Clothing

 For Christmas this year I ordered a light for the closet and 100 matching hangers.  I was finally going to make my space look organized and turn it into an adult space.  

This school year I started loving my school "uniform"... dress with shorts or leggings on and comfortable shoes.  Unless it was a day we could dress down and all those tshirts (SpEd dept, Math dept, general teacher, union, and district colors) were in one row of my dresser drawer to easily grab.  Choosing these outfits meant I could easily sleep in until 20 minutes before I left to get to school... arriving ~15 minutes before school started.  

Over Christmas break I had started changing out dresses onto the new hangers, then I ended up in the ER after the first day back to school from break.  So the project sat waiting until I had enough energy and could bend to do it.  Two weeks later, right before surgery, I was able to finish that project.  I had desired to go through and declutter my closet to fit my newer larger size, but that was too much.  Instead, I sorted after surgery with my mom any clothes that were in the previous sizes to stick into the attic for later.  

Then came the new clothes: My stomach hurt so I needed sweatpants that were bigger to handle the swelly belly.  I had gotten new leggings for Black Friday to replace some from high school and hadn't integrated them into my dresser yet.  Next I realized too many tshirts were also too small and the necklines wouldn't be good for the mediport especially when I had to take home my fanny pack chemo pump.  I also knew my long sleeved shirts were too small and really old since I had just been wearing sweaters to accommodate the differences in school classrooms.  Bras needed to not hit the mediport or have metal in them for the CT scans that were now part of life.  

Thankfully, I found a great deal at Label Shopper... half off their warehouse sales.  So most articles of clothing were only ~1.50 to $5.  I restocked my long sleeves, sweaters, sweatshirts, and a few pairs of pants for only two trips of $28.  Toss on a few new tank tops to keep the chemo line close to my skin to reduce ripping, some sweatpants, bigger underwear, and there's easily another $100. More clothes went into the attic to make space for the larger and looser wardrobe while the complete work wardrobe stayed hung and unused. 

This process took weeks to do and countless sets of 10-30 minutes of energy.  I also had my mom help me measure for all the sweatpants that didn't fit my 5 ft 4 in frame.  Then hemmed the legs while watching tv so I wouldn't trip on them.  Most of this I could do by myself, but I needed help moving the clothes to the attic as well as doing laundry off and on throughout the process.  

Total Costs: under $200.  
Energy Investment: 8 weeks of 10-60 minute work sessions 1-2 times a week