Day in the Life: August

 

Today's day in the life post covers a Wednesday in August! Enjoy!

Wednesday, August 24, 2022
The high today is 83 and it's supposed to be sunny.
Ryan is 43, Bekah is 44, Braeya is 16, and Lexi is 9 months old.

Midnight-6:00 a.m.

I have intense dreams about going to see Mina Hawk (star of Good Bones) for her to do my hair. She dyes it red and then goes home while the color is marinating, leaving me to figure out what to do from there. She also worked out of a theater in the middle of a symphony performance. W.E.I.R.D. May this not be indicative of my day. 

6:00 a.m.-Noon

* Ryan gets up to have some time with the Lord and to drink coffee. I drag myself out of bed a little while later and throw on a sweatshirt so we can take Lexi for a walk. The morning is promising to be pretty, and the temperature feels perfect. 

* Lexi is beside herself with joy over every single bunny and bird we see, and there are many. There are also a TON of cars out this morning. The neighborhood is NEVER that busy in the morning, but it is today. As I slowly wake up, Ryan and I talk about the day and other random things. We are almost back home when my phone alarm goes off reminding me to pray for a kiddo from our church. He has anxiety over school and I pray for him every morning around the time he gets on the bus.

* We get back home and Ryan gives Lexi her breakfast. He helps me make the bed and then gets ready for work. I get an egg out of the refrigerator to boil for his lunch. (We are sailing toward grocery day, so our meal options this week are kind of scrappy.) We just got eggs from our friends who have their own chickens, so the eggs are EXTRA good. I choose my coffee mug for the day, and the Be Still one seems appropriate, since I'll be writing for a retreat with that theme. I also pull out my new "Little Sis" tumbler my sister gifted me earlier this month to begin my water consumption. I'll need to drink at least six of these today. 

* I check to make sure the blog posted, hop over to Facebook to see the memories, and discover that it was on this day six years ago that a tornado went by our house in Kokomo. (This was the tornado that flattened the Starbucks, if you remember that.) That was not my favorite day! I had been in the middle of baking cookies for my mom's 80th surprise birthday party when the storm popped up from nowhere. Ryan came home from the hospital to get me to safety down there, since we didn't have a safe space in our house.

* While the egg continues cooking, I start making the rest of the salad for Ryan's lunch. It will be cheeseless today, since we ran out of cheese yesterday. Ryan makes his breakfast (a bagel with whipped berry cream cheese) and I take a break from lunch-making to post the daily social media post for Love INC. Today we are celebrating the new sign outside our office! It's PRETTY!

* I finish packing Ryan's lunch, including his love note, and I notice the dishwasher is full, so I start that before I forget about it. Before he leaves for work, Ryan works on my neck, which I have somehow strained AGAIN. I ask him if he can just stay home and work on it all day. It's a no. :(

* Ryan makes his tea (he's been drinking that some each day to help his throat since he's about to reenter the world of singing at church) and says goodbye to Lexi before taking off for work. After he leaves, I make my breakfast, which today is sourdough toast with organic peanut butter and jelly. I wipe out my first tumbler of water and move on to #2...and a second cup of coffee as well. 

* Ryan calls to let me know he's made it safely to work, and I ask him about a meeting for Love INC that I had forgotten to write in my planner. Ugh. It's the same time as the hair cut and color I just scheduled YESTERDAY. I send a wildly apologetic text to the stylist asking if she still has an opening the week before like she did yesterday. I hate making stupid mistakes like that and hate it even more when I have to admit them to people besides Ryan! (Thankfully the other opening is still open, and she doesn't mind switching me.)

* I get busy on my morning work, which today is all about writing! I am speaking at a women's retreat next month, and the church has chosen my Be Still theme. I haven't presented this one in several years, so I've been brushing up on the material over the last little while. Today is the final stretch, in which I need to combine the final two sessions into one. (This retreat theme is normally four sessions, but this group is only having three, so I have to combine.) 

* I write for about an hour and 15 minutes and then take a break to get another cup of coffee, a little trail mix, and check my email. While I'm responding to emails, my phone rings with an unknown number. I normally ignore those, but this one is local, so I pick it up. It's the builder for our house, wanting to talk about replacing our driveway. I give him Ryan's number and text Ryan to tell him to pick up the unknown call when it comes in. He does and then calls to update me. New driveway is apparently coming soon. 

