Lifestyle Reboot: February Fast Fashion Review

[A much delayed posting of my thoughts from the beginning of March.]

I have to tell you, friends, I am digging this no fast fashion thing. I am really starting to get behind the idea of embracing my own personal style rather than remaining beholden to the fickle whims of the current fashion industry. It actually feels like this challenge has been helping me reconnect to my past self a bit, which I am really appreciating.

I have been shopping at thrift stores since at least high school, probably earlier. Back then my wardrobe consisted mostly of jeans and thrifted kids' t-shirts with whatever random designs amused me. These were accented with ridiculous handbags and brightly colored plastic earrings. I fully embraced a slightly punk, counter-culture look and didn't worry too much about being fashionable. Granted, my friends were all into the same look, so it was actually kind of the cool thing to do. Or at least we thought so at the time. 

Somewhere over the past decade I started to care a lot more about actually being "in style". It was kind of gradual and I'm not really sure how it happened. But I started looking at my closet and realizing that more and more of it was populated with current trends from retail stores and less and less was made up of the funky and unique thrifted pieces I really enjoy. And that made me kind of sad, like I had lost a fun and fierce part of myself. A part that just wore whatever made her happy and didn't bother to care about if other people would like it too much. 

While my fashion sense has grown up dramatically, stepping away from current trends is helping me reconnect with my former self. I'm starting to take more risks with my clothes and actually think about what my personal style is, rather than if what I'm wearing is fashionable enough. And I like it. I like that it makes me feel kind of spunky again. I have been very inspired lately by people like Jillian of Refashionista, a fashion blog dedicated to thrift store finds and refashions.

So what have I been wearing lately that's so funky? Honestly, most of what I'm wearing is actually pretty normal and probably I'm the only one who has noticed the change. However, here are my fashion finds for the month:

I wasn't so sure about the navy knit dress but I liked the fit and the weight of it and I like it with leggings now that I've shortened it a bit. The real question mark this month was the white silk blouse. I stood in the dressing room for so long debating whether or not it was actually really wearable. I finally decided it was worth the $1.50 to find out. Plus it came with a skirt, which is totally wearable, though definitely not together. After washing out the wrinkles and trying it on at home, I think the blouse is going to end up being a great piece. I have already worn it for a tea-party themed cocktail party and I'm looking forward to wearing it out with jeans. 

I'm also continuing to try to fix or adjust the things I have rather than buying new. This month I stitched up a hole in some leggings to make them wearable again. I'm hoping that holds up as I didn't really know what I was doing. And I have some boots in my car that I need to take to have the zipper repaired so that they don't snag another pair of leggings. At some point I also adjusted a couple thrifted silk tank tops. The jungle print one started tearing, so I hemmed it above the tear, which makes it a bit short to wear alone, but it's a fun way to spice up a plain maxi dress. The blue one was very very large. I took it in and hemmed it and it came out ok. I am not very good at taking things in but I think it'll work.

All in all, this has definitely been a good challenge. I'm looking forward to seeing where it takes me over the course of the year.



Update: Both repairs appear to be holding up well and I even found another pair of grey leggings while thrifting that are even more comfortable, so I'm all set if/when my stitching fails. Can I also just add that I am seriously appreciating how much shorter my trips to Target have become?

Lifestyle Reboot - May: Get Moving!

Oh, hey there! So nice to see you again! My apologies for the radio silence after leaving you with a promise of many ruminations. March and April turned out to be bit intense with a quick vacation, a work conference and standardized testing. While it was kind of nice to take a pause on writing, I do have lots to share, so I will try to finish up all the posts I started with such high hopes way back in March. 

Truth time. March and April were kind of a fail in terms of challenges. I hit the ground running in March and then just kind of petered out. Things I have learned about myself: I'm not great at doing things every single day. I have a much better chance of making weekly or monthly goals, though, let's be honest, I'll probably do almost all of it at the last minute. I suppose it's good to know oneself well and now I am very aware that flexibility is key for me. So, at least I'm still learning things.

I ended up just taking April off. My goal with this project was not to make my life more stressful but to help myself grow and hopefully make some lasting changes. That wasn't going to happen in April. I didn't have any challenges that seemed really doable with traveling and testing time gets pretty intense, so I gave myself a pass on setting a challenge.  Instead I continued to work toward zero waste and tried to get a feel for what that might look like while traveling. It was definitely not a zero waste trip, but San Francisco made it fairly easy to at least lower my footprint and I learned some things about what might work for me in the future. 

