Happy annual day of annoyance that follows a Patriots super bowl win.

On Saturday, Ellie and I watched the first episode of Tidying Up With Marie Kondo on Netflix. For those of you who are unaware of the latest sensation sweeping the nation, Marie Kondo is a professional organizer from Japan who encourages people to declutter their homes and only keep items that "spark joy". I was immediately sold on the idea, and proceeded to test what toys in Audrey's bin sparked joy. If she bit the toy, we kept it. Flawless Methodology.

I have a lot of clothes.

Moving upstairs, I've been meaning to go through my clothes for quite some time. For any of you fun-run enthusiasts like me, we tend to collect quite the assortment of race t-shirts, and running related fitness clothes. It was time to part ways with some of them, as my closet has been a disorderly mess.

The first step in the process Marie Kondo recommends is to get everything out in the open, so you can appreciate just how much stuff you actually have. This was kind of fun, as it meant dumping all of my clothes onto the bed. Once it is all out in the open, you can go one-by-one through the pile. The rule is simple: Does this item spark joy when you pick it up? She defines sparking joy as "how you feel when picking up a puppy." While none of my clothes bring me that level of happiness, I got the concept. Over the next couple of hours, I substantially cut down on my race shirts, and other clothes that were various sizes.

These pants brought me joy... until I ripped them so badly they became unwearable.

The reason I wanted to bring this up in the blog though isn't just about decluttering the house. I've known for a while that I have hung on to essentially three sizes of clothes. My really fat clothes, my moderately fat clothes, and my slim fit, look-at-me-now clothes. I justified keeping all of this so I always had something to fit. But as I went through my clothes, the bigger sizes absolutely didn't spark any joy for me. Keeping them around was a constant reminder that they would be there for when I needed them . . . but I never want to need them again. It was time to get rid of that safety net.

By the end of the process, my closet was neat, orderly, and we got rid of quite a lot of those pesky race shirts that are not very comfortable to work out in. I did keep a few of the nicer ones, or ones from races that I really enjoyed.

I highly recommend watching the show, if for no other reason than to be motivated into a little bit of early spring-cleaning. Be warned that the first episode's couple are kind of annoying.

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