* With all those things done, it's time to finally get ready for the day. I plug in my laptop to charge and head into the bathroom to take a shower and get ready. Lexi is sacked out on the couch watching a house hunting show, and Braeya is asleep on the bed. Wonder if Mina Hawk is doing her hair, too??

* I take a shower and wash my hair, but I decide to do it curly today. Not interested in spending the time to straighten it. While I do my hair and makeup, I listen to a Marco Polo my friend Justine sent me, and I send her an answer before I forget everything she said!

* I'm wearing a new shirt today. Ryan and I bought these from a friend who did a fundraiser to build a new house for her mother-in-law in Ethiopia! The houses on the shirt represent traditional Ethiopian huts, and the writing says "Love Your Neighbor." Ryan has one just like this, but his is gray. We love the shirts and were happy to be part of a good cause for someone in need. Lexi wants to cuddle for a while, and then it's time to cook lunch. I'm having leftovers from our breakfast-for-dinner meal last night, so I need to scramble a couple of eggs for myself. It's also time for water tumbler #3!

* The first egg I crack is a double yolk, which excites me WAY more than it should. It's the little things. Lexi is SO ready for lunch. (Braeya self-administers her food without overeating, so she can choose her meals at her leisure throughout the day. Lexi, like me, would never stop eating if left to her own devices. So she has to wait for meals.) 

Noon-6:00 p.m.

* I give Lexi her lunch Kong and finish warming up my leftovers. She eats in the living room by the couch, and I eat at the dining room table. We finish up just before Ryan calls. He usually calls after he eats his lunch at work. He tells me all about his morning and the work he caught up on after a busy afternoon yesterday. When his lunch hour ends, he hangs up, and I pause to take a pound of ground turkey out of the freezer so I can be ready for dinner later!

* I make a new cup of coffee in the Keurig. I'm sure I can fit it on top of the cold coffee left from this morning, but it ends up being a little fuller than planned. Whoopsie! I fill up water tumbler #4, and sit down for a quick brain break on Pinterest before resuming work.

* Since I have some time, I decide to do an out-loud run through of session #1 for the retreat. I time myself and land exactly where I thought I might, and I'm happy with it. It seems to flow, even after my tweaking, so I call that one done.

* I warm up the coffee again, sip some water, and decide I have just enough time to read session #2 before Ryan gets home. Our dining room is getting preached to today! 

* I finish reading the second session out loud, and my throat is raw when I'm done. I hope the neighbor lady out mowing didn't see me waving and pointing at the table in my practice session. I love and miss speaking; this has been so much fun to rehearse! 

* I warm up the coffee AGAIN and pull out the drying mats to unload the dishwasher before Ryan gets home. I reload it with the dishes in the sink and sit to play on Pinterest for a few more minutes until Ryan gets off work and calls. 

* He actually calls a little later than usual...says he had to stop and pick up his muffler, which fell off his truck on a country road! WHAT?!?!? We all hear him pull up to the house, and Lexi loses her mind with joy at the door, waiting for him to come in.

* I pull out the Ninja and make our fruit smoothies and Lexi gets her afternoon Kong snack to eat while I make our snack. 

* We drink our smoothies and change into workout clothes to head into the yard for a little work. As I'm changing, I discover Braeya has peed on the pee blanket outside her litter box (it happens sometimes now that she's older) so we throw the blanket in the wash. I fill up the tumbler for water #5 and head to the yard to pull weeds. 

* Ryan and I work for about a half hour on pulling weeds that are choking out the grass from growing. Part of the yard is easy and part of the yard is truly 95% weeds - so thick that we can't even find the root. Ryan moves to the backyard to rake up straw from our most recent planting effort and I come back inside.

* I decide to go ahead and knock out my workout and stretches while Ryan is working outside. The site I've been using lately, Faithful Workouts gives four options of workouts for each day. I like being able to choose based on how much time I have. Today I choose Advanced Interval Training, which offers circuits in which I do 15 reps, then 10, then 5, and then I move on. I'm sweating by the end of it!

* I switch the emergency laundry load to the dryer and peek in the office to turn on Rosie the vacuum. I thought yesterday was Wednesday, so it's possible I already ran her in Lexi's room a day early. But I set her to go in the office today, on the correct floor vacuuming day. We have a baby gate up at the office door, so it keeps her contained.

