Category: Goals

Consumerism, Fashion, Goals, Style

A Week of Outfits: Saturday

“Black is the hardest color in the world to get right—except for gray…”
– Diana Vreeland

You have Katarina to blame for this project, ducklings, as this was an idea for a 101/1001 goal she suggested and I foolishly added it to the list. I then thought it would be a great way to write about some of my new goals around shopping my closet, avoiding new purchases for the rest of the year, and generally writing more honestly about my consumer habits.

Then, the stupid paranoia hit. I am terrible about having my picture taken (a side effect of that body negativity I wrote about the other day), and go out of my way to avoid being photographed because I always hate how I look in images. I think I’m hoping this project will help me get over that personal hurdle a bit. So I bit the bullet and dressed for the day one Saturday with the intention of kicking off this week-long project. Then, I took a look at my shots from day one and there we were, kicking off with an annoyingly unflattering image, given that I’m feeling pretty good about my my recent health and wellbeing progress of late. Anyway I present you a British day, blazing and gorgeous high summer, and myself, a column of gray and black.

Welcome to a week of outfits from me, your friendly neighborhood Emphatically-Not-A-Style Blogger.

The recent heatwaves have presented a challenge for many Londoners. Speaking for myself and based on the rigorous anecdotal research of my friends and coworkers, I can tell you that it turns out few of us have the wardrobe for this kind of heat. Most of the time, when you want this much sun and high temperatures for a sustained period, we leave the country for them! There is a reason Europe is effectively out to lunch for the month of August, this continent wasn’t built to deal with the heat and many of us flee for cities and countries with the infrastructure to cope or the topography to make the most of Vitamin D.

Dressing for work has been a chore. Almost everything I have that’s appropriate for the office feels too hot or too covered up for the thermostat, while the few summer items I own are almost strictly casual or weekend clothes. Juggling necklines and hemlines while also trying to not sweat through your clothes on an overpacked Tube on your commute is a puzzle. I’ve started taking a bus into central London just to avoid the worst of the crowding on hot days, with its accompanying irritation and smells.

I love cold weather clothing and it’s easily where I’ve invested the most money over the years. But this year I had to dip into my original goal of only purchasing 18 items (since exploded) to pick up some summer appropriate shirts and trousers…because I truly didn’t have enough hot weather options to put together presentable work outfits. I felt a bit silly but there it is.

Weekends I’m better equipped for, as I said.

I’m trying to wear dresses more often in general, so last Saturday I pulled out an old J. Crew jersey dress that I picked up years and years ago. It’s short enough to keep cool but has a crew neck which keeps me more comfortably covered and feels modern and sporty.

I own only two pairs of sunglasses, both of which I bought years ago and spent a bit more money on, on the theory that I’d take better care of nice ones than cheap crap. So far that’s proven a wise move and I’ve had these for nearly five years with nary an accident to report. In the summer I wear these aviators by Tory Burch and in the winter, I have a pair of Jackie O style frames from Ralph Lauren

Accessories are a hodgepodge. The trainers are from Muji, the necklace and bag are both vintage. I’m thinking of doing a whole post just on my collection of vintage and second hand pieces, and some recommendations for finding good deals and steals throughout London, let me know if that would be of any interest or just frivolous and boring.

The hair is straight up laziness personified. On hot weekends I often let my hair air dry rather than putting my head under an unwelcome blast of additional heat from a hair dryer, and the results are either charming and almost-French-girl looking…or scruffy. Today felt scruffy, alas. I slapped on some concealer, mascara and a bit of loose powder, all by Glossier, and a Bite lipstick and called it A Look.

Jeff and I spent the afternoon in Southwark. We wandered around Bermondsey Street and Borough Market before picking up groceries and heading home. And that’s Day One of Outfit week.

Lest any of you think I’m taking this or myself to seriously…

I still have no idea how to take a nice photo. Prepare for a week of ham and cheese, friends!

Goals, Health, Humor

It’s Not About the Numbers. But…

“To lose confidence in one’s body is to lose confidence in oneself.” 
― Simone de Beauvoir

The saying is true and bears repeating at the outset: health is not always about numbers on a scale. It is possible to be overweight and still fit and active, it is possible to be thin and still desperately unhealthy. The numbers on a scale are just one way to measure certain information about yourself.

But that being said…I’m really proud of this number:

This has been a year of a lot of dedicated health changes for me, in fact I just did a recap  so I don’t have to go into too much detail here about the specifics. But I did want to write about my weight because it’s something that I’m shallow enough to say has bothered me.