I am, however, back up and running for May! I am LOVING the warmer, sunnier days and starting to slip into manic summer mode, so this month is all about getting moving and getting outside. My goal is to get moving, ideally outside, for at least 10 minutes each day. Despite what I said 2 paragraphs ago, I have a lot of faith in this challenge. 10 minutes is a low enough bar that I'm pretty sure I can get myself to do it every day and, usually, once I get going, it ends up being more than 10 minutes. Plus, I just bought a bike that I can't wait to ride. (Yes, mom, I also bought a helmet. You're welcome.)

Additionally, I am sticking with my commitment to avoid fast fashion and am continuing to acquire the things I need to replace more and more of the disposable items in my life (there aren't very many left!). I am also planning to start composting just as soon as I can acquire a suitable container. It's driving me crazy to keep throwing away all of my food scraps. 

As always, thank you for joining me on this journey! I am still open to suggestions of challenges if you have any ideas to share. I am also feeling a little bit intimidated about composting in an apartment, so if anyone knows a lot about composting and would be willing to chat with me about it, that would be cool. The internet can be a very overwhelming place...

Lifestyle Reboot - March: Random Acts of Kindness

Another month, another challenge! This month is all about positivity. We are reaching the point of the year where the weather starts getting our hopes up for summer by being (relatively) nice sometimes. Which is of course immediately followed by a biting cold snap and 8 inches of snow, just to bring us back to reality. It seems like a perfect time to focus on brightening everyone's moods with some good old-fashioned kindness. My goal for this month is to do one random act of kindness every day. So far this has mostly consisted of giving people cookies. People seem to like cookies.

I feel like a little bit of a liar. I started this year being all, "I'm going to make changes all about sustainability" and then two of the first three aren't really about sustainable living at all. However, as I look over my list of potential ideas, I am reminded more and more that this is a process. There are a lot of things that just aren't feasible yet for various reasons. For instance, I'm looking forward to eating locally for a month, but I really need to wait for it to not be winter in order for that to actually work and be enjoyable. And there are a lot of things that I need to do before I can go completely 100% zero waste.

I'm still making small changes all the time that are helping to build to some of these bigger challenges, like working on replacing the kleenex that just ran out with handkerchiefs. (I really thought it would be fun/easy to find old school handkerchiefs secondhand. I am learning this is not the case.) I'm also just trying to change my mindset. Now, anytime I go to reach for something disposable, I stop and try to figure out what I could use instead that wouldn't create any waste. It's interesting and a learning process. For example, I learned that fork tines are no replacement for toothpicks when trying to get cookie dough out of all the little crevices in a plastic cookie cutter (any other suggestions?). I also learned that pretty thrifted dishes are a great way to share cookies with others, though I did not find a better way to protect them than with plastic wrap. (Tins, I think decorative tins might start to become a thing in my life...)

I am also continuing my commitment to no fast fashion. I will share more about how that's going in another post but overall I'm digging it. I actually have quite a few things to share from February, so stay tuned. Much ruminating is afoot.

Lifestyle Reboot: January in Review

Month 1, Challenge 1: Complete. So far this year of change is going swimmingly. I very successfully managed to avoid any fast fashion purchases last month. I did not, however, avoid adding to my wardrobe and I'm pretty excited to share with you some of the ways that I managed to do that. (In case you haven't been keeping up with my challenges and have no idea what I'm up to this year, feel free to check out previous posts here.)

The most obvious, of course, is shopping secondhand. The one downside of this challenge is that I think it just helped me give myself an excuse to go thrifting more often, which may be counteracting any budgeting gains I made by avoiding the mall. No matter, here is what I found this month:

-This cozy blue sweatshirt (WITH ELBOW PATCHES) has been perfect for being comfy and warm now that it's actually cold ($5)
-These gray leggings were a serendipitous find as I just accidentally tore a hole in my old pair. ($3)
-My new favorite shirt for spring ($1!)
-I expected this 'a' sweatshirt to be a brand name, but no, it's the ALPHABET ($5)
-Updated winter coat as I've been looking to replace mine for a couple years now ($20, but I spent $6 after trading in some clothes)

I also tried selling some of my clothes to a couple consignment stores here in town. I wasn't super successful, as I think I missed the window on selling back sweaters but I did manage to make $10 on 2 dresses from Scout and $14 from a few items at Plato's Closet, which I ended up using as a trade-in toward my coat. If you live in Omaha and haven't checked out Scout, I highly recommend it. They have lots of interesting old and new pieces and pay better than a lot of places that buy back clothing. (No, they did not sponsor this post, I just really like them.) I would like to try a couple spots in Lincoln next time I'm in town and I just noticed a new place in Benson to check out before I donate the leftovers.

