I just can’t part with things that have a memory attached to them. It kills me, and my overflowing house is proof. But I have found something more important than my treasures, my daughters (and their stuff). So in attempt to make room for everything else in the house, and bring my daughters up in a tidy house, I am on a mission to purge. Oh no, this isn’t one giant purge. That would cause me to hyperventilate and become quite depressed. But little by little, I am going to purge.
Up first, my treasured high school t-shirts. Bye-bye shirts from my days as a Thespian. Little Shop of Horrors and Grease, you severed me well. While this mighty pile of shirts once called the dresser drawer in our guest room home, the guest room was eliminated nearly a year ago in order to make room for baby and the shirts had taken up residence in a basket on the floor in our office. (I wasn’t brave enough to even look through the rest of the basket of stuff, but the shirts are a huge under taking for me.)
While I am making a confession… Least you should think this pile of 21 t-shirts was all from high school, I have another confession. Yes, a couple were from middle school and, gasp, even a couple from elementary school. Good times! (Someone please tell me how a men’s M shirt was my size of choice in elementary, L in middle and XL in high school. What was up with the ’90s?!)
I have already had one moment of weakness when I tried to salvage just one shirt for my upcoming painting project, but I held strong. My husband tells me my shirts will go on to serve someone else well, but I fear my old school shirts will merely end up in the trash at someone else’s hands. A fate that makes me ill to think about. So, I will try to live in the naive world of believing that perhaps a parent/student from one of those schools will find their way to those shirts and they will live on again.
This has been step one in my purge to a clean home. My name is Jennifer, and I am a pack rat.
You should turn your old shirts into a quilt! Run, go get them out of the trash!
Don’t tempt me! I have a blanket made from all of my college shirts. It is WONDERFUL. But two…
you could make a blanket out of them. i saw it on pintrest
Yep. I have one from my college shirts…
I’ve made t-shirt quilts… 🙂
Yeah, and I have one from college. And I plan to make one for each of the girls. But do I really need another one?
I made a blanket quilt of all my theta shirts. There is a company that you send the shirts too and they mail them back as a quilt. I am not into sewing, so that would have been a HUGE task for me. I love my theta blanket!
I made a quilt out of all of my Theta shits too, and I LOVE it. K thinks it is her blanket. But two t-shirt quilt blankets might be too much 🙂
I was going to say a memory quilt but you can also cut them and strips and make a rug with a hula hoop. We did these and they are easy and fun. You can find it on Family Fun’s website!
A rug… That I never thought of… Oh the temptation!
You come from a long line of pack rats… Be strong, there is hope for us yet! Love you!
Yes Mom. I blame it on you 🙂
You know, we may have been searated at birth. I still have a bunch of t-shirts from high school, college, early boyfriends, etc. I have a huge drawer of shirts I never wear, but they all have meaning to me. Some are from plays I loved, places I have visited, games I went to, etc. It is so funny since I do not wear t-shirts with writing on them. It is all part of who I am and I love it. We should start a blog for pack rats, and I have to admit that I come from a long line of professional keepers. My mother was a keeper, my mother’s mother was a keeper.
Ohhhh Professional Keeper. Katie, I love that term 🙂 LOL! I just have to make room for all the baby clothes I don’t want to part with 🙂
You’re so brave. I had to part with my shopping bag collection when we moved. No way can I get rid of my shirts too! I say make another quilt!
I am such a pack rat, but then I go through these purging phases and they feel sooo good! One thing you could have done was to make a large quilt out of all your shirts. That why they would have served a purpose instead of taking up space. And how fun it would be to cuddle with your girls and your memories!