i doubt there is an organization system that exists that actually fits my space, which means a custom-made or hand-made system will be needed... one requires money and the other my husband's time :)
• doors.  ug.  ly.  and inconvenient.  sliding doors.  i just want to see the whole closet at once!

my #1 goal with this project is to SIMPLIFY... i would like to have LESS, less stuff, less clutter, less unused stuff, less, less, less.  i want everything in my closet to be something i will use and for it to be more easily accessible so that i will remember that it exists and actually USE it.

so, step one (must get done THIS week before vacation to CO!):
cleaning the darn thing out!  must get rid of all the clothes that are old, worn out, or inappropriate sizes!  this is a tough task.  i hate the old rule "if you haven't worn it in a year get rid of it."  it's hard to part with some things, you know?  i hold on to some things out of sheer stubbornness, because i paid money for it and feel obligated to get more use out of it.  and then there is the challenge of trying to simplify when there are so many different clothes with different purposes:  the dressy clothes for weddings/funerals, the somewhat dressy work clothes, the casual work clothes, the clothes for staying at home, clothes for housework, clothes for hiking/biking/running/swimming/fill-in-the-blank-activity, clothes for sleeping, clothes for sporting events, winter clothes, summer clothes, etc.  arg!!!  it can get rather overwhelming!

step two, which will be a future post, is to determine an organization system.  with my other summer goals, it is yet to be determined whether i will finish the closet project or not this summer.  but, setting my perfectionistic need to wait to start a task until i can accomplish the ideal aside, i will tackle this task in smaller bite-size chunks.  stay tuned for updates on this and other summer goal projects!