Challenge...revised?

So prepping for the challenge and thinking about it has made me realize a few things:

1) Most of my outfits use core pieces of my wardrobe, the rest is just "extra"
I mean, for seven days, I'm pretty much using all the "bottoms" I wear in weekly rotation anyway. Sure, there are a few I left out, but they don't get worn much anyway. I admittedly wear some of them (jeans) a few times before washing, sometimes a few days in a row. This is no challenge.

2) I have new pieces that I should wear because if I don't wear them, what's the point in having them?
I have a super cute tank-top I bought this spring, but because I rarely wear tank-tops, it's still sitting in my closet with the tags on (and past its return by date). However, it will look incredibly cute under jackets and cardigans, so I think I'll wear it this fall, and even maybe this August if it does get incredibly hot...but why ban it from rotation?
You know what else I found? A cami with the tags still on from LAST SUMMER! Holy carp! I forgot I even had it! But cleaning out my closet made me find it, and I'm wearing it today! It's cute under a black top that I bought this spring and had only worn once this summer. I think cleaning out my closet and prepping for this challenge made me start wearing things I hadn't been wearing yet this summer, and that's a good thing!

3) No new clothes is HARD!
My favorite boutique is having a "Tent Event" sale...and I haven't allowed myself to even drive by, because I know I'd stop and shop...I can't decide if this is a good or bad thing...probably good as I really stuck to my budget this last pay cycle, but I can't stop thinking about all the cute clothes that might be on sale really cheap.

4) However, this has been a good little exercise in consumerism.
I think that I clean out my closet and drawers more often than I really do. Just because I make a decision to donate a shirt here and a pair of shoes there, doesn't mean I'm really taking a good look at my wardrobe. Even now, I have a pair of metallic pink shoes that I haven't worn for a few years that I'm having trouble parting with, along with a 1/2 size too small pair of brown peep-toe pumps (anybody wear a 9.5?). Why can't I just get rid of them? They have no function in my life!
But thinking about the flooding back home, and in Milwaukee and reading first hand accounts of people loosing homes and possessions, I just keep thinking, if my house was hit by a flood and I had to throw away most of what I own, what would I really miss? I sure wouldn't miss those shoes! And everything that would get ruined that I would have to throw away and wouldn't even miss...would just be WORK.

5) I have bigger goals than a new pair of shoes or a new dress I'll only wear two or three times.
I WANT TO TRAVEL THE WORLD. And to this day, I've only been to one other country...Canada. *sad noise here...womp womp* Everything adds up. Every mocha, every pair of shoes, every cheap t-shirt. When I think about how much I spent on coffee the last year, I could buy a plane ticket, no problem. Maybe not one to Europe, but one to San Francisco or Seattle, or anywhere in the continental US. That doesn't mean I can NEVER have a coffee (I just drank my first one in a week while sitting here at the coffee shop, writing this.) But I don't need one daily. Some habits are harder to kick than others. I used to buy purses ALL the time. The last one I bought was almost two years ago. I've learned to love them and wear them out! As I said, it's been a week since my last coffee, but when I woke up this morning and drove to work, it's ALL I could think about. Every day is a new day, and every step in the right direction is a good one.

So I may not take on my initial clothing challenge, but it has given me so much to think about, I'm glad I considered doing it. :-)

Picking out the Pieces

I'll post pictures when I get home, but I'm gearing up for my August challenge. I have already cleaned out one small/medium shopping bag of clothes, which isn't a lot, but it feels good. I even put two pairs of shoes on top of the bag. Win!

I'm actually struggling to come up with my challenge outfits, but here's what I have so far:

#1. Black v-neck t-shirt, black and white striped vest, denim skirt, (not pictured, gray leggings)

#2. Gray tunic/dress (not pictured black leggings)

#3. khaki pants, purple v-neck t-shirt

#4. blue dress. optional white jacket (it's like I won't need the jacket in august, but it's there if I want it)

Still need to complete:
#5. Jeans

#6. gray capris

#7. black capris

Seven Outfits

I just read an awesome article on NYTimes.com

I have recently been contemplating putting a restriction on myself to buy no new clothes until the new year. I've been thinking about this after taking a look at the number of dresses I bought this spring because "this summer I am going to live in dresses. They're so easy and breezy." - Thoughts from my winter (stir-crazy) brain.

Reality check: I mostly live in jeans and t-shirts. Just like any other part of the year.

Yesterday, I broke out one tunic/dress that I had only worn once. Today I'm wearing another dress that I had only worn once (but just had to have before I went to DC in June).

This article inspired me to commit to no new clothing purchases the rest of the year. It also inspired me to make a bigger commitment: seven outfits for the month of August. It's many more pieces than the people at Six Items or Less, but I'm looking at eight days travel for work, plus, it's freaking August in Nebraska. Hot, humid, sweaty. I don't want to be doing laundry every third day just because I sweat through them in one wear.

I also have to dress up for two work events, so that would also severely limit my options.