I have never been a naturally thin person. In fact, I’d classify my body as pretty normal overall. I’m shortwaisted, but I do have a normal-ish hourglass figure and not too far off the standard deviation besides that. I had a sweet tooth growing up which has morphed into a salt tooth and carb…face…in adulthood. My metabolism slowed down in my late 20s, once again a totally normal thing. Slowly over time a pound added itself on my frame, a bit here and a bit there, until at the end of last year I was the heaviest I’ve ever been. It’s strange to be “technically” overweight while petite because the numbers on a scale aren’t large generally, but they are large for you personally.

That being said, my overall appearance still felt broadly in the “normal” category. My weight was pretty evenly distributed throughout my body with only the typical fluctuation that I think most adult women experience as a matter of life. At certainly points in my life, my existing clothes would mostly fit, but not sometimes better than others. I have had to size up a couple of times since I was 20, which again I don’t think is too atypical. This isn’t some tale of a heroic journey to health after injury, pain, struggle, or neglect.

But I will say that I didn’t like my body. I’ve had a lot of feelings about my body over the years and it’s surprising how many of them have been very negative. I don’t think self-loathing is unique to women, but I do think we experience a particularly rough cocktail of societal pressure, unreasonable expectation, not enough range of representation, and strange notions about our sexuality that all combine to make our relationships with our bodies harder than they need to be. I am lucky that I have never hated my body. I have never felt the need to tame it in ways that made me badly unhealthy, I have never loathed and resented it, I have never felt like I was in the wrong one. Thank god. I just…didn’t really like mine.

In the past ten years, as my weight has jumped around, I’ve painfully taken down a religious faith that has a lot of conflicting notions about the body. In some ways, Mormonism is radically body positive! The faith posits an embodied deity. The “weird” dietary habits and restrictions for which Mormons are known grow from a belief that the human body is a gift that is to be cared for and stewarded well, and not put in harm’s way. It chucks concepts like original sin and downgrades the centuries old curse of Eve into something more gentle and understandable–some interpretations frame Eve eating the apple as a deliberate and brave choice because it was the only way she could have a family and so kick off the human race. It’s a kinder version of the myth in many ways.

Women-as-mothers are sacred in Mormonism, and this is where things take a turn for the problematic and patriarchal in a big way. Girls’ bodies are policed in a way that boys’ aren’t and from irritatingly young ages. There are cultural dress codes that enforce modesty, most of them badly gender slanted. Female sexuality is desirable and devilish at the same time–a prominent leader caused something of a kerfuffle a few years ago by giving a sermon cautioning girls to not become “walking pornography” to young men by the way they dress and act. Ugh. Devout Mormons are celibate until marriage and let me tell you, the underlying expectation of many sweet naive souls that you will be able to go from modestly draped maiden to sexual afficionada–zero to sixty–doesn’t do a lot of us many favors.

I felt taught to simultaneously revere my body, hide it, respect it, be frightened of it, that it was powerful, and that it was sort of shameful. But I don’t feel that I was taught that it was mine. It was a divine gift that I had on loan and would have to check back in some day like a library book. It was a vehicle for other human life that, maybe, was more important than my own in some way. It was meant to be enjoyed and shared with a partner, but in very strict and limited ways–and believe me, I could write a book on the issues with how male slanted some of the lessons about virtue I was taught were in retrospect. I had this body, but I didn’t really feel in some ways as if I owned it.

Sports or atheletics may have helped me more, but this was something I only really did a low level extracurricular. I took dance classes, horseback riding lessons, and gymnastics as a kid. I took advantage of the fact that I was in a hilariously small Department of Defense high school to join the soccer team for a couple of seasons–something I would never have been able to manage in most typical American high schools where you need something akin to talent to participate! But all in all, I’m not sure I really knew or learned how to use my body.

For about a year now, I’ve been working on my health. I’ve written a lot about how much work I’ve had to do on healing my brain, my emotions, some parts of my psyche…but I don’t like talking about my work on my body because I don’t really like thinking about my body.

So I’ve been trying to change that.

I’ve been listening to it, taking it to the doctor to check on things that have bothered me for years or just didn’t feel right. As a result, I’ve made a lot of positive changes and have helped a few issues that I thought were chronic.

I have acknowledged that I’ve not really been kind to or about my body so I’ve been trying to not actively disliking it. I’ve stopped slagging it off or criticizing it and just letting it be.

I’ve been feeding it better.

I’ve been nice to and about it in my own mind.