* I put away the dishes from the drying mat and decide to go ahead and make the sloppy joe meat for dinner. I'm not sure how much longer Ryan plans to work outside, but I'll have dinner ready whenever he is. And if it needs to simmer for a while, that's fine, too!

6:00 p.m. to midnight. 

* When dinner finishes cooking, I check on Ryan to see how he's doing out in the heat and sun. He's sweating and says he still has a lot left to do. I encourage him to come in, take a break, and eat dinner, so he does. I move Rose from the office to our bedroom, where she can also be corralled by a baby gate, and we sit to eat dinner. Sloppy joe for both of us, salad for me, and the rest of the leftover macaroni and cheese for Ryan. Lexi eats her dinner Kong while we eat our meal.

* After dinner, I fill up the water tumbler for #6, put our dishes in the dishwasher, and divide the rest of the meat for our lunches tomorrow. I put it in the refrigerator and realize the dryer isn't running anymore. I take all the pee blankets out and put them back in their places.

* Ryan sits at the table a while longer to watch Colts news on his phone, so I move into the office to do my writing prompts for the day. My main prompt says, "What sight caught your attention today?" My verse prompt is from 1 John 3:13 and says, "A prayer for courage..." I set the timer on my phone to keep track of my time and launch in to writing for about 10 minutes on each one.

* Ryan goes back out to finish raking up his straw piles, and I write the love note for his lunch box tomorrow. Then I settle in to work on my Bible study. Tonight, I am starting the study of Genesis chapter 28, and I'm doing all the color-coded markings on my study page!

* Ryan calls it quits on the yard work, and we go out for our evening walk. We're so busy talking about what we're learning in Bible study that I totally forget to take a picture, but I grab one of the sunset when we return. 

* I am done thinking for today, so I sit on the couch and do a little web surfing with water tumbler #7. Ryan takes a shower. When he's all cleaned up, we make our evening cups of coffee. Ryan washes up the pans that are in the sink, Lexi has her final snack Kong of the night, and we settle in on the couch. We each have a little bowl of trail mix for a snack. 

* We start watching Without a Trace, which we never watched back in the years it originally aired. We are still in season one, and we end up watching TWO episodes. (I could stay up all night watching!) In between shows, I download a book on my Kindle. It's called RVing Across America, and it's written by an author I follow on Instagram. I saw earlier today that the book was free on Kindle today, so I wanted to download it before the sale ran out. (Alyssa and her husband, Heath, took a year long honeymoon and traveled through all 50 states in their RV. I probably don't need to tell you why I want to read it!)

* Ryan falls asleep during the second episode of Without a Trace. I finish up the blog and pull up my journal to write about the day before I get too tired. 

* Ryan wakes up and moves into the kitchen to do the last minute chores before bed. He refills Lexi's meal Kongs for tomorrow and sets the coffee pot to be ready when he wakes up. We put Lexi to bed and head off to sleep too. We're pooped! :) 

Unwinding

Back in June, I started writing every single day from specific writing prompts. I've told you about them before, but I haven't mentioned them lately. I do two prompts every day. One is random and one is from Scripture. I write for roughly ten minutes from each prompt, and this practice has become one of my favorite parts of the day. Even on the days when the random prompt feels like it doesn't apply to me at all, I have a lot of fun exploring the topic and seeing what comes out as I type.

The other day the prompt was this: describe your favorite way to unwind at the end of a long day.

I could have answered in one word, and surprisingly it wasn't coffee. :) 

Pinterest.

There are actually many things I enjoy doing at the end of the day, and often my days end with a combination of several things.

Though I am not really an app girl, I do have a word game app on my phone that I enjoy playing a few times each evening. Coming up with the words to complete the puzzle is a good exercise fro my brain.

Ryan and I have just started watching our way through the old TV show Without a Trace (how have we never watched it!?!?) and we like to see an episode or two of that if we have time.

Of course, we take Lexi for an evening walk if the weather is good, so that's part of our routine.

I do some writing, scrapbooking, Bible study, or reading - though typically not all of them in the same night. 

But when EVERYTHING is done, I love to wind down with Pinterest.

