On minimalism

Is that even a word? Minimalism? Did I just make that up? Anyways, my journey continues. It is a constant struggle for me not to buy, buy, buy. It's not big things. It's small things. "Oh, that will be nice!" "I've been wanting dry erase markers for awhile now..." "When I get back into _____, this will come in handy." Some things that I've acquired have been really helpful. Have made my life easier. Like the strawberry huller. I can't believe I lived for 33 years before owning one. It is awesome. Like my label maker - my pantry has never been more organized (Mom, you would be impressed). But other things... well, other things I can probably live without. I have tried to make a concerted effort NOT to buy so many things on Amazon.

Sometimes I wonder if I buy things partly because I am unhappy in a different place in my life. I don't mean that in a bad way, per se. I mean, no one's life is perfect. I would generally call myself a happy person, but there are some things lacking in my current life. Sleep for example. A social life. And though I know that is just part of my current season in life, sometimes it is hard.

So today I ran into this article from the blog, Be More with Less. It really rang true to me today. She talks about making baby steps towards simplifying your life so that you have more time for the really important stuff. She talks about taking 10 minutes a day to do self-care. 10 minutes. That does not seem like a lot, but I'll bet many of us don't spend that much time on self-care every day. Especially those of us who work full time and are parents as well. She talks about keeping a box to throw things in that you don't want/need. She talks about being uncomfortable, and that is OK. She talks about living now, not waiting for tomorrow.

And the place that I continue to work hard - my closet. I keep winnowing down. I kept feeling like I was missing something, though. And since there are no good places to shop in North Platte, I decided to sign up for TrunkClub. Mom has been touting the awesomeness of TrunkClub for awhile, so I thought I'd try it. Molly is my stylist, and I'm hoping that over the course of time we'll be able to work together well so that she can help me freshen up my wardrobe for each season while keeping things simple. I hate, hate, hate looking at my closet for minutes at a time in the morning wondering what I'm going to wear. Time wasted that could go towards other things, lol.

So my journey continues. It really is hard.

Clothes....

Can you believe that I threw out another 2.5 garbage bags of clothes?! I mean, really! I threw away 12 garbage bags of clothing when I started this life simplifying journey. And after sticking closely to my capsule wardrobe this summer, I went through my clothes and threw away more stuff. Cheap stuff. Stuff that did not fit well. That did not look good on me. That hadn't fit in awhile. I was careful not to throw away too much stuff because it was too small, because my body is still changing after having Teddy.

I like to shop the sales after Christmas. Now that I live in Nebraska, I have to do most of that online. Well, this year I tried to only buy stuff that was sustainably and ethically made, and only pieces that I felt I needed to fill out my wardrobe. The first place I hit up was Madewell. I got a garnet colored silk shirt and a cream colored sweater. From PactWear I got a white T-shirt. From Everlane I got a white tank top, white long sleeved shirt, a black trench coat, a navy blue blouse and a cashmere cardigan. I may not keep all the stuff from Everlane, we'll just see. I've never bought anything from any of these companies before, so we'll see how I like them.

I just struggle to really see what I think I need. I want to make sure I'm getting quality pieces that look really good on me and that I love. And I want to make sure that I have the correct number. But sometimes it feels like I'm grasping at straws and while I have a feeling of what I want, I'm not sure what it actually LOOKS like, you know?

But I'm also trying to simplify other parts of my life. In an attempt to make me feel less crazy during the week, and to maximize the time I'm doing the important things in life, like hanging out with my boys. I've started to make a menu for the month. Meals planned for every night ahead of time, so that I don't have to think about it. We do diapers on Wednesdays and Saturdays. We do laundry on Thursdays. We bathe the boys on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. There are obviously exceptions, but for the most part, we stick to this. Then we always have clean underwear and diapers and we don't have to think about what we're having for dinner.

I still have to work on cleaning out other parts of my life, but I think I'm making process. I try to focus on the process not the end result. Because ultimately it is about living with what you need and not cluttering things up with what you don't.

Fall Capsule Revisited

My fall capsule was supposed to last from September through November. So we are now into December and I realized that I should probably start to think about my winter capsule:)

I've learned a few things. First off, it's not as difficult as you'd think to stick to so few clothes. It's actually pretty easy and makes getting dressed in the morning easy peasy. Sometimes I open my drawers and then remember about this sweater or that shirt and then I think to myself, "Oooohhh I should wear that!". But if I don't open my drawers, I don't think about it.

I am sort of using this capsule experiment to see which clothes I really like. Which ones really make me feel good. Which ones are truly good quality items. My maroon pants from Stitch Fix are all but shot after one season of pretty heavy usage. They will be retired soon.

One of the issues I had is that, in general, I go to work and then I come home and put on my loungewear. But when we went out of town for a week over Thanksgiving, I struggled to find enough outfits to wear that weren't too dressy for what we'd be doing. Because I don't normally need that many casual clothes.

I would like for this to morph into something a bit easier. I'd like to put some thought into creating a dressy capsule. A work capsule. A casual capsule. A loungewear capsule. Hopefully full of clothes that I really like and fit me well. And that are versatile and functional. And then I don't have to worry about what to do if its 70* in Nebraska in January and I have no clothes in my capsule that will work for that curveball. But I think in order to make it something effortless, you have to put some effort in to see what you like and what works well for you.

So, my winter capsule will be forth coming. I'm trying to identify holes in my fall capsule and patch them. Add things that I have been missing and take out things that aren't really working for me. Hopefully I'll have something before the end of December, but no promises, lol.