And yes, I’ve been working out, though that that feels like least important part of it all. I’ve had to work to build routines and try to stick to them, and I truthfully don’t enjoy exercise anymore than I used to. But I do know that I feel better overall when I do it, so I keep doing it.

The numbers on the scale are not the most important thing, not by a long shot, but the number on that scale represents 20 lbs lost this year alone in 2018. I am proud of that.

Because in my case, I feel like I’ve lost a whole lot more than weight.

Goals, Health, Humor

Checking In on the Year of Health

“Money cannot buy health, but I’d settle for a diamond-studded
wheelchair.” 
― Dorothy Parker

Well, kittens, while we’re recapping, let’s do a brief pit stop on my yearly theme. In late 2017 I picked “health” as my overall focus from the coming year because I was determined to redress a series of issues (internal and external) that I felt had taken over too much of my life. Here’s how I’m doing.

Brain Health
My brain is miles better than it was this time last year, which in turn was miles better than I was the year previously. 2016 was a shit year for a lot of reasons, but high on the list was that it was the year where my anxiety reached its all time high and I/we made a bunch of big decisions to change up a lot of things about my work and life. All of those decisions turned out to be good in the long run but meant that I had to go through a period of significant change and then another period of stabilization that was incredibly stressful. It’s been worth it, I’d do it all again in a heartbeat, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been hard. I wrote previously about having decided to “give up” a number of things that I knew were affecting my mental health in the past year, and having done so and seen the benefits, I feel in a much better place to confront other issues and topics that affect me in different ways. I think I need some professional help for some of them. I haven’t yet connected with a therapist, but I am researching into my options to do so and hope to tick off this goal by the end of the year. Here’s to emotional and cognitive health!

Body Health/Food Health
Major progress to report on this front. In January I switched up my birth control to see if it could help me address some health challenges and the results have stayed entirely positive. My migraine attacks have all but vanished, the weight I lost has stayed off, and the only less than ideal side effect has been more intense menstrual cramps. I’ve also really been trying to eat healthier this year and have basically eliminated added sugar from my diet with only very rare treats–which often times don’t agree with me when I do have them because most sugar feels excessive to me now. I’m in the midst of my six month exercise goal as well, which is helping keep me on the straight and narrow. One of the best decisions we’ve made this past year was to get an automated box of groceries delivered weekly which has not only made shopping easier (we shop on foot or by public transport so having the basics delivered weekly to our front door is a huge help), but it’s also upped our intake of fresher foods. I’m trying to cook more as a result, which was another food goal of mine in the past year. All in all, this is probably the category with the most overall positive progress in my Year of Health.

Financial Health
This is an ongoing project with some positives and some negatives over the past eight months. I set some ambitious goals for this year; I continue to make progress on some, I’ve fallen short on others, but overall I feel like we’re headed in the right direction. I’ve committed to new public goals of accountability in my spending and I’m always looking for ways to subvert consumerist pressures and find ways to consume intelligently. Money stresses me less than it used to because I feel like I’ve reckoned with some realities and habits related to it much better, even as I acknowledge we still have a ways to go before we meet our goals about paying off all our credit cards and investing.

Overall, it’s been really positive to see how my goals have overlapped with one another practically in the past year. I think that means I made the right call to focus on my health, and in the particular areas I have. And more importantly, I think I’m set up to finish the year strong. That feels really, really good.

Consumerism, Goals, Humor, Money, Shopping

Forgive Me, Readers, for I Have Failed…BUT!

These are my confessions
Just when I thought I said all I could say
My chick on the side said she got one on the way
These are my confessions
Man, I’m throwed and I don’t know what to do
I guess I gotta give part two of my confessions
If I’m gonna tell it, then I gotta tell it all…
– Usher, Confessions II

So, Reader, here’s the bit where I confess that I have failed my shopping self challenge for the year.

Earlier this year I wrote about a goal of only buying 18 personal items throughout the year (with a few sensible caveats like socks, and that sort of thing). Well, I did really well at this for well over half the year but a grab bag of charity shop scarves and a vintage shopping binge have put me over my tally.

One of the culprits in question. It was 20 quid. It’s brilliant.

A few shameless attempts at reducing my guilt! I have only bought one item that is more than what I would have paid on the high street or a mid-range shop for its equivalent. A bunch of these items were a handful of pounds each, but did not fall into one of my protected categories and thus were tallied on my running spreadsheet regardless of cheapness–of course there’s a spreadsheet, don’t you know me at all?

