Hello Friends!

Thanks for sticking with us as Julie and I spend the holidays with family and take a break from blogging.

You may have noticed that we redesigned this morning! This is just the start of the redesign, and I’m slow at this sort of thing, so bear with us as we continue to tweak things here and there.

The first of the year is coming quickly, so here’s a reminder about the rules we’ll be following in 2012!

The Twenty Pieces Project Guidlines:

1. Purge the closet within an inch of its life. As Julie’s previous post laid out, we’re getting rid of everything that doesn’t fit well, that’s tattered, that’s unnecessary, that doesn’t fit our style, or that is contributing to any sense of hiding we see in ourselves.

2. Pick twenty pieces of clothes that will cover all areas of your life, and stick with them for a year. This means if you have a wedding to go to, you wear the dress you already have rather than run out and buy a new one. But there are exceptions to this rule. And they are…

3. Underwear and socks don’t count. No one has the time to do that much laundry.

4. Pajamas and work out clothes don’t have to count, but should be picked over with a fine tooth comb and a friend to minimize the unnecessary.

5. Shoes don’t count, but again, they should be evaluated by an honest friend, not used as a loophole.

6. You only buy new pieces when you’ve ruined one of the pieces you have or it no longer fits. We only replace, not acquire more. And, as Julie pointed out as a dripped soup down my shirt last night, no intentional ruining of clothes so one can buy more.

7. Love everything you own. With only twenty pieces, each one should be special and beautiful in it’s own way, even if it’s just a black tshirt. It should be the right black tshirt for you; your favorite black tshirt.

8. Borrow when you need to! If you’ve got friends who are willing to loan and be lent to, go for it! Who says we all need a fancy dress. Maybe we just need one between us.

9. Use the project as a way to grow and understand that the hard parts are the ones that are doing the best work in your soul. We think it will be worth it.