Please read that title pronouncing “again” as “aGANE.”
It sounds better that way.
I have no idea how many times I’ve washed the item in the picture above. I’m pretty sure, though, that I’ve washed it more times than I’ve worn it.
It’s the belt for a cute and sporty pajama set that Hubby and the kids bought me for Christmas at least 7 years ago.
You read that correctly. A belt. For pajamas.
I’m not really a pajama belter.
But they were cute and sporty and with the belt I could did totally wear them to the park and no one would know knew they were pajamas. Really. I asked them if they could tell, and they couldn’t. Until I asked.
But as the years went by, the belt was separated from the pajama set and then the set became just a pair of pajama pants and the belt served no purpose at all.
Since it’s not a real belt anyway.
And yet, rather than stick it into the trash can or a Donate Box, this “belt” ended up repeatedly at the bottom of laundry piles and running through the laundry and being replaced in laundry piles when I didn’t know where to put it.
I know. That totally doesn’t make sense, but it happens.
But last week, I threw it in the trash. It was as if the Clutter Fog (temporarily) cleared from my brain, and I saw the “belt” for what it was.
Clutter.
Yep, I threw it in the trash the moment I pulled it out of the dryer.
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--Nony
I have a soccer sock that continually gets washed. My kiddo has been in soccer for FOUR YEARS. I feel your pain.
*hasn’t been in soccer*
I’ve been known to rewash something in order to avoid putting it away. Makes total sense to me!
I am the same – they must be washed before it occurs to me to throw them out. Holy (yes, you know the ones that you have had so long that it is a religious offense to finally say good-bye?) underwear are the worst for me. ;D
I’m totally guilty of that. There have been a few outgrown onesies in every week’s laundry since my two year old was born. Every couple of months I notice the number is getting silly and stick them in a box.
Oh my, I have a navy blue “belt” from a dress that I don’t even own anymore that I have washed many times, I think I am going to have to go hunt it down and trash it. LOL Thanks for the encouragement, your blog ALWAYS helps me stay on track. 🙂
It’s a blue glove. I don’t know where it came from, but I’m sure it once had a mate. But I see it on the floor, and I put it in the laundry. Every week. I don’t know how it gets on the floor. I’m going to throw it in the trash this time, I swear.
Good for you! I’m horrible about this. Cloth belts, infant socks (my youngest is almost 4), winter hats cycling through summer laundry…. I wish they made contacts for slob vision. I’d love to be cured!
I would buy those contacts in a heartbeat! 🙂
Yes! The infant socks! Why do I keep washing them?? I’m NEVER going to find the mates so that I can donate them, garage sale them, or (the Most Ridiculous Aspiration Because It a Will NEVER Happen) consign them!!!
You have referred to “normal” people before… But from what I can tell, the “normal” people are not the majority of people. Just look at everything we “slobs” have in common. I think the “slobs” out number the “normal” people. 🙂
YES! So that means we are normal and “they” are “obsessive neat freaks”! 😉 just kidding….maybe
I have one of those! And it sits on top of the dryer with spare change, mate-less socks and stained baseball pants that would kill me to throw away. (I’m starting a coalition to ban white baseball pants, join me)
OMG – and light grey when you play on RED CLAY! They will never be clean again. I’ve just accepted that and vowed to take “the picture” BEFORE or at the first game, and after that… I hung onto the first set for like 2 years before I finally realized how dumb that was – they were so not going to fit into them again, and I’d be horrified to start the season looking like that!
Guilty as charged, to all of it. The infant socks, the re washing things to avoid putting them away, because away is either non existent because it’s full of stuff I don’t even wear, or because the baby is in size 6. Sadly , most of my family is inflicted even worse than me.
Ugh! My nemesis is my youngest’s robe belt and a red baseball sock! What a RELIEF to know I’m not the only one. Thank you Nony!!
I’ve got a whole load of those little belts that I’ve stored in a plastic box. Why on earth can’t I just throw them away?, had them years!