I have so many boards that are completely random. Some are dreams and ideas that I absolutely know will never happen in my life, but they're still fun to build and learn about by searching for articles and ideas. 

I can choose a topic and get lost in it for as long as I wish, and if it starts to bore me, I can put it aside and research something else. 

I can find ideas for the Saturday Six...remodel a room in our house...style some outfits...open a restaurant...teach a class...get a whole new hairstyle...anything I want. And it's all free, and none of it is permanent. 

Perhaps the real answer to the way I like to unwind at the end of a long day is dreaming. Pinterest is merely my dreaming outlet. But I love it, and I am thankful for all the grand ideas and even real experiences it has allowed me to know since I first found it a decade or so ago. 

(Fun side note: I don't know when I first found Pinterest or started using it, but I do know that I did not have a board for our wedding, so even if I had an account then, I wasn't really immersed in it for wedding planning purposes!)

Anyway! How would you answer the writing prompt question? What is your favorite way to unwind at the end of the day?

Staple Dresses

Please make note of the fact that I did give you a break from wardrobe talk for a few days. :) But I had a request to share some specifics about what I've been doing in wardrobe-land, so I thought I would start that project today!

Last week, when I talked about some of the lessons I learned from the class I took online, I shared that I made some inspiration boards to help me plan for what I want to fill my wardrobe with going forward. I made lists of what kinds of clothing I'd need in different areas of my life. And while I'm aware that one of my first orders of business should be to remove things that need to go, I started by buying a couple of new things just to get me excited about what I'm doing.

My hope is to pull as much from the world of hand-me-downs and thrifted clothing as I can, but I know there will be times when I need to get something that is new to me, both for the joy of having something new and to be careful to get what actually fits me best, both literally and figuratively.

A new dress was a staple item on my wish list. I wanted something dressy enough to wear to church, when speaking to a group, or to work, but I also wanted something casual enough for a simple date or friend meet-up. I wanted it to be comfortable and versatile enough to be mixed and matched with sweaters, scarves, leggings, belts...you name it. 

I found this dress on my Pinterest search:

Source

I really liked everything about it. I liked the length, the sleeves, the defined waist, the scooped neck...all of it. And I could easily see it being styled different ways so many outfits could come from this one piece. 

(Here are some ideas of what I mean. And here are a few more.)

So I set out in search of a dress similar to the one above, and I found it! Here it was in my try-on. What...do you not model outfits in your garage?

I love it that the dress feels like pajamas and has a defined waist (that is AT the waist, so it doesn't look like a maternity dress on me). It has POCKETS, which was high on my wish list, is lighter weight fabric, and can easily be part of a different ensemble.

I wore it for the first time at the Collingsworth Family concert, and that may have been the most comfortable I've ever felt at a concert!

I have a similar dress that is all black that I bought right around the time Ryan and I were married. I still wear it ALL THE TIME, almost a decade later. (I also plan to keep it in my going-forward clothing life.) My hope is for this new striped one to have as much life left in it as the plain one does. The older one, unfortunately, does not have pockets, but otherwise, it's every bit as comfortable and delightful as this one. (I guess Ryan wears the same shirt all the time. Ha!)

I spent so much time learning about colors for my clothing, and ironically, black is not one of the colors recommended for me, but I do love some classic black clothing, so I'm keeping it as one of my neutrals. 

So this was the first official new purchase of the wardrobe project. I love it, and I am excited to start mixing up the styles to see what I can pair with it!

The Other Side of the Mic

I think most of you know that I speak at events whenever the Lord opens the door for me to do so. Usually they're women's conferences and retreats, and I really enjoy serving in that capacity. (I actually have a retreat next month, and I can't wait!)

But this past weekend, I stood on the other side of the microphone!

The county next to ours had a women's conference, and I was able to be part of the planning committee and part of the behind-the-scenes work during the conference itself.  I was in charge of the registration table the morning of the event, and then I stayed in the entry area of the church for the remainder of the day to answer questions, point to bathrooms, and be helpful in any way I could find.

The decorating committee had done a fantastic job of making a beautiful atmosphere! I didn't get around to each room to get pictures, but I know they made a photo booth and decorated the lunch tables with fresh cut flowers that were so pretty! They had made a beautiful backdrop on the stage, and the doors to the sanctuary had beautiful hydrangeas outside them. That was my view all day, and I was NOT sorry about it. 

