Wardrobe Styling: Holy Crap – I forgot I had this great stuff!

Welcome Back Leather Skirt.

I Missed You.

The irony behind this Manic Monday outfit is that I haven’t worn my black knee-length leather skirt in 2 years and the pink velour blazer was on my give-away pile and Jennifer told me I had to keep it! The zipper doesn’t work very well and her no-brainer suggestion was to just not use the zipper! DUH!

Lesson learned to date with my wardrobe styling adventure is that we all have a ton of stuff in our closets that have great life and style left in them. But you need to find them first!

Wardrobe Styling: What I did when she left!

What I did when she left…

• The big count. You can see that I did the official count in my journal with a sharpie and you can also see that I didn’t make 100. I am proudly at 136 items in my Winter/Spring closet.
• Separated my lives.  I moved my work clothes to the top rack and play clothes to the bottom rack and separated all of my work pants, play pants, etc.

Wardrobe Styling: Help Arrived!

Help Arrived!

I have done a lot of closet purging on my own and I had reached a point where I couldn’t do anymore. In one of my posts, I talked about knowing when you need help and I was at this point. I met Jennifer N. at an event months ago when she was just kicking off her wardrobe styling and consultation business called It’s So U. I was super impressed by her business model – but at that time, I wasn’t living this glorious simple life!

I called her and made an appointment for a wardrobe styling appointment. All I can say is that it was fabulous!

What she did:

• She combed through all of my clothes – both winter/fall and summer/spring.
• She was very nonchalant and relaxed – she held things up, asked me to try on things, looked at the materials of the clothing and their condition (i.e. wrinkled mess or not, etc.).
• She knew I had already pared down but that I wanted to pare down MORE – my goal is 100 items in my closet. So when it came to black pants, jeans and jackets – she would say things like “I don’t think you will miss this” or “I think you can do without this”.
• We made a big hallway pile and at the end of the visit she asked for garbage bag and took the pile with her. This was the funny part – as I had half way thought I may go through this pile a second time to make sure I wanted to get rid of all of this stuff, but she made this exercise an easy one. Literally – the pile disappeared and she will come back next week with a donation slip!
• Talk about an emotional release – no second guessing! The pile was GONE!

Look out for Part 2, 3 and onwards!

The Tea Era

There was an era when I liked tea…boy is that era over!

My Mom was in town for a week and we made a few more dents in the kitchen. We even got to the cabinet that we never-ever  open as there is nothing useful in the cabinet and when you open it, crap falls out. It is amazing and embarrassing to acknowledge how easy it is to go through your stuff and quickly organize it.  It comes down to pure initiative. I am first to say that I have a lot of initiative; just not in this compartment of my life!

How do you get initiative for things you hate doing?

In my case, it has worked like this:

• You need goals that stare you in the face every day. Seriously, without a goal — why even think about making change happen in your life.
• You need accountability. It could be a friend, a blog, a dog, a partner, a spouse. Basically you need to do whatever it takes to feel some degree of obligation. In my case, writing makes me happy. Is blogging a smart use of my time? Likely not. My Main Squeeze reminds me that if I invested my blogging time into sorting and cleaning, I may not have as big of a problem. Men and their logical minds.
• You may need intervention. If you can’t do it yourself — get help. I am specifically waiting for Little-Sister-Intervention to go through my closet and identify my 100 items. It is clearly a task that I can’t do on my own. 

So, I donated the tea and re-donated the espresso machine to the same thrift store that I bought it. The take away here is that some day when I decide to drink tea again I will have to go and buy some. Win some – lose some, I guess.  

Feeling of Bliss (aromatic bliss of course)

My endeavor this year doesn’t just include sorting and ridding, but also no buying. As a self-prescribed thrift-a-holic and life-long believer in the concept of retail therapy, I feel this is like a binge eater not binging or an alcoholic giving the bottle up. Fortunately, I just had to start a blog and didn’t go through any fancy detox program and I am feeling rather blissful.

When I searched ‘bliss’ on Google I got 40+ landscape scenes that were inspired by Microsoft — so I searched lavender instead.

27 days into this adventure, I am feeling an incredible relief. Weird. It is the relief of knowing you can’t do something. Shopping for ‘stuff’ isn’t an option. Making a decision on ’what to buy’ or ‘how much of it’  doesn’t dominate any more minutes of my life. I don’t look at the sales racks. I pass up fabulous things that I would have bought and don’t think twice.

27 days…338 to go!

Change is good.

It is amazing what a FREE blog can do for my budget.

I have a feeling that I could easily fall into love with shopping again — but perhaps after 365 days, I will have to ease into it slowly.

Happy 100 Things

 

A few tid-bits of council from a myriad of sources:

• Only have seasonally appropriate clothes within view in your closet. Move non-seasonal stuff to a bin or another rack in the basement, or in the back of your closet.
• Only have things you like AND look good wearing within view in your closet. I really like this one….as some of my favorite outfits don’t look good on me. Not sure how I am going to deal with this one – likely a Sister-Intervention-Opportunity!
• Some of us need more variety than others. When my Main Squeeze helped me with the math above, he laughed – as he said if I didn’t have variety in my life, I would die. I had to agree. My initial thoughts about wearing a uniform have officially been squelched. Dammit. Win some, lose some, I guess!

My current plan is to get my cold weather wardrobe down to 100 items. More posts to come on my progress!

Putzing & Creating Makes a Difference for some of us Kooky People!

Okay, so like I have mentioned in previous posts, I need high-usage spaces to feel right. I am a firm believer that putzing around in your house and moving stuff around so that it feels right, makes a difference. Call it silly. Call it a waste of time…but it works for this kooky girl.

SO MY NEW CLOSET DIDN’T FEEL RIGHT!

CR, SFC and I all worked on this “Women at Work” collaged door. I got this great book from GiveWhatYouGot book sale. I didn’t necessarily ask for help, but what kid doesn’t love cutting and gluing on doors in your house! I had immediate helpers. We had glue to clean up all over the floor and every time CR got a speck on his clothes he wanted to change them.

These black and white pictures are priceless. There are women hanging from telephone poles, playboy bunnies, teachers, lyric writers, business women, homemakers and scientists. It is a wonderful inspiration every time I open the door. I honestly feel like I am opening a door to opportunity every morning.

Cheers to putzing and creating when putzing and creating makes a difference.