I can’t tell you how much of an Oh My GOSH moment this post was for me. For me it’s the clothes that don’t fit well that I try on, then decide I am not going to wear that get piled on furniture and eventually I don’t know what’s clean and what’s not so I wash all of it and the cycle starts all over again.
I am proud to say I recently went through a huge (multi trash bag) purge and I’ve lasted 3 whole months with not piling stuff back on the edge of the chair again! When it finally sunk in clothes that didn’t fit in the closet, or the drawers were clutter just as much as anything else and if it didn’t fit it needed to go things have stayed much neater. Though it’s still hard for me to let go of somethings. They’ll go in the donate pile, then I’ll pull them back out…
Socks… I don’t know if I just hope the missing mates will materialize from the Twilight Zone or Bermuda Triangle in the next washing (and the next, and the next, and the next) or what, but I am better about tossing them now. At one point I had a plastic grocery bag full of them – yes, about five years’ worth. It was very liberating to just throw the bag away.
Oh this is so me!!!
I wear dresses 50% + of the time in the winter and 100% in spring/summer/fall. I even wear old/worn out dresses to bed 🙂 No belts 🙂 LOL I feel your pain though! I put all belts, tights into a shoe hanging rack. It helps so much!
I have a see-through (yes, really) dress that I use for a coverup during the summer. It came with a belt. Like you, the belt was never worn, but always washed. At one point, it was stuck in the recliner in the living room. I finally threw it out.
I have a hamper in the laundry room with a trash bag liner in it. The kids are allowed to put any piece of clothing they don’t want in there to “GO AWAY”! My mom made me keep horrible clothing because “it fit”. Who am I to make them wear unlikable clothes! My job is to provide a choice to allow them to grow not dictate their every choice. Learning as I go!
At our house, it was called Clothes Heaven – where good clothes go to find a new home. There was also Shoe Heaven, and any other item destined for Goodwill was sent to “heaven”… Just remember that if they aren’t good enough for you to wear (rips, stains, etc.), they aren’t good enough for someone else either.
I do the same thing!! I need to just throw the things out, too.
I have a six year old pair of raggedy light green shorts that I wash all winter long. I do occasionally wear them in the winter, to sleep in…:) but they are so tattered I don’t think I can wear them outside this summer. The thought of throwing those poor little things away tears at my heart, but I hope to get it done soon. Why? I grew up in a spotless, and I mean spotless, home with always clean, ironed clothes to wear and the “you can bring a friend inside any time of the day” syndrome…I almost think it was a syndrome with my mother, yet she cooked, sewed beautiful clothes and things for the house and crocheted and was crafty and was pretty and well dressed and manicured and pedicured and loved to mow a large lawn and then rake it clean…and was quite nice to me too, her only child, except she never wanted me to do anything in the house. My job was to be a kid and play all the time. LOL I took that to heart and still am a better player than a worker.
Good job getting rid of it.
I have weird random things I keep washing too…
The only sad thing is that you chucked it after you washed it that last time. Would have been nice if you would have thought to throw it away dirty.
Not that it matter cuz it didn’t make you do a whole extra load or anything.
But sometimes I think like that…like if I am going to throw away a dish (like a cracked one) I certainly want to do it before washing it 🙂
I have one of these too!! Literally just pulled it out of the dryer as well!
Um, I TOTALLY read that as “aGANE”, because I read it like Joey Tribbiani when he got a brain transplant from “Jessica Lockhart”!! ???
Wow! Wow! Wow! I have done the same thing so many times and when I did throw it away I would beat myself for being for ONCE again being disorganized and not having it together!!! Who knew I wasn’t the only one?
There is a bathrobe that my grandson wore to “dress up” in when he was
5 and tiny, so it was perfect for years. (Big, baggy, no shape.) well, he is now 15 and could not fit one arm in the whole robe! It keeps floating around the laundry room probably for eternity.