In addition to buying and selling to secondhand shops, I made a few edits to some clothes I already owned in an attempt to make them more wearable. [Full disclosure: Both of these projects are things I had been meaning to do for awhile and just hadn't quite gotten to yet. No matter, I still think they are worth sharing. ]

Project 1: Attempting to dye a couple pieces to cover up some stains. The pants had gotten a tiny smidge of bleach or something that was just enough to make them unwearable. The dye didn't fully cover it but it's at least enough that no one should notice while I'm wearing them unless they are seriously scrutinizing my thigh. The shirt clearly didn't work. It actually made the stain more prominent. That shirt is instead getting donated in hopes that someone else will find a good use for it. Overall, dying things to cover up stains has been very hit or miss for me (based on this and previous attempts). Another downside I have found of dying things is that you have to use hot water, which sometimes has the effect of shrinking things a bit.

Project 2: I bought this sweater dress secondhand last year to wear with leggings. It's super comfy and I like it but I am insanely sensitive to sweaters being itchy and realized after wearing it to work last year that it wasn't going to work for me without long sleeves under it. Unfortunately the neck is too wide for it to work with most of my long-sleeved shirts, so I made a couple chops to an old one that I had that was nearing the end of its useful life (it has already been dyed in an attempt to cover up some staining, which was only sort of successful). Now I'm good to go!

Overall, the month wasn't too challenging. I actually really appreciated having a good reason to stay more focused at Target and completely skip out on entering any stores when I met a friend at the mall for dinner in the fancy new local food court. In fact, I liked it so much that I am going to keep this challenge going. I am officially committing to 6 months, but ideally I'll hold out for the whole year.

I hesitate because making that commitment feels a bit too overwhelming right now and I'm not up for adding more stress to my life. I also have some reservations about being able to find certain items if I need them, namely pants, bras and shoes. These are all items that I struggle to find secondhand for various reasons and some are things I know I am going to need to replace in the next year. (I think the pants thing might be easier if Omaha were able to support more consignment shops like Plato's Closet and Scout, but I digress.) I will continue to look when I'm thrifting but I am also going to need to start looking into buying items that are new but made with sustainable practices. I'm not entirely certain how successful that will be.

I'm looking forward to continuing to update on how this challenge is going throughout the year. I've got a number of things in the works that I'd like to post about soon. I came across a book about fast fashion that I just started last week, which I think will warrant a post when it's finished, as well as a couple more refashions that I'm hoping to finish this week as part of my creativity challenge for February. And there will definitely be more thrift store finds to share, not to mention updates on all the challenges to come, so stay tuned!

Lifestyle Reboot - February: Getting Creative

Alright, everyone! A new month is officially upon us, which makes it time for a new challenge! This month's challenge is a bit less focused on sustainability and instead is more geared toward building mindfulness in my every day life (although, given that it's me, there are definitely some sustainability undertones).

I have always been a fairly creative/artistic person and I've noticed lately that this part of myself is almost entirely absent from my daily life. I very rarely make it a priority to spend time taking photos or working on any sort of artistic projects, so my focus for this month is to spend at least 30-60 minutes every day working on something creative. I anticipate that this will include refashioning some thrifted duds, making/remaking jewelry, coloring, taking pictures, editing pictures and getting my new camera all figured out. I'm looking forward to getting lost in the creative process again and revitalizing a lost piece of myself.

While my focus this month isn't exclusively on sustainability, some of the projects I anticipate working on are all about repurposing rather than buying new and adding to the waste stream. I am also slowly but surely making changes in my daily life to create less waste and be more thoughtful with resources. I've started looking for cloth napkins, handkerchiefs, reusable menstrual products, metal food storage containers, etc. in order to start swapping out disposable products for reusable ones. (I'm trying to look at sustainable/local purchasing options as well, rather than just running to Target for everything.) And I'm starting to carry some of those things with me more and more so that I'm prepared when things come up and don't have to rely on disposable solutions.

Additionally, I am starting to be more and more mindful about the health and beauty products I'm currently using, as well as more natural and less wasteful options so that I can be ready to try replacing them as things run out. I'm expecting that to start happening maybe next month, but we'll see. I don't want to waste the products I already have by not using them up.

Thanks for keeping up with my lifestyle adventures this year. I love sharing the changes I'm making with you and am so looking forward to showing you all of my artistic endeavors at the end of this month!