Friday, February 1, 2013

Donating Clothes

I received a message from our local homeschool group, saying that the nearby crisis pregnancy center is in need of clothing, specifically sizes 3T, 4T, and 5T.

Our family makeup is interesting.  We had 2 girls, then 2 boys, then 3 girls, and finally a boy.  What is curious is that because of genetic makeup, the 2 older girls share clothes, the 2 older boys share clothes, and then the next 2 girls share clothes.  It is a LITTLE bit like having 3 sets of twins in terms of clothing size.

Angela, our 6th child, is 5 but tall for her age.  She's outgrown 5T almost completely and wears 6T or 7T clothes along with Miriam (who is 7 but short for her age.)

Sarah and Daniel will not share clothing, so there is no need for me to save a ton of 3T, 4T, and 5T clothing for them to grow into.

Yesterday my back was hurting (long story, more about that later) so I kept our older 3 kids busy  marching up and down the stairs with tubs. (We store our spare clothing in a basement room, but I didn't want to hang out on the cold concrete downstairs.) I went through 9 tubs, 3 for each size, and reduced each size by about 1/3rd.

The result? 


 This is Daniel's nighttime pack and play. I had the children throw the donated clothes into the pack and play just to get them out of the way. Later in the afternoon, the older 3 kids counted them all and put them in bags for donation.

The final tally was 190 garments.  Yes, 190!  I wasn't being particularly heroic.  I was just getting rid of clothing I knew we didn't need. And no, they weren't nasty or stained as I threw out those few items that were truly unpleasant.

  Obviously, we have too many clothes.  We have been blessed to have many people donate clothing to us, and I am very grateful. As I said, we needed enough for twins (essentially) so I needed a lot when the pairs reached a certain size.

  It feels good to get the extra clothing out of our basement as it makes it easier to store what we do need.  I am glad I made the time to sort those clothes yesterday.

  Last night, I packed the big boys into the car and we drove off towards the crisis pregnancy center to drop off thte items.  We made it about a mile.  As I reached the end of our road, I applied the brakes. Black ice!  I slid into the next road. By God's grace, no one else was driving around so I did NOT crash into anyone, and I stopped before I went into the ditch on the other side.  However, I could tell traveling conditions weren't safe, so I turned around and came back home.

 So, I hope to take the clothes on Monday.


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