They had really fun door prize baskets, and I enjoyed watching the winners pick their prizes after their names were called!

I didn't get to hear much from the speakers because I was typically running around during other things while they spoke, but I did sing very quietly with the worship team!

Ryan came to help serve lunch and run some slides, so that made the day extra fun!

I really enjoyed getting to meet people I hadn't met from our church - and some from other churches who came to join ours for the day. I enjoyed hearing stories and learning more about them.

When I was little, I thought the ushers had the best job in church, so I sort of had the chance to do that job for a day! 

PS...I did not eat all this food! I just posed with the snack table!

Sunday Sentiments

 

It's been a busy August here in the Shaffer household. The pace at Love INC has picked up, which is a very good thing, but it's also kept us hopping! 

We had a little getaway with my family last weekend to celebrate all the milestones. Yesterday I served at a women's conference at our church. I had a writing assignment to complete as well, and I've been working on a retreat I'm speaking at next month.

Ironically, they chose my Be Still topic for their retreat. 

It was one of the first retreat topics I ever wrote and is still one of my most favorite to share. But I've noticed God always schedules it when I need the reminder more than anyone. 

Isn't He good like that?

Even in all the busyness of the past few weeks, I have been grateful for the opportunities He's given me to be still in my everyday. 

I've been sneaking away into the office almost every evening to do my Bible study at my desk, where it's good and quiet and I can focus on the words. Ryan and Lexi spend that time out in the living room, watching TV or playing together, and I'm able to sit, uninterrupted, and truly be still. 

We finally were able to put our porch furniture back out this week (sprinklers can be pulled farther back now, so the furniture isn't living in a constant bath) and we sat out there for a sunset, being still while we listened to crickets and random neighborhood dogs.

And you know what else we did this week to practice being still?

A picnic lunch.

We took a picnic lunch to work and drove to a park to eat and then watch the clouds. We stretched out on a blanket for every spare minute we had in our lunch hour, and we watched all the clouds as they rolled by. 

I appreciated every moment of that lunch. I loved being with Ryan, but I also loved just being. 

If you haven't taken time to be still lately, I encourage you to carve out some time for it. It is refreshing to the soul! 

The Saturday Six

 

In honor of my parents' 68th wedding anniversary today, I thought I would share some anniversary ideas. You know that Ryan and I love to celebrate (anything and everything, really) and I'm always on the lookout for inspirational ideas! So here are a few ideas just for funsies today! 

One.

I saw this idea on this post (which also has several other ideas if you want to pilfer through it) and agree it's a great idea. The idea is to go out for breakfast rather than dinner on your anniversary. It can usually save you money, and it's just different! Ryan and I have gone out for breakfast several years on our anniversary, and I have loved that. (Even though I don't really do mornings.) We really love breakfast food anyway, and this way we are able to relax more in the evening. We have a lot of traditions we do on our anniversary, including watching our wedding video, writing letters to each other, and looking at our wedding pictures, so it's nice to have a leisurely evening at home (or wherever we're staying) to enjoy those traditions. 

Two.

This post also had some really creative ideas for celebrating your anniversary, and I found a gem in there that we haven't tried yet. (We haven't tried it at all - anniversary or not.) A progressive dinner! Doesn't that sound fun? I already have this year's trip planned, but I might file away that idea for next year. This works great whether you're staying home or you're away on a trip. Perfect way to try out fun new-to-you places!

Three.

Much like this lady, I immediately started planning our vow renewal party (for our tenth anniversary) right after we got home from our wedding! Even though we decided together to celebrate our anniversaries together each year (and on the actual day) making that sort of a party impossible, I still love the idea of a vow renewal...and who knows!? Maybe we'll make that part of our own day on our tenth! I love what this couple did, though, to renew their vows on their tenth. Super cute party!

Four.

Here is a cheat sheet to the traditional anniversary gift themes in case you need to give someone a gift sometime! Ryan and I have almost completely stuck to this list (almost) and I have loved all the gifts I've given and received! 

Five.

Ironically, most of the traditions we have regarding our anniversary happened completely by
happenstance. I actually did not set out to make them happen purposely. (I haven't always been ultra-organized.) I love the traditions we do have and am so happy they accidentally took place! Here is a post with some ideas for traditions to start. Whether you choose these or others, I absolutely encourage traditions for the win! 