So seven outfits for 31 days. If you look at it this way, I only have to wear each one 4.428574 times AND I can mix and match. It should be easy. Then come September, I'll add in a few pieces. And a few more each in October, November, and December. By January 1st, hopefully I'll have a new outlook on consumption and clothing.

Anybody with me? I'm thinking about firing up the blog to keep track. And you know you miss my blog....

Crush

Current things I have a crush on...
Stephen Colbert
South Omaha
Well worn denim
Frozen Caramalicious from Scooters
Mojitos

NPR

How does your garden grow?

Happy Mothers Day weekend! I thought it would be the perfect weekend to get started on my gardening. I bought so many seeds this year and I should have started them indoors the middle of March or beginning of April but I didn't, because I was a slacker.

The weekend ended up being on the cool side, but it was sunny, so it was time to start, no more excuses. And I have to say, it was the perfect way to spend my Mothers Day weekend. There is a garden bed on the side of my garage that I completely ignored last year. It was totally covered with mulch but there wasn't a single plant in it. It grew weedy last summer and I did what any good home owner does when they are pressed for time - sprayed it with Round-Up.

This year, because I let my strawberry container plant freeze (and die) over the winter, I decided that it was time to dig out that bed and turn it into a strawberry patch. At the farmers market I bought four starter plants thinking the bed was only the size of a folding table. Wrong, it's like two folding tables long. Oh well. I'll use the other half for a mini garden this year and just encourage the strawberries to spread over the coming years.

I raked and (snow) shoveled out the old mulch, mixed up soil for garden beds with some Omagro compost and dumped it into the bed. I knew it was too cold to put in my plants, but all that beautiful dark soil was just sitting there. So I sowed my cold-weather seeds: spinach, carrots, and onions. The onion seeds are from last year though, so I'm not sure they'll take. If not, I'll order some new ones, but since onions are supposed to keep critters away from carrots and greens, I figured I'd give them a try.

Then I decided to Round-Up the weeds in the sidewalk cracks. (Just because I organically grow my own produce doesn't mean I enjoy pulling weeds out of the sidewalk. Blast 'em with chemicals I say.)

Then I cleaned out the large containers on my deck from last year and planted some sweet peas and covered the spinach I had already planted with tulle (trying to keep bugs away. They keep eating the leaves). I got a beautiful trellis at Lowes today for my peas. I hope they grow and climb this year. I didn't have very much luck with peas last year.

THEN, I also bought a pruning saw and managed to saw the two inch root of a dead or never blooming (rose?) bush in my front landscaping. That thing was the bane of my existence. Thorny but no flowers, riddled with vines, and when I tried to dig it out last year, it wouldn't budge. But I did sufficiently kill it as the branches were very dry. So I sawed that dang root and pulled it out of the ground. Victory was mine!!! I relished tossing it into my yard waste bin.

In its place I planted a tulip bulb from a plant I had bought at easter. The tulips and leaves died, but the sticker said I should be able to plant the bulb. We'll see if I get tulips next year.

What else did I do? Oh yeah, there's a funny patch in my front yard where there used to be a large tree. I put down some topsoil and some grass seed, but I didn't exactly follow directions, so we'll see if it takes or if I just made it worse.

I did put my herb plants into pots, but they got moved indoors because of the weather, along with some beautiful hanging baskets of purple flowers I bought on impulse yesterday. And the strawberry and bell pepper starter plants. My kitchen is a temporary indoor garden.

What a great weekend.

Everyone should have a bar in their house.

I have a fairly large dining room, but only an old formica table and some IKEA chairs. I still don't know what I actually want in terms of a dining room table, but I do know I would like more storage in the dining room. I'd like to keep my alcohol related drink-ware (martini, wine, and champaign glasses) and my liquor bottles in the dining room to free up space in the kitchen.

Right now the bottles sit on top of the fridge and the glasses take up valuable space in my cupboard. My brother is opening his own business building custom cabinets and other wood work. So I have this grand idea. I have an antique sewing cabinet that I currently use as a TV stand in my bedroom. Since the TV is old and no longer hooked up to cable, it's relatively

useless except to use as a VCR. We did use the VCR when my kids got hooked on movies before bed (in MY bed) but I nipped that in the bud and mostly, the TV sits dormant.

I'd love to have the cabinet turned into a sort of mini-bar. The top flips open which would be perfect because then when you are entertaining, you can set the glassware and an ice bucket (which I need) on the open lid. You could store the bottles underneath, and depending on the craftsman ship of my brother, the metal tray that lifts up (which used to hold a sewing machine) could be replaced to also become level with the top.

The problem is my brother lives five and a half hours away, but I'm heading home next week without my kids, which means maybe I could fit this in my trunk and hire him to spruce this piece up, then I would have more storage in my dining room and a perfect piece for entertaining.

Maybe he could make me a dining room table while he's at it...

Oh, Hello There

Well, I grabbed the Why Can't I Think Of Something Unique blogger URL just in case I want to get back to the blog. Some days I really miss it, and others, I'm glad that I'm not worrying about posting. But keep your eye on this page and bookmark it because I'm sure I'll start up again.