But self-justification aside, I did have a bit of a moment of self-reflection. In fact, to speak truth, I had a nice little bout of emotional self-flagellation when I typed in my purchases and realized I had broke my goal, and decided to wallow in unproductive recrimination for the better part of an evening. Eventually more sensible feelings prevailed. I felt weak willed, but I also didn’t really regret any of the items I’ve spent money on this year. In fact, the sum total was less than 2% of our combined income as a family so maybe I had picked a silly goal to try and accomplish, or maybe my expectations weren’t reasonable? Or hell, maybe I am just weak willed and that’s the end of it.

I decided I could live with the minor guilt, especially if I set up a new self challenge instead. I’ve discovered in the past couple of years that game-ifying things helps me achieve goals and keeps me more accountable that sheer willpower alone. Working towards an established prize or even just being able to tick a box every day is a simple but effective thing for me. It’s a bit juvenile, but it works. X. and I keep one another accountable with our health and fitness goals because we are working towards a girl trip together if we meet them. Katarina I and keep up a regular chat chain of encouragement towards writing goals, whether about meeting a word count or just bouncing ideas off of one another. I have whole pages dedicated to lists and projects (of course I do) in my journal that I get the most ridiculous pleasure from in updating and refining. I’m so type A it’s silly. So, what could I do to reset my self-challenge in a really useful way?

We haven’t purchased anything for the house since these antique chairs, which I still think were a great purchase, for the record.

My one regret in shopping these past few months was that I didn’t feel like I had made any progress towards decorating our house which is still fairly basic in its furnishings. But finding the right trade off between an item that you like, that suits your space, and isn’t stupidly priced in London can be difficult and though we’ve liked the idea of different items over the past eight months, nothing compelled me to loosen our purse strings once.

Until the other day. I think I found it. A piece of furniture that matches our front room area, solves a storage need, has the right dimensions, looks gorgeous, is an upcycled vintage piece, and costs less than £350. Jeff and I discussed it and it seems to check all the boxes. I’ve messaged the seller to enquire about it and thus far the signs seem positive.

And so, kittens. I’m making a new bargain and documenting it here for you, the coterie, to hold me accountable. If this deal goes through, we are counting this piece of furniture as our mutual Christmas present to ourselves and the following Faustian pact will kick in:

  • I am locking up my wallet for the rest of the year. Nada, zilch. Not a single personal item shall I buy for the next five months. This will also count as my final spending freeze for my 101/1001 goal list.
  • I will finish paying off one of our credit cards in full, by the end of the year. Another partial 101/1001 goal!
  • I will prepare and pack lunches every day for the rest of the year, or lean on my cash allowance. Or starve, I guess…
  • I will extend my makeup no-buy challenge (which I have confessed to breaking) until June of 2019. Any replacement items I buy will be drugstore, without exception.
  • I will write about this project: regularly, fully, and honestly. No matter how embarrassing or confessional. Hell, I even promise to try and be funny about it!

So, there, that’s how I’ll leverage my weak will for your benefit, ducklings. Let me know what kinds of posts you’d like to see now through the end of the year as I try to earn myself some furniture and engage in some new financial asceticism. I think I may like to open the (vintage!) kimono and write a bit more specifically about the things I’ve collected over the years and why. I may finally do a “shop my closet” series and get around to doing those Out of the Day posts I’ve committed to in my 101/1001 but have felt too self conscious to do. Perhaps you’d be interested in a tour of my favorite shops and markets around London, or you yourself may want to engage in some competitive goal tracking. Do let me know in the comments, I’m interested!

 

 

 

Goals, Humor

A Check in on Giving Up

“A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.” 
― Bruce Lee

Towards the end of 2017 I wrote a post about all the things I wanted to give up in 2018. It was a short list of behaviors that I suspected (or downright knew) were making mess less happy or functional. For some reason that post sprang to mind a couple of days ago and I thought it was worth a follow up to see how I was doing nearly three quarters of the way through the year.

Responding, “Busy,” whenever anyone asks how I am doing
Truthfully, I’m sometimes better at this and sometimes worse. Americans in particular worship at the cult of “busy,” to be busy feels like being successful and important. It means you’re productive and high achieving. It means you’re wanted in a lot of places by a lot of people. It’s a fantasy that’s probably killing a lot of people. I’m trying to learn more to think in terms of seasons, not so much annually but as distinct and different periods that flow into one another. It’s okay to have a busy season, but it’s not normal to feel run ragged. Part of my journey towards better mental health has a process of recognizing that most of what keeps me busy to the point of feeling that way, is largely self-inflected, be it imposter syndrome and feeling a desperate need to prove my worth, or the (false and semi narcissistic) notion that I’m a single point of failure in all my projects. Like a lot of people I know, I’ve built a lot of my identity around my work. I want to be good at what I do, I’m vain enough to wish to be known for being good at what I do, but I’m trying to remember that what I do from Monday to Friday is not the sum total of a life. Instead of saying I’m “busy” reflexively, I am trying to learn how to 1) be less “busy” overall and, 2) not feel like I should be.

