What I Wore This Week Archives - Page 82 of 88

What I Wore This Week

February 6, 2017Sara Leave a Comment

The top photo is of the book I was talking about a few weeks back. The drawings in it are amazing and really great outfit inspirations. You should check it out even if you can’t speak Japanese or French, the drawings speak for themselves.

We went on the weekend to fill Roo’s eye glasses prescription (there was a slight improvement so yay!) and while we were there Tom decided that he would get his eyes checked so he could get some glasses (neither him nor I have bought new glasses in years. We are long overdue) and the eye doctor noticed that he had a hole in his eye (sounds gross but it’s only something you can see with ophthalmologist tools and special lights). They said that it has been there for years and that it is probably from wearing his daily contacts for more than a day before tossing them, which is something I have warned him about a million times but that is another story. She said to give contacts a break for a few months and she will see if it heals when he comes back. As soon as I heard that I thought Fuck. He’s going to milk that for as long as he can.

This is what my future is going to look like:

Me: “Hey Tom can you….”
Tom: “I can’t do that because I have a hole in my eye.”

Me: “Your laundry didn’t quite make it into the bin.”
Tom: “That’s because I have a hole in my eye.”

I’d ask you to pray for me but I’m not religious.

I had one of those moments at the mall last week wear you see something that you want to buys so badly but know you don’t need it. So you muster up the willpower to walk out the store and decide that if you still want it that much in a few days you would consider buying it. I have been really, really good with my clothing purchases lately. I’m proud of how pared down my wardrobe is (it’s like 1/4 of what it was 3 years ago) and have been very stringent in keeping it at certain number of items but I have loosened those reigns somewhat. I gave myself permission to shop a little as long as I make conscious purchases vs impulsive. If I find myself impulsively shopping again I will tighten those reigns again. It’s kind of like a diet, if you try to remain to a too strict regime you will end up resenting it and probably rebelling. I ended up buying the shirt (Floral embroidered top above) and actually dreamt about the shirt that night (lame, I know) so I figured I made a good choice.

If anyone remembers my struggles I was having finding a secular science curriculum for Roo (we homeschool). We have found success with Ellen McHenry’s stuff. We just wrapped up The Elements and are moving on to The Brain next week which I am sure Merle will also enjoy because she loves learning about the human body and tagging along for studies. So if anyone is looking for a great, fun, and in-depth science program that is secular this one scores high for us. Note that I buy most of my curriculum in PDF form because I like the fact that I can load them on my iPad and print them as many times as I want so I can’t comment on shipping.

My Ancestry DNA just switched to “processing” today which is exciting. I have no idea how long that step takes, but the results comes next.

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What I Wore This Week

January 30, 2017Sara Leave a Comment

I’m going to premise this by saying that this is a generalization. This in no way applies to everyone, but I found it was relevant to my personal experience which is why I am talking about it. This totally makes it seem like a big deal topic buts it not, it’s just about clutter 😉

I was sitting around my condo yesterday trying to clean and organize it but it felt like no matter how much I seemed to do there was no progress being made because there was just so much stuff. It made me think of something I read recently about how there is a correlation between lower-income people (or people who have experienced substantial periods of being low income) tending to be more “hoarders” than people who grew up well off. People who have lived their lives comfortable without any financial worries are able to embrace and instil very minimalistic living space with a lot less effort or personal conflict. They say this is because if you don’t have much you tend to hold on to things. You hold on to stacks of old books, linens, dishes, have emergency food supplies just in case money gets low, keep broken things because you can “repair” them (even though we all know how often you actually repair something when you say you will). It’s harder to let things go because this is the sum of your wealth, your assets. The physical evidence of where your money has gone. It is hard to part from them because of the sacrifices you made to buy them. The sense of accomplishment or success you might have felt after saving for them. They were goals, aspirations, and achievements and the thought of getting rid of something with such emotional ties when you are used to instability is frightening.

