It’s been a long time since I posted Cleaning Out My Closet: Part 1, but for a relatively good reason. I don’t have a good way to ship donated clothes in or out of my village, so I signed up to receive a free donation bag in the mail from ThredUP. Or so I thought. After waiting for a couple of weeks and not receiving a bag in the mail, I finally talked to customer service and was informed that they wouldn’t send a bag to my village. To circumvent this little issue, I instead had it sent to my mom’s house and then she mailed it to me. It was kind of a hassle and I’m still not sure why they wouldn’t send it here, but it is still the easiest way I’ve come up with to donate clothes.

Once the bag arrived via a care package from my mom, things were easy enough. The bag that they sent was very large and conveniently packaged in a relatively small envelope.  The directions were very clear, which I think will make sending it back very easy.

I had a rather large stack of clothes that I had boxed up at the beginning of my pregnancy when things started to not fit (Note: the top three boxes are clothes that people have sent me since getting pregnant that didn’t fit). I made the decision at that time to make some donations and keep some things that I thought I might want after pregnancy. I obviously have no idea what my size/measurements will be after all is said and done (although, I’ve only gained 5lbs so far, so I am hopeful my old stuff will fit again eventually), but I also didn’t want to get rid of everything. I ended up choosing things that I didn’t wear much pre-pregnancy to donate and then keeping the rest for now.

I also made a small pile of non-name brand clothing or stuff that was a little more worn, which I think I’ll give to a couple of the young girls in my village. I’ve given away clothes to some of my students before and they’ve always really enjoyed getting things as little gifts from me.

I packed up the bag and still had a surprising amount of room, so I decided to wait to send it. I’m hoping to convince Cody to go through some of his stuff and maybe examine my shoe collection as well. Once the bag gets a little fuller I plan to mail it off to ThredUP.

All in all, the process wasn’t too difficult. If I didn’t live in the literal wilds of Alaska it would have been 100x easier. Once I figured out that they wouldn’t ship here it was no big deal to get it sent to my mom’s house. She sends us care packages fairly frequently and it was very tiny and easy to add to one of her already scheduled shipments.