Freaking out over stupid stuff
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Nope, nothing profound to say here. This issue is alive and well, my friends.

Hitting the snooze function of my alarm several times every morning
Some progress on this point, I’m please to report! I am neither a night owl nor a morning lark. I am a solid, middle of the afternoon pigeon. Getting up in the morning is one of my least favorite things to do because lazing about is one of my greatest pleasures. Wintertime, which in the UK is not a thing to be trifled with, makes this worse because being bundled in bed in the dark is the goal. However, we’re at the height of summer which means it’s light out when I wake up and that does help reduce my slaps of the snooze button. A few of what the kids call “hacks” have helped me cut down on the snooze button even more drastically. I tend to pick and layout my next day’s outfit the night before which eliminates the faffing about of deciding what to wear. At my absolute highest functioning levels, I’ll prep some easy breakfasts and pop them into the fridge because it’s much easier for me to wake up and get moving if I don’t feel like I have to cook first thing. Basically, I’ve leaned into my laziness, but I’ve redistributed it much more successfully!

Social media
I’m probably more active on Twitter than I was when I wrote that first post and I still really like Instagram…ridiculous woman. However, I’m off Facebook and have been since the election. That was before all the news proving how harmful it was to us as a society started coming out. That being said, I’m not all doom and gloom about social media, so much as I want to use it in ways that are constructive. And don’t contribute to the unraveling of Western democracy.

Avoidance as a coping method
This one takes some backstory, a lot of which has been well chronicled in this strange little space on the internet, but to recap: I’ve spent several years of my life feeling like I was in a state of conflict. You can chart my battles (some of them serious, a lot of them stupid). C. vs a particular family dynamic, a religious heritage, a patriarchy, a bad relationship to her mind and body, a faith collapse. I’ve been a person who wants badly to do the right thing, and has at times felt the need to take on battles that, in hindsight, I probably didn’t need or. Or at least, not in the way I chose to take them on. I think I’ve become a much more savvy scrapper in my early 30s, but my mid to late 20s…well, the best way I can put it is to say that several of the struggles I was going through wore me out. I was sick of fighting with people, communities, and my own brain. I was tired. And so, I retreated from a lot of the people and communities and issues that I found so exhausting and painful and have kind of been doing my best to knit a few things together for myself, largely by myself (with the exception of my husband and a very, very small number of friends). The good news: it worked! I’m lightyears better than I was when I felt at my most unhealthy. The bad news: it worked! I have to stop using fragility as an excuse to avoid things. I haven’t made the progress here that I would wish to, but I have made progress, and I intend to make more.

Being lazy
This is a balancing act because I’ve learned that in certain seasons of my life, it is really good for me to slow way, way down and keep my commitment levels low. It’s good for me to stay home all weekend with my husband and refuse to do chores. It’s nice to prioritize being horizontal with a book. But it’s bad when I no longer need these kinds of slow periods and still choose to stay stuck in them. I’m better about not getting stuck lately, and

Guilt about writing
The only cure for this, I have found, is writing. I’m trying to do more of it, no matter how inelegant.

Goals, Humor, Work

My Ten Tiny Task System

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” 
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

A few months ago I found a way to trick my anxious brain in a way that’s been something of a revelation.

On a particularly stressful day, facing a bit of a mental block about a project, I was staring at a blank page and feeling both intimidated and uninspired. And for some reason, I could not focus. All my background tasks, the boring and mundane things of life that just roll on and on like Sisyphus and his rock, were taking up space in my brain. Even though I wasn’t actively thinking about them, somewhere deep down I was worrying about them and starting to slide into a familiar pattern of stress escalation.

Anxiety. She’s a bitch.

But on this particular day, I had a breakthrough. Instead of trying to bat away all the stupid small tasks that kept pawing at the edges of my consciousness, I gave them my full attention. I listed ten that I could do quickly, in total isolation from any other task or project. I wasn’t allowed to use one of those tasks as a jumping off point for other work not on the list (scope creep) and once done I either had to do something else on the list, or go back to my main project.

