Closet Shopping With My Mother

Some of the best times I spent with my mother were going "closet shopping". She had loads of clothing and accessories which she had lovingly found at mega sales throughout the years. Lots of the items even had their tags still on. And there were some treasures like dresses, hand knit by my father, that I would give my Platinum American Express card for right now. We always learn too late in life what we should have placed more value on. Together we'd spend endless hours going through scarves of every color and shape and trying to squeeze feet into the sweetest little shoes -- do the rest of you remember "springolators"? The closets seemed endless and now it seems that shopping, and overshopping, is an inherited trait.

So I have now spent more time inside my closet than I have spent sleeping in my bed this week. I have already logged in 186 items. To get some perspective on this, I have not even started listing coats, hats, scarves, shoes, jewelry, hair bows, purses, belts -- and then I will start listing what is in my 28 drawers (chock full of tee shirts and other tops, jeans that I hope to someday fit into again, shawls and who knows what else lurking in there).

Now I can see I have undertaken a major life project. Which is what it should be since I am counting on this to change my life in a lot of ways. Mostly, I hope to become more responsible. But I also wouldn't mind becoming more fashionable with less pressure on the budget.

I expect to finish the list on Wednesday, although that may be a bit optimistic. When my sister comes to visit for New Year's I hope we'll get a lot done. Maybe she can help me make a photographic record of the inventory and then we can start to shed the excess baggage. I am thinking of setting up a companion site on e-Bay so those of you who need some of my extra pieces to fill in your fashion gaps can get a good bargain and some super finds, too.

I'm off to attack some other area of the closet store now. And when I do I will be thinking of my mother and one of our favorite mother-daughter activities -- Closet Shopping.