Saturday, July 7, 2012

A Clean Wardroom Is Good For The Sole

Wow. Even with my best intentions of not letting my Frockstar postings slide- turns out I am still ridiculously slack. The good news (I guess) is that after this incredibly long break there is certainly no shortage of things to post about!

So much has happened since I updated last. I went to Auckland's last ever Big Day Out (I also went to the other 17 years worth-but that's another story) I had a "moment" with one of my favourite piano players- and then found said moment captured on a music blog. (Yes. That's me with the flower in my hair giving her the intense "I LOVE YOU AMANDA" eyes but to be fair I had just had my face in her boobs...another story too I guess) I lost some weight due to some long overdue portion control and my new love of boxing classes. This is turn led to my first foray into pants in the last 8 years or so! (They will get their own post. I promise) I accumulated a *cough* handful of new outfits under the great excuse that I needed more that fit me.


 And in a fit of organisation one Thursday afternoon- I decided to pull out all of my shoes to sweep, mop, reorganise and stock take. A much MUCH more time consuming job than initially anticipated. I don't know what to liken this experience to really but I'm sure you have at some time in your life started something before realising the sheer enormity of the task. Then the secondary realisation that you are already so vested in said task that you have to just keep trucking on and get the bloody thing done. It is 5 hours of my life that I'm not getting back but totally worth it in the long run. This dear reader- seems like a good place to start the rest of this post.

Those of you that have never graced the Wardroom with your presence won't know how much the shoes were starting to take over. They were stacked 5 and 6 pairs high in rows under clothes racks. They were spilling so far out into the rest of the room that not only would my door not open all the way- but I was often physically falling over them when in there. Not just after a gin or 2 either. Yes. This job was way overdue. While I would like to profess that the above reasons were enough to facilitate my desire to tidy them- it was in actual fact my OCD that finally put me over the edge. Truth be told I was sick of people asking how many pairs I had and not actually knowing the answer. Well. Now I do!


I am willing to bet that if someone else had attempted this mean feet (haha)- it might not have been made as un-necessarily complicated as I made it. Once all the shoes were pulled out and pretty much taking up every inch of floor space it was time for the organising to begin. If I was going to stock take I was damned well going to do it properly! This translated into arranging them all pair by pair. In a semblance of colour co-ordination of course. (Don't get me started on my constant need for a system to find things in that room!). It started with the boots then worked down into high tops and trainers, heels/wedges/sandals all the way down to jandals and slippers. I figured that as I hadn't had all my shoes out where I could see them all in one place before - there was every chance it wouldn't be happening again for a long time. The picture above took me about 20 minutes to take as I couldn't fit all of them into one shot! I actually still haven't quite fit them all in the photo- but at that stage I was in danger of falling off the piano stool I was doing one legged acrobatics on and I'm not very good with heights. Even piano stool sized ones.



I realise that cleaning out a closet isn't exactly a life changing event. It isn't even really a rite of passage either. It was quite eye opening however and I am sure there was some character building mixed in there somewhere too. I'm quite the hoarder collector you see. This may be a surprise to read (if you have paid NO attention to the rest of this post if not the rest of Frockstar as a whole that is!) I learnt that I had 12 pairs of boots that were exactly the same. I knew there would be a few pairs kicking around - but 12? These are the only pairs that I threw away. No- not all additional 11 of them. Lets not get silly. I threw away 4 of them though. 8 pairs seemed like a much more manageable number to lean on. 1 pair for wearing till they get too worn then 7 back ups. Stop judging me. They stopped making them a few years back and are hard to come by. I always snap them up on trademe if I trip over a listing. I also learnt that by no means should I ever buy another pair of yellow shoes in any style. I am in no danger of running out of these either.




So there they were. All neatly co-ordinated and taking up all of the Wardroom's floor space. I got to tickle my compulsive tendencies and start to count them and compile the most ridiculous (and I do mean ridiculous) stock take list ever created. Now that they were all splayed out in front of me it just didn't seem enough to do a straight up count of them. No no. That just wouldn't do. I needed to get more detailed in my approach. What good was knowing how many pairs I owned if I couldn't tell you exactly how many pairs of red heels I had? How could I not know how many pairs of white wedges I had to match with Summer dresses? What if someone wanted to know how many pairs of knee length boots I owned? What if... Yeah. I do actually know that the chances of anyone asking me any of those questions are slim to f**k all. I still wanted to know though- and that was a good enough reason to press on. The other good reason to list them in a more detailed way was to keep them top of mind. I have been known on occasion to purchase a pair of shoes in a colour I thought wasn't already represented at home- then found later that there was. (another reason to not have them all stacked on top of each other and under things...) In some strange way - the list will now potentially stop me from buying un-necessary footwear. Well. Excessively un-necessary footwear at least. Even I have a line somewhere....
 


My counting and stock take now complete- it was time to re-organise back into the space allocated. There still needed to be pairs stacked and piled under racks- but now it was done in such a way that it just made so much more sense! Sure my 19 year old Cherry Doc Martin 10 up boots aren't getting a great deal of air time these days but they will never ever be let go. These were the kind of contenders for getting stacked outta sight. I still know they're there. The lesser worn pairs safely stashed, the frequently worn pairs easy to access and the statement faves now had the glory display spots for optimum showing off.

The Great Wardroom Shoe-ganize of 2012 was complete!



 NB. After much deliberation on my part- I have decided to not share the full nerdiness of my shoe stock take. I think I may have already shared too much in fact. I will know when I run into someone who has read this post. I have a pretty good idea of the look I will get from them. Hell- it may even be YOU dear reader. No- I think that the list itself is destined if not completely for my own enjoyment but small intimate and in person audiences at least. That said- I am happy to tell you the total number. Knee boots, ankle boots, high tops, laced trainers, slip on trainers, stilettos, kitten heels, wedges, sandals, jandals and slippers- all together.

153.

NB/2. Since stock take I did buy 1 more pair of yellow shoes. I was going to include a picture to show you why I had to buy them- but they are good enough for their own whole post. Which at my current blogging rate you may get to read in 2017....




Labels:

1 Comments:

Blogger The Eel Fairy said...

Ahhh, I think a wardroom clean up is life changing! Yay!!!

July 18, 2012 at 11:41 AM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home