The Purge: Step 1 of My Capsule Wardrobe

As I mentioned last month, I have decided to try a capsule wardrobe for winter. (For more info on what a capsule wardrobe click here.) Basically though, a capsule wardrobe is just getting rid of all the crap in your closet you don’t wear and leaving the pieces you wear all the time. Most of us probably wear a capsule wardrobe without realizing it, because all our favorite pieces are mixed in with all the ones that we keep meaning to wear but never do. Case in point: this dress has hung in my closet for almost three years now. Guess how many times I’ve worn it.

 Who guessed zero, because YOU get a cookie! There are dozens of pieces just like this dress taking up valuable closet space. Some pieces are vintage that I just had to have at the time but have never found an occasion to wear. Some are pieces from college days that I will never wear again. (I’m 29 years old, married, and live in a small town. I don’t need the same kinds of clothes I did back in college.) Some I have no idea why I bought in the first place! 

So before I could begin putting together my capsule wardrobe, I decided to do a giant purge of my closet. I laid out every item of clothing I own on my bed. Ok, let me be more specific. In this first round I did not include ALL the old t-shirts I own (they would have taken over. I have way too many t-shirts from high school and college still lurking about. I need to keep the ones I really like to make a quilt of and get rid of the rest. But that’s another project for another time) nor did I include the exceptions to my number (workout gear/underthings/etc). My first round of purging was just those items that were being considered for capsule wardrobing.

Here’s what I had:

 Yeah, that’s a lot of clothes. Do I need all of them? Absolutely not! So I started sorting. I started with three piles. LOVE. HATE. MAYBE. The hate pile was set to the side to either be sold or donated. I started with the Love pile. These were items that I loved and wouldn’t get rid of. I sorted these into three piles of their own. Capsule Wardrobe Ready which means that some will be in my winter capsule wardrobe, but the spring/summery pieces will go into storage until April. Too Big but Love pile will all go into storage until they are needed (I’m a realist). Too Small but Love will unfortunately also be given away or sold. Again, I’m 29 years old and haven’t had kids yet, so I’m probably the smallest I’m gonna be.

Once I took care of those sub-piles I moved onto Maybe. I took a good hard look at each piece and resorted them into Love, Hate, and Maybe again. Then I did the same process all over again. I had a few more Loves to store and to get rid of with the Hates, and then I had to go back to the Maybe pile. It was time to be ruthless. 

It took a couple hours, but I finally had all the pieces sorted. I had bags of clothes to get rid of, boxes to put in storage, and the pile of Loves ready to be placed into my capsule wardrobe.  

I gave myself a little break after getting my closet sorted out, and then I did go back and attack those things I excluded initially. All those accessories, underthings, shoes, workout gear, outerwear, etc. I’ll spare you the blow by blow on each, but let’s just say it took awhile to get through everything. I used the same Love, Hate, Maybe system though, and it worked swimmingly.

Now my closet is looking lean and clean and I’m loving it. I’ll be sharing the pieces that made the cut soon. If you simply can’t stand the anticipation, you can follow me on Instagram and see my daily outfits. I swear, I’m going to start posting them regularly!

Friday, I'm in Love: Podcasts!

Back when I lived in Dallas, I listened to podcasts constantly. I was working 60 to 80 hour weeks as a tax accountant, so listening to podcasts was a way for me to feel like I wasn't entirely wasting my life away in a depressing tan cubicle. I listened mostly to Christian podcasts, usually sermons from Matt Chandler or the pastors of the megachurch I attended. I would take notes on Post-Its when I wanted to remember something, and then go back to working on a tax return. When I quit tax accounting and moved back to Oklahoma, I pretty much gave up podcasts. It wasn't an intentional decision, but gradually I stopped listening to all of my old favorites.

I've been back in an office setting for nearly a year, but it wasn't until recently that I started listening to podcasts again. It was actually a post by Modern Mrs Darcy that inspired me to start listening again. She listed some of her favorite podcasts in a recent post, and I finally decided to check a few out. The first one I listened to was a podcast from Tsh from the Art of Simple. She was interviewing a local blogger that I love, Megan Tietz of SortaCrunchy. I've met Megan a couple of times and she is always lovely, so of course I loved the podcast. I started listening to more from Tsh, and now I can't stop! These podcasts used to be around an hour, but Tsh has mentioned keeping them under 45 minutes going forward.

A couple more podcasts Modern Mrs Darcy recommended were After the Jump and Beyond the To-Do List.  After the Jump is hosted by design blogger Grace Bonney (of Design*Sponge). She interviews lots of different members of the creative community and also covers some basic information everyone could use (avoiding procrastination, for example!). These usually last about an hour. And Beyond the To-Do List is hosted by Erik Fisher and explores productivity, and overall living a good life. These podcasts usually last between 30 minutes and one hour. I'm definitely loving After the Jump, but I'm not sold on Beyond the To-Do List yet. I'm going to give it another shot, though!

