Okay, let's get started.

I've come back and forth here for a month, trying to make peace with the visual format.  Until I do that, I can't really start posting.  That's the nature of my problem.  Basta!  Let's just go now.

It was last winter, probably a little after Thanksgiving, when I noticed at Target that people were buying boxes to wrap Christmas presents in and plastic bins for storing gift wrap and door wreaths and holiday lights and decorations.  It made me a little sick.  I thought, Americans must be the only people on the planet who actually have to buy containers to store all their stuff in.  Why does everyone here have so much stuff?  Why are people always in Target buying even more cheap, disposable stuff?

Then I started to think about my own buying habits and consumption since I was so quick to judge others. 

Since childhood I've had a weakness for beautiful things.  What's saved me from owning most of them is money.  I don't covet things it's impossible for me to acquire and I simply admire those things from afar.  Things I can afford to buy are my problem -- and the pesky fact that I want to store everything that can't be displayed in equally beautiful, elegant and functional ways.  I try not to buy stuff that has to be stored.  If I can't use it all the time, why should I buy it in the first place?

Which brings us to my problem with clothes. And shoes.  And lingerie.  And jewelry. While I may be able to resist cheap tchotchkes, I have much less luck resisting a pair of killer four-inch heel platform peep-toe booties from Italy.  Or a wax-batik sarong from Bali.  Or a Kuchi necklace.  Or an exquisite Hermès scarf.

Over my winter holiday break I decided to start going through every closet and drawer, scrutinizing every single object I own and deciding if it was staying or going, if I needed it or could live without it.  I decided to figure out what objects and belongings are, for me, essential.  I decided to figure out once and for all what was wrong with all the things I was ridding myself of in this project.  I did the post mortem on all the bags of stuff destined to be dropped off for donation at Goodwill.  What I want to write about here in this blog is what I learned from this process, which has ended up taking me nearly six months to complete.  I have a notebook full of lists now.  I have been consciously tracking every purchase I make and no longer buying things that are not on my essential list.  I'll share what I've observed and what I've learned here.