These were not earth shattering tasks. Some examples:

  1. Wipe down the kitchen counter
  2. Fold and put away the clean socks
  3. Text a friend
  4. Water the plants
  5. Check the mail

It worked. Maybe just taking a break did me some good, or maybe there was a psychological effect of seeing a tick mark beside something small that made the bigger project feel more feasible. Either way, it’s a trick I’ve turned to time and time again when I’m desperate to procrastinate, or dealing with overwhelm by things that would not overwhelm me if my brain were functioning a bit better.

It’s brilliant.

Share your personal tips and tricks for managing your To Do list in the comments, kittens. I’m back from holiday and already busy!

Beauty, Goals, Humor

13 By Halloween Panning Challenge

“Crying is for plain women. Pretty women go shopping.” 
― Oscar Wilde

The beauty community (blogs, YouTube, Instagram, etc.) sometimes collaborates on panning challenges where participants select items to use up in a designated period. While not a beauty blogger in the slightest, I caught wind of the latest of these online and decided to unofficially participate as a way to make me use items in my beauty arsenal–mostly for the weird and wonderful pleasure of adding them to my empties pile. And so, behold my assembled victims for the next 3.5 months:

Some of these are easy wins, but I want to motivate myself to finish them up to be able to move on to products I like more. I’ve opened up the tubs so you can see how much of the skincare items I have left to use, and that tube of No7 cleanser is at least half empty already. Both the Lush Sleepy lotion and Kiehl’s Facial Cream are about 75% done each and are gorgeous products in their own right and part of the reason I want to use them up is for the pleasure of probably repurchasing them again.

Sunscreen is a tricky item because almost all of them are inelegant and hard to use with makeup, or leave a highly noticeable white cast. My favorite sunscreen is still by Thank You Farmer (which I first profiled a year ago) and which I still highly, highly recommend. Even Jeff tries to swipe it when I bug him about wearing sunscreen. This Etude House sunscreen is at least 80% used up, but it’s not my favorite SPF product because unless my skin is very well hydrated and I’m able to spend some time on my makeup, it looks chalky and plaster-y on my face. In other words, while very effective as SPF, it’s not the easiest to use product. However, for weekends spent mostly at home, working out, or just general running errands when I’m out in the sun, it’s perfectly serviceable. The best way I’ve found to use it is as a touch up product or at the end of the day when I try to walk home from work (which takes at least an hour and in the summer is in direct sunlight). This tutorial and the corresponding items like a DIY cushion compact are brilliant for this.

A couple more skincare in profile, products from The Ordinary which I’d also like to use up: the Caffeine Solution for eyes and their Rosehip Oil. I’m not sure about the effectiveness of the first, but that’s because I’ve not really used it consistently enough to give a good review, hence it’s inclusion in this project. The second is included to get better use out of my oil products in general, which I love and which are effective, but I am often too lazy to use properly, in terms of working it into my skin and layering with other products to avoid mess and maximize results.

Make up is a lot more fun to use up but is so difficult to do. There is almost nothing more satisfying to me than a completely empty lipstick tube because it happens so rarely–not because I don’t wear lipstick (as you all know very well), but because I have so bloody much of it.

To that end, I’ve been ambitious and picked three well loved lip products to try and finish up entirely in the next three or so months. You can see below how much of each I have left to go. I’ve also decided to try and use up, or at least use a significant chunk of, my Glossier concealer which is already pretty well loved. I’ve picked one of my many perfume samples to use up, this one is a heavy rose scent which isn’t my favorite, but if you can’t wear floral scents through the height of summer, then what is the point? Ditto for my Body Shop bronzer which has seen service in the wars, if its appearance is anything to go by. I’d like to at least hit pan on this product by Halloween if I can–I think committing to use it up entirely isn’t remotely feasible. Whenever I see women use up powders or bronzers in a matter of months I always want to shake them and demand how it’s physically possible.

I love this foundation (originally recommended by X) but I’ve owned it for a couple of years now and need to use it up before it goes off. A badly shot close up for your delectation:

Ultimately makeup is a perishable good, which is the point of these kinds of self challenges. I genuinely don’t understand people who hoard it past the point of expiration; it’s a waste of resources and prevents you from getting enjoyment out of a product you probably paid good money for. Part of my challenge in not buying makeup this year (which I’ve already transgressed like the weak willed creature I am) is about remembering that owning things is futile if you don’t use them.

