What's in Your Closet?

One of my summer projects is to clean out my closets. Last week I tackled our bedroom closet and dressers. My clothes were fairly easy- I had one bag of things to donate. I have a clothes system in place that makes it very easy to tell which clothes I don't wear. I turn the hangers backwards if I'm not sure I wear it. If it's still backwards when I go through my clothes again it means I never wore it and turned the hanger around so I toss it. Matt's clothes were another story. Two years ago when Matt went through his clothes it was quite painful getting him to part with much. He was much better at it this time. Before he came home I took everything out of the closet and divided it into categories and decided which things he actually wears then I left the rest on the bed. He sees the huge pile and says, "Was there an unfortunate circumstance with our closet today?" Whenever he doesn't put his clothes away he always says there was an unfortunate circumstance and that's why he couldn't put them away. I told him it was a very fortunate circumstance that his wife was going to help him go through his clothes.

I was so proud of him. He went through every pile and even tried on things to see if they still fit. He ended up with about 4 bags to give away! He did keep a few sentimental things like a mission suit, a very ugly sweater he thinks our kids will love, and some of his favorite high school clothes. He's so funny he keeps saying, "It's so weird I actually wear all of the clothes in my closet!"

I'm beginning to realize I'll have more clothes that I don't use all the time as I change sizes through pregnancy and after the baby so that will make it more challenging. It's been hard for me to buy clothes while I'm pregnant knowing that I won't wear them that long and they are not the cutest things I've seen. What are you supposed to do when suddenly every pair of pants you own and half your shirts that you've collected over the last 10 years suddenly doesn't fit? I've bought things mostly on sale and borrowed some but it still feels like a ton of clothes. I guess I'll wear them for multiple pregnancies but still... and do I really want to always be pregnant in the summer? Probably not.

So what's in your closet?

Tell me what interesting clothes or shoes you just can't part with no matter how worn out or how little you wear it. When is the last time you went through your clothes? Who has the oldest wardrobe or the most shoes? What's your clothes system? What are your closet "skeletons"?