A favorite of mine that I found on my own is the History Chicks. I stumbled onto their podcasts when browsing podcasts in iTunes. And I totally love it. It's these two women who talk for about an hour about famous women of history in a way that is super easy to understand. Plus they always go over media at the end and there is usually a Doctor Who reference or two ;)

I've also been listening to Quick & Dirty tips from the Dog Trainer. These are super short (less than 5 minutes or so) tips on raising and training dogs. I'm not going to listen to all of these,  but several of them have been super useful to this new puppy mama!

I have several more downloaded and waiting to be listened to: You Need a Budget, TedTalks, Damn Interesting, This American Life, Eventual Millionaire, and more. I'll get to these eventually, but right now I'm working my way through the archives of my favorites I listed above!

What I love most about podcasts is that I feel like I'm actually multitasking well. I can learn about Cleopatra while cooking dinner; I can hear some great productivity tips while I sit in traffic on I-40. When I'm doing basic data entry at work, I can listen to simple living discussions. It makes me feel like I'm using my time well, and I definitely enjoy learning new things again!

Do you have any podcasts you listen to regularly? Or perhaps a better question, do you even listen to podcasts?

Living in the Imperfect Sometimes Means Living in the Mess

Last week I bought the Nesting Place by Myquillyn Smith. I've been reading her blog, The Nester, for awhile now, and I knew she had a new book coming out. Since my mom's birthday and Mother's Day were last week, I knew the Nesting Place would make a great present. And since I was ordering, I went ahead and ordered one for myself, too! You may have noticed there is actually a picture and link to it in the sidebar of the blog - I'm loving it that much that I think you should buy it too! But a word of warning: If you plan to order this book, DO NOT ORDER THE KINDLE VERSION. I know, I love my Kindle too. But this book is gorgeous. Trust me. You will want to have this book sitting on your bedside table. You will want to feel the weight in your hands as you flip through the beautiful color pictures. So do yourself a favor and order the hardback. Right now it's only about $3 more than the Kindle.

I mean, just look at that cover!

I haven't made it too far into the book yet, but it's already inspiring me. I love that she talks to renters - so many décor books seem to focus only on homeowners or people who live in those awesome apartments with exposed brick and ductwork. In fact, she inspired me to go ahead and put up the gallery walls I'd been planning to do! I'll share more on those next week, but here's a sneak peek I shared on Instagram earlier this week.

I have a lot more decorating plans, but before I can do that, I have to get the house back in shape! We're only a couple weeks post-wedding, and the house still has wedding remains everywhere. There are gifts that need to be exchanged (you only need so many dutch ovens and cooling racks), dozens of mason jars, vases, and antique bottles to be sorted through, and a giant roll of kraft paper that never even made it to the reception site. Not to mention the random flower stems that found their way into the corners and crevices of the living room while we were processing the boxes of fresh flowers we used for the wedding!

See, still a mess!

When we walked through the doors of our house after our honeymoon, I almost cried looking at the mess. But I decided to focus on the two rooms that I use the most: the kitchen and the bedroom.

When the kitchen is a disaster, I feel all out of sorts. In our house, we rarely use the front door. We come in through the garage and walk through the little laundry area into the kitchen. Nothing is more depressing than coming home from a long day in the office (not to mention a frustrating commute) and walking straight into a MESS.

So my first order of business after the honeymoon was getting the kitchen back in order. I had to shuffle the Griddler and toaster around to accommodate the GIANT cutting board my husband registered us for. I started a couple of garage sale boxes for the old stuff that we needed to get rid of to make room for our new stuff (yay for stainless steel pots and pans!). But most importantly, I cleared off the counters. Actually, the Nester did a whole post about the importance of an empty surface.

There's something about a straightened up kitchen that lets me relax. At least until it's time to cook dinner and mess it all up again!

Next, I tackled the bedroom. You could argue that I should've done the living room instead, because guests rarely see the bedroom. And we actually just bought a new couch and had to scramble to clear space in the messy living room when it was delivered! But I have a hard time sleeping when the room is a disaster. Often there are clothes littering the floor all the way between the closet and the bed (and we have a decent size en suite bathroom between the two!). Plus my darling husband is always bringing in Oklahoma's iconic red dirt with him, so the wood floors get disgusting super quickly. It's not fun to walk across your bedroom floor barefoot and literally feel the dirt stick to your feet! Usually all the bedroom really needs is clothes put away and the awesome Shark vacuum/floor cleaner run across it. Sidenote: My parents bought us the Shark Navigator for our wedding. It isn't the one we registered for; it's even BETTER than that one. The hardwood floor attachment is glorious and I actually use it more than the vacuum part. Plus it comes with a reusable cotton pad for the floor attachment that you just throw in the washing machine to clean, so no wasteful disposable pads!

Obviously there is still a lot of work to be done, but the house feels livable again. Now I need to figure out what to do in the living room. This massive sectional is going to mean a total rearranging of things!

And please forgive my photography - I'm working on it :)

This post contains affiliate links but I was in no way compensated for mentioning anything in this post. I just really like my new vacuum!