Over the years I’ve bought items that I’ve loved but have been frightened to use (what if I damage/ruin it?!) or have tried stupidly to conserve (what if I run out?!). This is useless. Both options are pretty well inevitable so you may as well love what you own and learn to be more selective about what you spend your money on.

Consumerism, Goals, Humor, Money

What I’ve Bought, Didn’t Buy, and Why

“Buy what you don’t have yet, or what you really want, which can be mixed with what you already own. Buy only because something excites you, not just for the simple act of shopping.” 
― Karl Lagerfeld

So, here’s the bit where I confess that I’m trying a bit of an experiment this year in my ongoing, unofficial series on consumerism: I’m restricting myself to buying only 18 personal items this year. Well, that’s the goal anyway–who knows what human frailties await us–but for the time being I’ve managed to keep on track with only 7 purchases so far in 2018.

Full disclosure, not all items count against this tally. I’m not counting things like replacing tights with holes in them, restocking underwear, and other utilitarian aspects of life, and books will never be subject to a quota in this household!

So what does count? Anything that goes on my person or for a hobby kind of activity–basically things I buy strictly for my own pleasure or wants are tallied up, as are big ticket items for the home.  Thus far, they have all been purchases for my closet:

  1. New works heels – to replace yet another victim of London’s cobblestones. I picked up a brand new pair from LK Bennett at a charity shop for about a 1/10 of the sticker price
  2. A vintage belt
  3. A black blazer – which is something I didn’t already own, believe it or not
  4. Wide leg trousers
  5. A casual shirt
  6. A pair of earrings, which I bragged on yesterday
  7. Another blazer – a gorgeous gray wool one, and vintage Burberry to boot

Every single one of these items was a planned purchase, had been considered for months, and by avoiding impulse buying I didn’t pay full price for any of them thanks to sales or bargaining. Four out of seven are vintage or second hand purchases, which is very much in keeping with my typical spending habits. This list comprises most if not all of my spring and summer shopping list. I’ve by using my list system to be much more thoughtful about my wants, and to identify and fill gaps in my wardrobe. Seriously, who says they love clothing and doesn’t own a black blazer?

A few other projects have been going on in the background over the last six months as well, including my now annual 3-month shopping ban–my gray blazer being a cheat item I bought during this time, but one I didn’t regret in the slightest because 1) it had been on my To Buy list for months so could justify a slight bending of the rules and, 2) c’mon, vintage Burberry on the cheap!

During this same time, I’ve gotten more ruthless with my closet and have donated several pieces to Mary’s Living and Giving. I found I was holding on a several items that I hadn’t worn in months or longer and, having decided on a use-it-or-lose-it attitude towards a lot of “stuff” in my life lately, I had no qualms in letting them go. So, in spite of a few new purchases, my closet continues to be more streamlined and slimmed down than it was a couple of years ago.

Finally, I’m trying to not buy any new makeup for an entire year unless I’m replacing an item I have completely run out of and cannot replicate with what I already own. Skincare is exempt because while the fashions and styles of makeup shift, skin is forever and I believe in spending money to keep it healthy and clear. I’ve got a pretty well established stable of products and very rarely see the need to deviate from them, so purchases here have so far been only to replace items once I’ve run out of something.

What are my other 11 purchases for the year going to be? I’m not sure! I’ve been thinking about getting a bike for a while (for nearly a whole year, lest you thing I rush decisions), but truthfully I’d rather get some more furniture for the house with that money right now. I’d like to get a couple more jewelry pieces as I slowly transition away from cheap and costume-y to more substantial stuff that I hope to own the rest of my life, but I can wait for the right ones to come along. Now that I’ve done my seasonal shopping, I am going to see how long I can go without adding anything else to my wardrobe because I really feel like there isn’t anything I truly need at the moment for either work or casual. Over the past year I really feel as if I’ve come to a much healthier attitude towards “things,” which in turn is allowing me to flex the muscle of thinking in long term goals. More on that later.

Have you done any spring or summer shopping for this year? What have you bought? Are you planning any future shopping, and if so, how do you choose and prioritize your purchases? 

Goals, Humor

Giving Up

A short list of things I’d like to give up in 2018:

Responding, “Busy,” whenever anyone asks how I am doing. It’s not a badge of honor, and frankly my inability to switch off is not making me better at my job, my mental health, or my personal life.

Hitting the snooze function of my alarm several times every morning.