Six.

I may have to turn this one into a blog post before our anniversary rolls around. And I might have to see how many of these answers I know about my own parents! Here are some fun questions to ask about the anniversary couple!

Sixty-Eight

Tomorrow is my parents' 68th wedding anniversary. That's 816 months, in case you want to know. 

(They were clearly married VERY young, right?)

It feels like a very rare thing for a couple to be married 68 years. If I make it to that milestone, I'll be 102 years old. I suppose it's possible, but the potential for much quality of celebration seems minimal. ;)

This is one of the milestones we celebrated last week when we went to Shipshewana for our family getaway. I thought I'd share a few pictures of them today in honor of tomorrow's big event!

And one from a few weeks ago when they came to visit/see Lexi:

Happy anniversary, Mom and Dad! Thanks for setting forth an example of perseverance in good times and in bad!

We love you!

Ryan, Bekah, Braeya, Lexi

Wardrobe Updates: Learning Myself

 I promise not to write about clothes for days on end. But I wanted to write a follow-up to yesterday's post, because it was an important next step in this project I've been working on for several weeks.

If you missed yesterday's post, you can read it here. I shared about reevaluating my actual clothing needs for this season of my life, which look very different for me than some previous seasons.

My next assignment from the Putting Me Together class was to begin scouring Pinterest to look for inspirational ideas. Her suggestion was (essentially) to think about a particular scenario and then look for outfits you think you would want to wear in that scenario. I made a secret Pinterest board that I named Style Profile, and I fille it with a sub-board for reach of the categories I named yesterday. Then I searched for outfits I might like in each of those categories.

For the most part, I didn't stumble upon any surprises in this part. I know myself well enough to know what kinds of clothing I like and don't like. My preferences are just that...my own preferences. For example, I don't like joggers, so those didn't show up in any category - even lounging at home. I also don't like rompers, because I don't think they work well with my body type. I do like dresses with a defined waist, because swing dresses make me look pregnant. (And I'm not.) I don't like cold shoulder shirts. I don't like super heavy clothing, because I get too hot.

I spent a week or so using my free time to look for outfits and build my boards. I had a lot of fun with this part, too. It's fun to look at clothes and get ideas for how to style different outfits. 

My next assignment was to begin to learn about what colors work with my skin tone. This was surprising to me. I've always worn a lot of jewel tones, and I like them. I'm pretty pale by nature, and I've always felt like those colors brighten up my life. But after doing some study on my skin tone, hair color, and eye color, I learned that I actually should lean more toward softer, muted versions of those jewel tones. Pink is good, but not hot pink. Soft pink. Same for blue, green, and purple. It's not as harsh, and as I've begun to try it, I've learned it's true! It's a more natural look for me. So...yay! I learned something new!

Then I began to think about the specific functionality I wanted my clothes to have. Confused? Let me explain.

Last summer, on our way home from our big vacation, Ryan and I spent a day in Casey, Illinois. You might remember that: small town of big things? It was a fun day of seeing the touristy spots, but we also stopped in a boutique so I could do some shopping. Ryan bought me a pair of workout leggings from their clearance rack, and I love them. I have other workout pants (that are a decade or so old), but these pants have a pocket. Did you hear me? A POCKET! I can slide my phone down in it before I go out for a walk. It is a bigger game changer than I could have imagined. 

What I learned from that purchase is that I want all my future workout pants to have a pocket. I need a place to put my phone!

The same goes for dresses. If I can find dresses with pockets, I want them! (I feel like more dressmakers are putting pockets in them these days, so yay!)

I'm also learning that for most of my clothing, I no longer want a V-neck. Not only do they tend to stretch out and look strange, but if the V is very deep, it doesn't really look appropriate for me. I don't want to be up in front of a women's event and feeling self-conscious about my neckline. If I'm just hanging out at home, it's fine. But if I'm out and about, I want more coverage.

I also don't want super thin shirts. While I definitely appreciate the cool factor for my overheating self, if they're too thin, I have to wear a shirt under them, and that just makes me hotter!

It was exciting to learn all these details as I created my lists. 

Once I had all this knowledge under my belt, I started creating wish lists of specific clothing pieces I want to get. Sometimes I looked for the exact pieces I found on Pinterest. Other times I looked for something similar.