This kind of resonated with me. I truly believe that growing up lower-income and really struggling financially for the first 10 years of our marriage makes it hard for us to get rid of things. I am constantly overwhelmed by the amount of stuff that we have sitting around and would love to just load up a truck to get rid of it all (or move and bring nothing so we can start over) out it’s easier said than done. When it comes down to it I find myself second guessing my choices. Refolding and placing back on a shelf the items that I so easily tossed into our donation bag we keep by the door just a few days earlier. Things that have worn out their usefulness are now just hanging around adding to the clutter in case the find another use. I have caught Tom more than once buying things for the girls because he can and not because they need it and I think it’s because there were so many times we had to say no because we couldn’t afford it. There has been only one area in my life that I have successfully been able to pare down and that has been with my wardrobe. Even that took a long time and many separate culls because I still had/have difficulty letting things go. Everything else is a constant work in progress. I can go open a drawer in any room of the house and find things that can easily be tossed and no one would be the wiser but I find myself just slowly shutting the drawer because “you never know”.

I have read several books on decluttering and cleaning and they all make sense. I just find myself having difficulty applying them to my life. I visit the unf*ck your habitat website often, have their app (which is called Unfilth Your Habitat. I guess the F word isn’t as marketable) and they have book now.

Here is the book description from their page:

Unf*ck Your Habitat: You’re Better than Your Mess is the housekeeping and organizational system developed for those of us who’d describe our current living situation as a “f*cking mess” that we’re desperate to fix. Unf*ck Your Habitat is for anyone who has been left behind by traditional aspirational systems: The ones that ignore single people with full-time jobs; people without kids but living with roommates; and people with mental illnesses or physical limitations, among many others. Most organizational books are aimed at traditional homemakers, DIYers, and people who seem to have unimaginable amounts of free time. They assume we all iron our sheets, have linen napkins to match our table runners, and can keep plants alive for longer than a week. Basically, they ignore most of us living here in the real world.

Now that sounds right up my alley. In fact I am ordering the Kindle edition right now. No need to add more book clutter 😉

*There really wasn’t much point to this post than me realizing that our struggles with clutter might be directly linked to our past financial struggles and I had a light bulb moment. Now that I made the connection I am consciously trying to work through those issues.

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What I Wore This Week

January 23, 2017Sara 6 Comments

Another week down and it felt like it passed and was very unproductive. My firsty first illness in a while took me down hard and things seemed to fall to the wayside this week. Today I have no voice which I guess the kids are rejoicing in but it’s frustrating not being able to talk loud if need be. I have two massive piles of laundry on either side of me right now waiting to be folded. I hate folding laundry although I would rather do that than clean a bathroom (anyone want trade?). I don’t even want to get in to the rest of the place. It’s amazing how quick things go downhill when you aren’t consistently maintaining them. And to top it off I can’t take a lot of medicines because of weird reactions/side effects like hyperactivity at night, but drowsiness during the day, jumpy legs, and just overall sketchiness, so I have to take children’s cough medicine to lessen the effects even though it is much less potent. Here’s to a healthier week.

My package from Mango arrived late last week and I am really happy with all the pieces. The cropped jeans are actually cropped on my 5’3″ frame without needing any other shortening (the aren’t as cropped looking as they are on the model but they don’t look like I am trying on kids pants). There is zero snow on the ground at the moment which is so unusual for us but I have taken advantage of that and wearing a lot of seasonally inappropriate clothes as my rebellion against winter 😉 I’m sure it’s going to come back and hit us full force in no time but I am enjoying it while I can. Currently it is windy and raining and is more reminiscent of October weather than January.

I’m on a British drama show kick at the moment. Do you have any good ones that can recommend?

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What I Wore This Week

January 16, 2017Sara 2 Comments

Merle has had two back to back colds over the last couple of weeks which I assume is from the extreme weather fluctuation of below freezing to above seasonal temperatures that seem to occur daily. I thought I got lucky and was in the clear from contracting either one but when I woke up at 6 Sunday to say goodbye to Tom as he left for work I told him he better not kiss me because my throat was really sore. I thought maybe it was from the dry air but it has stuck all day. I hope that it kind of just fizzles out without turning in to anything more.

Did anyone hit any of the good winter clear out sales online? I just had to pay a $500 hydro bill so needless to say I didn’t do much shopping last week, not even groceries. BUT before I realized how much the hydro bill was I did pick up a few things from Mango that haven’t arrived yet so I hope they work out. I picked up some “cropped” jeans (I put it in quotes because they probably won’t be cropped on me but one can hope since I want a pair in my wardrobe), a camisole, and a long cardigan. Of all the sweaters I have I don’t have along one, but I have looked for one for the last year.