Avoidance as a coping method. I was easy on myself this past year and gave myself permission to avoid or cut out things, people, or scenarios that were contributing to my anxiety and minor depressive episodes. I’ve had loving and patient people in my life allow me to do this because they agreed it was good for me and were willing to be generous with me. Guess what? It worked, and I’m feeling resilient and balanced again. That means it’s time to toughen up and stop using this as an option in the face of confrontation, stress, pressure, discomfort, or negative emotions. It also means I need to pay it back to the people who allowed me to lean on them by taking my turn being available to lean on.

Freaking out over stupid stuff. I am alarmingly good at this.

Being lazy. This is also something I gave myself permission to do in 2017 after a rough year. It’s also worked, which means it’s time to pivot back to energy and effort, lest self care become permanent and unhealthy self-indulgence.

Social media. There is obviously no hope of this, but I’m pretty well convinced that Twitter doesn’t make me happy.

Guilt about writing. I don’t blog nearly as much as I’d like, but I’ve decided that the only cure for that is probably more frequent, shorter, and sillier posts like this one (hi, team!). I also don’t work on my fiction projects to the degree I’d like (and a lot of this in the past year has been about that avoidance and laziness I mentioned…) but I think small but steady chipping away at this will also help. In the meantime, I’m going to stop shouting at myself in my head for not being published yet.

You know. All super easy and basic things.

Goals, Health, Humor

A Year of Health

“The First wealth is health.” 
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’ve been thinking all month of how I want to frame 2018 (I’ve talked about my 2017 theme here and here if you want a refresher) and I’ve figured out what I want to focus on: making an effort on health. It was the one facet of my previous theme that I felt I didn’t make as much progress on as I would have wished in the past twelve months, so I’ve decided to make it my priority for the next twelve.

This feels like the most basic of basic goals, but I’m hoping my take on it is broad enough to keep it interesting, with enough specific goals to make progress trackable.

Body Health
Yes, yes with the typical exercise and weight goals, but really I’m trying to just “mind” my body better overall this year. I’d prefer regular exercise to intense workouts, regular meditation to aggressive “detoxes,” and feeling good in my clothes and own skin to focusing on numbers. I am not a natural health bunny, I hate every moment at the gym and default to lazy every chance I get; the only thing that helps me overcome my tendencies are ingrained habits and routines so I’m going to focus on building these this year. I’m also going to try and confront or fix some longstanding physical issues I’ve had (migraines, uneven muscle tension, hormones, etc.) instead of just living with them. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment scheduled before the end of the year to address a couple of internal situations, and like everyone and their dog, I’m resetting my diet this January after a December of absolute nutritional debauchery. Farewell, sugar. Speaking of…

Get in the Kitchen
No two ways about it, we need to cook more and eat out/order in less. This is for financial health reasons as well as physical ones–we spend more money than we should on easy food or food that we end up wasting because we don’t use it quickly enough. I’ve been focusing on consumption a lot in different ways for several years now, but somehow I’ve never really cracked food the way I have other areas of our lives. This is something I want to change…but I also want to change what I eat. I’m a natural grazer who (at my worst) veers between binging on snacks and missing meals. I think that cooking more regularly and the planning that goes into it will help me cut down on this as well has help me eat better food overall.

Brain Health
My bad stress habits and anxiety are more under control than they’ve been in years, but I could definitely do with a bit of help here to really get my brain in better working order. I’d like to engage with a therapist at some point in this year to help me work through a few lingering issues. This is one of my goals, but it’s something I’d like to commit to doing in 2018 instead of having it as a free floating goal. I also want to continue the mindfullness practices I’ve picked up this year and try to simply make lifestyle choices that I know keep me balanced and sane: using my holiday time, separating work and personal life, regular dates with my husband, long talks with friends…all of these things are good for me and I want to make sure I make time for them.

Financial Health
This is a continuation of some of the best parts of my Year of Less But Better that I want to continue to focus on. I consider this part and parcel with brain health as nothing is more stressful than money. I’m going to continue to move ahead with the self-challenges I do to limit my shopping or consumption and find ways to game-ify savings or usage the way consumerism typically game-ifies spending.

In short, I want to make more of an effort this year to take charge of things that I have been more passive about in the past.

I know my strengths and weaknesses, and typically when I’ve fallen off the wagon on health goals in the past it’s because I’ve tried to tackle too many challenges at once. In giving myself a year, I’m more hopeful in making lasting changes. Already I’m trying to think of some blog projects to support this theme the way I was able to in 2017, but I’m wide open to suggestions if any of the minion coterie have some brilliant ideas for the kinds of posts you’d like to see here on SDS in the new year.

Thanks as always for following along!