From here, my plan is as follows:

* Go through my present wardrobe and remove anything that is no longer a good fit for me. This would include things that literally don't fit my body, but it also includes things that are not flattering colors or cuts for me. It includes things that look worn or are just very, very old. 

* I frequently receive hand-me-downs, and I love that. Anytime I can get clothing for free, it's a win! But I am pushing myself to be very considerate of what I keep from freebies. I've learned that for me, several of my poor choices over the course of my adult life were pieces I wore because they were free. Merely being free doesn't make it the right choice. I keep my guideline lists and color information on my phone so I can know quickly what works.

* I want to continue to shop second-hand as much as I can. It's important for us to be as frugal as we can be across the board right now, and this includes clothing. Buying super expensive clothing is not realistic for me. Replacing everything at once is also not possible. But again: just because something is on sale or at the Goodwill doesn't mean it's a good choice for me. I want to be a good steward with this project!

* Be thorough in my research and selection about new pieces. I do want some things that are new to me. I want to be able to mix and match how I wear those pieces, and I want my purchases to be flattering in cut and color. I want them to be functional and comfortable, too. It's a lot to ask, I know.

So this is what I've been learning! It's been a fun summer project. I've already gotten a couple of new pieces, and I'm excited to see how they mix and match with other things along the way. (Doing this right before fall/winter and the seasons of layering seems like the most fun!) 

Wardrobe Updates: Making Category Lists

 Back in 2015, right after I left WBCL, I spent my days cleaning, organizing, and purging our house. We had so. much. stuff. We had crammed two complete households into one small house without having time to really look through, sort, and make sense of it all. It took me several weeks to weed through all of it, and we had a giant rummage sale that ended up paying for a vacation! (Woot woot!)

One of the things I worked on in that time was my closet. I had just learned about capsule wardrobes and how you could make multiple outfits with just a few key pieces if you were strategic about it. So I worked on that and for several years, I lived the capsule wardrobe life. 

In reality, I still don't have that many clothes. Our walk-in closet in our room holds both our clothes with plenty of room to spare. But despite the smaller size of my wardrobe contents, I have strayed from the idea of a capsule wardrobe. I have not necessarily kept up with things that can be easily mixed and matched. 

So I found myself back in the same old boat from 2016. Lots to wear with nothing to wear.

But it was more than that, actually. It wasn't just about the inability to mix and match without looking like I got dressed in the dark. I realized for the first time in 44 years that I have never truly sat down to make sense of what kinds of clothing pieces make me feel my very best. 

I took a free wardrobe class from Putting Me Together (I shared it on the Saturday Six a while back, but here's the link again) that took about an hour to listen to. I learned many things from Audrey in that class, but she put heavy emphasis on understanding that the reason we have so many clothes we don't wear is because we aren't buying the right clothes to begin with. We buy things because they're on sale and they seem like a good deal. We buy things for a single purpose event. We don't stop to think about the cuts of clothing that flatter us. We don't think about the colors that work best with our skin tones. We just buy without much consideration, and then we hate what we buy and never wear it.

Another thing she said that really hit me was that most women (people, really, but her target audience is women) don't ever update what they're doing in life that drives their wardrobe choices. The example she gave was that a few years earlier in her life, she had a job that required a business casual dress code in the office. She was also in a season of life where most of her friends were getting married, and she attended weddings on the regular. Fast forward a few years...and she was working a new job that actually was much more causal. She didn't have nearly as many weddings to attend, but she did have kids of her own running around the house. Because of those changes, many of the clothes she wore often before weren't getting much wear, and she needed something different to fit her new season of life. 

Well, that has certainly been true for me! Since the great closet cleanout of 2016, I have been a stay-at-home wife, been a public speaker, been a writer, worked in a church office, worked from home at WillowBridge, and now I'm working a hybrid schedule - some in the Love INC office and some from home. My clothing needs have changed often, haven't they? But you know what hasn't changed? My clothing.

In the class I took, Audrey encouraged making a list of every clothing scenario from present-day life to reevaluate actual needs. I had way more fun with this than I probably should have, and I also learned a lot about myself in this process. So today (after this world's longest topic introduction), I want to share with you the list I made of potential types of clothing styles I would need and what I learned in the list-making.

Note: my categories are in no particular order.

