To Love, Honor and Vacuum: Tackle It Tuesday--How to Stop Feeling Fat!

This isn't really my tackle. It's my mother's. But here's how it started.

She is ripping up her floors to put down hardwood, and all her stuff had to be moved. Her house was a disaster. It came time to put it back together, and I told her she needed to get rid of stuff. She could combine two closets into one and then have another for storage. So the girls and I decided to get rid of some of her clothes.

We purged 147 items. I'm not kidding. She had a dress she wore in 1981 that is too small for me (and I'm a size 6). It looks great on my 13-year-old, but if she wears it I'll have to lock her up. She had the maid of honour dress she wore at my aunt's wedding in 1969. She had stuff that was too small. Stuff that was too big. And stuff that fit but made her look like a tent. So we took it all out and just left her with stuff that--GASP--actually looked good on her.

WHY DO WE WOMEN FILL OUR CLOSETS WITH STUFF THAT MAKES US LOOK LIKE CRAP? Excuse the language, but you know what I mean. You buy that hoodie because it's "comfortable", even if it makes you look like a 14-year-old serial killer. Those pants were the only ones you could wear after child #3 was born, but they do make you look like a pup tent. You have fourteen pairs of sweat pants. You have pants with elastic waists you wear as dress pants. And you look awful in every single one of them.

And then there's the "wish" clothes. The ones that are too small, but you'll get back into them someday.

Why keep them? They take up space, and every time you open your closet door it's like a neon sign telling you "You're Fat!". Why not get rid of them? If you ever do lose the weight, you can get a new wardrobe!

I think all of us have far too many clothes anyway. Far better to have seven outfits that we feel great in than 45 that make us feel like slugs. I actually don't have that many clothes, but I look great in everything. I purge constantly. And I know I'm a size 6, but I also have no chest, so it's not totally easy to find clothes that make me look shapely. So often I buy stuff on sale because it's a bargain, get it home, and realize it really doesn't fit. It's not a bargain if it makes me feel ugly.

If clothes make you feel lousy, why wear them? Toss them. No matter how much they cost.

And that's what we're doing with this mess in my car. It's all going to Goodwill or to a consignment store. But it's out of Mom's closet. And that's a good thing.