Wow, the weekend’s over already.
I’ve mostly avoided the internet. Barely checked email, did not twitter (twat?), no Facebook.  I did almost no writing, either.
Instead, I celebrated Frank’s birthday, ate salted caramel ice cream, hung out with Jamie, watched movies, hung out with my husnamd, read, ate pizza, hung out with my dad, knitted, read, walked around, started a volunteer job with the Puget Sound Blood Bank, and did some vital and painful deep cleaning.
By upbringing, I’m a bargain shopper and a hoarder. By nature, I am a purger. This causes an interesting internal, semi-annual struggle.
I am very talented at shopping. It is something I am very, very, very good at.
But for a long time, I’ve dreamt a pretty simple dream: only own things I like, use, and that fit me.
I mean, I’m not an ascetic. I so want to own more than a sarong and a rice bowl.
It should be pretty simple, right? Don’t buy or accumulate anything that I don’t like, will use, or that doesn’t fit.
But, this is not how my life has worked at all.
I buy or accumulate things I am unsure of, think I might need, or for some mysterious reason, find too great a deal to walk away from. Then these things never get used, and twice a year, those same things get bagged, tagged, and sent back out into the world. It’s stupid and wasteful. It stresses me right the fuck out.
But I did a mini search and destroy in the bedroom and chest of drawers. So far, I’ve tossed out/placed into thrift store pile/recycled:
• a makeup bag full of makeup, some dating back to when I retired from burlesque dancing…in 2004. Ugh
• a lawn sized garbage bag full of stretched out/faded/worn through/incorrect size, shape, color clothing, beyond even being downgraded to pajama status
• a drawer full of expired medicine–an entire drawer. Seriously
• a stack of books I will never read again (I buy a lot of used books and take out from the library. My home bookshelves are really misleadingly empty. I try and only keep books I love, refer to, are signed, special to me, or know I will read again)
• 3 good sized trash cans of paper–drafts, junk mail, who knows
• and at least 2 candles made more of dust and cat hair than paraffin. I think they were candles. Maybe they were soap. Ick

Now, I also indulged in today’s thrift store 50% off madness, but I did only buy a few things I actually needed: jeans, a tee shirt, a pair of very sensible ballet flats, some books…except for a very strange, very heavy, 70s copper pendant that has a creepy mermaid on one side and a creepier Viking ship on the other. But it’s really small. I swear.

*sigh*

And here comes Tuesday.