1. Neighborhood walks. Really, Bekah? Does this need to be a category? Well, it does, because we do it a lot! We walk Lexi twice a day (weather permitting) and sometimes take additional strolls down the River Greenway, etc. I feel like most of the time, I look like I just rolled out of bed (because in the morning, I actually did) or I haven't updated my clothes in a decade (because in many cases, I have not). We learned early on that the fastest way to meet people in your neighborhood is to have a dog. People actually talk to you when you have a dog. They don't so much when you're just out walking. We've met a TON of our neighbors through our walks. And so far, my first impressions have been 100% raggedy, not 100% cute. It wouldn't kill me to try a little harder before stepping outside my home to meet my neighbors!

2. Work from home. I learned during the pandemic (as have many of you, perhaps) that I take my work more seriously when I don't work in my jammies. Getting dressed in SOME fashion helps me feel more purposeful. Also...we have one neighbor who drops by periodically to share food or say hi, and without fail, I look homeless every time she comes over. Having comfy clothing that looks like actual clothing is a goal for me when working from home. 

3. Work out at home. I do not currently have a gym membership, so I do my workouts at home. The blessing of that is that it really doesn't matter what I look like, because only Ryan, Braeya, and Lexi see me. It doesn't matter if my clothes fit well or are too tight or too loose. You don't have to look cute to sweat. That's a fact. But it's also a fact that if you feel better about yourself when approaching a workout, you're more likely to DO the workout. 

4. Work from the office. Love INC doesn't have a stringent dress code, and for this I am thankful. But there is a tricky balance to strike when going to work. On one hand, I want to look well-dressed and put together, because sometimes we meet with churches, pastors, or businesses in town. I want to represent our work well and be taken seriously in those moments. But one thing I did learn from my years at WillowBridge is that when you're working with those living in poverty mindset, looking too polished can be off-putting to them. They can feel like you're too aloof and not relatable if you are too dressed up and fancy. So I'm working to find options that fall in the middle of these two needs when it comes to the days I work in the office.

5. Dates and meet-ups with friends. Of course, I want to look cute for Ryan when we go out on dates! And though I don't do a ton of this, I do meet up with friends for coffee now and then. Usually both the dates and the meet-ups are more on the casual side, rather than being super dressy events, but I still want to look cute and confident when I go!

6. Church and speaking engagements. I know that dressing up for church is not as typical as it was when I was growing up. When I was little, men always came to church in suits and ties, and women always wore dresses, hose, and heels. While I am not mourning the loss of the hose, I do try to dress up a little more for church than I do for anything else. It's a personal conviction and not something I expect everyone around me to do. The same is true for speaking engagements. Most of mine are at women's retreats and conferences, and honestly, anymore, nice jeans are acceptable there! But I usually dress up a bit more than that...again, just a personal conviction. Still, the need to dress up doesn't run over into a semi-formal level.

7. Lounging at home. I laughed at this one at first, but it actually also made me feel pretty convicted. When I'm at home and not planning to go anywhere, I find that I'm spending most of my time in my most-loved clothes. And by that, I mean most worn-out. The oldest and most faded t-shirts leftover from a decade ago. Shorts that need to be thrown away. It's pretty bad. (You'd think that greeting my local fire department in such garb twice in the last three months would have pushed me faster, but it hasn't.) I thought about it and realized my time at home is when I spend the most time with Ryan. You remember Ryan, right? The man I love more than anyone else in the whole world? The one I want to look my best for? And yet he usually sees my worst options on the daily? EEK!!!! That was when I realized there is nothing wrong with finding some cute clothes for hanging out at home. He deserves to see so much better than what he usually sees.

8. Writing. This last one was a late-added category. I've started doing more writing again, and while there is certainly not a uniform for it, I have found some cute t-shirts with writing phrases on them that would be fun to have for the days when I'm donning my writing hat full time. 

So, these are my categories! These are the ways I spend my days. Not every day includes every category. Some of the categories actually dip into the same kind of clothing as another one. But these are the things I want to keep in mind as I consider the ways I want to craft my wardrobe. 

If you're in need of an overhaul too, I highly recommend sitting down to think through a list like this for yourself. It's more helpful than you'd think! And if you have an hour to spare, take the class over at Putting Me Together. It really is helpful - and free!