Coming Out of the Closet

Ahead of schedule, and it only took me five hours! Of course, every minute was not spent cleaning. Some of the time, I was reminiscing. For example, check this out:Took a little walk down 80's lane with these babies. I wore the pink ones when Mr.4444 and I honeymooned in California. During that same trip, I also wore a skin-tight, lime green spandex dress that zipped on. Needless to say, we didn't leave the hotel room much, because every time I put it on, we ended up....(OOPS! That's for a Rated R blog, not this one!) We did find some time to shop, though (I wore sweatpants, JK) and bought this:Don't worry; I have cleaned my closet since 1990; I had the jacket in a bin. I'm saving it for Kendall (you never know when she might need it for a Halloween costume.)

Now I'm going to give some of you a rude awakening when I tell you that if you are still wearing one of these, it's time for an Intervention:

And I'm no fashion maven, but I'm pretty sure you're going to need to stop wearing these if you haven't already...(In case you can't tell, those are gauchos.) And, of course, Retro is cool, so even though I'm putting this one in the Halloween bin, I might wear it some time, just as Grandma Florence did (back in the 50's, I'm guessing.)And here's Grandma Grace's offering (fake, I'm pretty sure, but I'm saving it, just in case)

This, however, is real. (Or was real, depending on how you look at it.)I don't have the heart to throw him away! Just look at his face! You can see he's been through a lot.

When I started hiking in out in Washington State (I've done so five times), Mark's dad (God bless him!) worried about me so much that he made this walking stick for me, complete with bells (to "scare the bears away.) I didn't have the heart to tell him that I already had "real" hiking sticks and I wouldn't hike without them. Thankfully, we have only run into a bear once, and that was in populated area, where there were a couple of perfectly edible people in between us and the bear, so it was no big deal.

Okay, so I'm guessing you want to see the "Reveal." BUS DRIVER! MOVE THAT...oops, got caught up there. Without further ado, the Before......

And after...Before....

And after...And I didn''t cheat and only do the pictured areas. I did Mr.4444's shelves, too. See his favorite shirt?Now, does anyone know what I can do with about a bajillion wire hangers, and these plastic ones??Now, if I can do it, you can do it! Don't forget to post your own before/after pics. And you guys out there; I know there's a disastrous garage out there somewhere...(Wait a minute; I think it's mine!)

Not my department....

Update: If you thought that poor thing looked pathetic before, check him out now (with his tail in his mouth)!