I’ve also been eyeing the low Sam Edelman Petty Chelsea Boot in all black but I can’t seem to find a good price that ships to Canada. Sometimes they make it so hard to online shop here. I do like the Klash boot from Topshop though. They have great reviews (one being from a 60-year-old which rocks) and the price is amazing. I may give up my Chelsea boot search for these. They would also look awesome with the cropped jeans, you know, if in fact they are cropped 😉

Are any of you guys going to the Women’s March in DC on the 21st (or the Sister Marches in any other city worldwide)? I think this will be one of those iconic, pivotal moments, and I wish I could attend the DC march but not being American makes it hard. I can’t wait to see the turnout of women united across the world though. Stand together, stand strong.

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What I Wore This Week

January 9, 2017Sara Leave a Comment

When it’s Sunday night and your husband has been away working on site all week. You glance around with your outsider eyes and notice how bad the kids have kicked the shit out of the apartment. The apartment that you let slide because it is/was the last few days of Christmas vacation and you really didn’t feel like constantly cleaning while on holidays. With him due home any time you cringe, maybe weave some swear words together, then rally the troops (ie. the kids) who may or may not be very helpful. They have the tendency to start strong and then fizzle out to nothing when they get side tracked with missing toys, or are suddenly starving and perishing of thirst. Cleaning brings out the drama in everyone.

So I just cleaned the shit out of the place and now have to prep for school tomorrow. The girls are going to be pissed but I am amping up the work load since Roo is getting so close to high school age (I can’t believe it) shit is starting to get serious. I found 14 pencils when I vacuumed out the couch so we are off to a good start 😉

You know how you get sucked down holes when you are looking online? Like, you start searching something and then end up in a completely different universe? That happens to me on Wikipedia a lot, but today I started looking up slider recipes because I remember seeing one of those Facebook cooking videos that was “Sliders 4 Ways” which I neglected to save and couldn’t find, and somehow I ended up discovering a really cool fashion book. It is called The Fashion Sketchbook by Atsuko Kikuchi, and is written in Japanese. I kind of want it in the original language, but I found a French Version. It’s called Mon Fashion Sketchbook which will be easier for me too muddle through since I am studying French (no matter if I still suck). The writer/artist is on Instagram under the name oookickooo where she posts pages/art from the book. I jet spent a hour scrolling though and clicking on everything. I searched all over online trying to find a copy with a decent price and shipping which I found at bookdepository.com for $19 (Canadian) and free worldwide shipping. I buy from there a lot and I recommend them.

Side Note: My Ancestry DNA sample arrived at the lab so my mailing worries were for naught. Now to wait 6-8 weeks for my results 🙁

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What I Wore This Week and some Thoughts on the New Year

January 2, 2017Sara Leave a Comment

When I was young I thought at this age I would have it all figured out. I would have my shit together, confidence, and a mental maturity that seems like the epitome of grown up. What no adult tells you is that while physically you age, mentally you will still retain that 18-year-old self to an extent. While I may not give as many fucks anymore, I still hate making doctors appointments, ordering pizza, and entertaining(my small talk skills suck). They make me nervous and I literally have to write down what I am going to say so I don’t mess it up. For 2017 I want to try to get out of my comfort zone a bit. Maybe join a class, or a book club. I’d really like to take some college classes as well. We shall see.

While I am still learning French, it’s not as much or as focused as I would like so I want to change that. I also want to throw another language in to the mix. I’m thinking either Dutch, Swedish, or Danish. Rosetta Stone keeps sending holiday sale emails and it’s really hard not to order one. When it comes down to it there are so many other affordable or free programs that work just as well if not better but Rosetta Stone has a “fun” factor. Damn that user-friendly and fun interface 😉

My last area I would like to work on is my health and wellness. I need to smarten up and realize that I have reached an age where I have to seriously start taking care of myself. Self neglect is a bad habit to break and I have to try to find a workout regime that actually works for me. Any suggestion for someone who has to workout from home?

Do you have any goals or resolutions for this year?

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