Week Eleven, Items 88-94

Headband

I bought this in Japan because I liked the color and the pattern. It was an impulse purchase rather than one I thought through. I love how headbands look on other people—I think they're cute. But I can't wear them for more than a few minutes before I find them too irritating and give up. I've kept this because I got it in Japan, but it's silly to keep something I am not going to use. Especially because I'm sure someone who likes to wear headbands could get some enjoyment out of this one.

Three Dots shirt

I got this shirt as a gift years ago, and loved it. I wore it a lot. But, after years of being washed and worn, it's too short for me now. I'm sure I could go out and pretty easily find a similar shirt. In the meantime, this goes to someone else.

Pink striped shirt

So far, during this project, I've realized I'm not really a big fan of red. Turns out I'm also not really a fan of pale pink (or pastels in general, actually). Anyway, while this shirt still fits, I do feel like I've outgrown its look. But someone out there with a slightly different style could get a lot of use out of it.

The Economic Naturalist

This book has an interesting premise: answering questions about quirks of everyday life using economic reasoning. Questions include "Why do baseball managers wear uniforms?" and "Why are hotel minibar prices so exorbitant?" Sounds interesting, right? Unfortunately, it's not. The execution of this book is laughably poor. It's a compilation of essays written by college students, who were limited by their professor to about 500 words. It's not at all the fault of the students that a series of essays lacking any detail whatsoever made for an awful book; I would gladly have read a full-length version of any of their essays. But reading this felt like talking to a person who is easily distracted and incapable of deep thought. Terribly frustrating. It was a huge disappointment, and this is something I am quite happy to get out of my house.

Dog grooming items

Last year, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law asked what I wanted for Christmas. Because I am generally pretty terrible at coming up with things I want, I just jokingly said "less dog hair" (we have an adorable dog who, as most dogs do, sheds a lot). They took me at my word, apparently, because they had my husband's parents get him these two dog grooming tools for Christmas. The thought was appreciated, but it left us with two dog grooming tools we don't need. We have a FURminator (really, that's how they capitalize the name), and it's 100% awesome—it's effective and our dog doesn't mind it at all. So we just don't need any other sorts of brushes. I'm going to call the shelter we adopted our dog from to see whether they could use these.

Iron

My husband and I each had an iron of our own before we knew each other. For whatever reason, we've kept them both up until now—even though I haven't ironed anything since we moved in together. That was in 2006. Since then, I've either asked him to iron things for me (he doesn't hate it as much as I do), or just hung them up in the bathroom while I shower. The steam gets the wrinkles out, and it requires as close to no effort as is possible. So why in the world would I bother ironing? Frankly, I'm not sure we need one iron, let alone two!

Progress: 94 items out of 400 = 23.5% done.