short and sweet

It's been a week since I've picked the 33 items I will wear for the next three months. I'm not finding it particularly difficult to decide what to wear each day, but I am realizing that I should have rethought a few items and should have counted more thoroughly because I am pretty sure a dress that I didn't count snuck into my closet. I think this weekend I will double check on what I've got. Also on a side note, I went on a short trip this past weekend and for once did not have to spend a long time debating on what to pack, it was so easy!

P.S. For anyone interested in reading about both sides of minimalism, there is a great post on Be More With Less called The Downside of Minimalism. It's an interesting read for sure.

Pick and Choose

Last night I picked my 33 items. In short, the rules for Project 333 are as follows; what counts: clothing, accessories, jewelry, shoes and outerwear. What doesn’t count: wedding rings or other sentimental jewelry worn all the time, underwear, sleepwear, workout clothes, and in-home loungewear. Basically pick 33 items you’re going to wear for the next 3 months, only buying something if it is replacing something for whatever reason, and also not completely getting rid of the other items just yet- it is an experiment.

 I really thought it was going to be a piece of cake picking out my 33 items. I gravely underestimated myself, as well as my collection of dresses. I started by picking out work clothes, those are necessary, obviously, and with the dress code options are limited. Then, I picked pieces I thought would mix well (jeans/ generic shirts), dresses and finally jackets. I thought to myself, wow this is too easy, what’s missing? Oh, right, shoes accessories, and jewelry. After literal hours of agonizing, I narrowed my list down and was mindful as to what I was keeping. Luckily all of my other stuff that doesn’t count is in my dresser so I didn’t need to go though that mess. Going through the ~93 pieces of clothing in my closet wasn’t painful, really. What was painful, however, was realizing that I own 28 dresses. Sundresses, homecoming dresses, and dresses I’ve never worn! You name it; it’s in the hall closet. That by itself is another blog for another day. I digress.

 Moving right along, is my list. I am fairly happy with it and ended up with 33 items, with no room for error, although there might be an error somewhere because I tried to remember what was in the dirty laundry that I wanted.

1.       Plain black v neck

2.       Plain black long sleeve

3.       Grey v neck

4.       Green Bulls v neck

5.       Orange V neck

6.       Candy land tshirt

7.       Cream lace sleeve ¼ sleeve

8.       Yellow floral tank top

9.       Pink/black dressy top

10.   Blue floral tank top

11.   jean Bermuda shorts

12.   Light blue Levi skinny jeans

13.   Dark blue skinny jeans

14.   Black dress pants

15.   Grey leggings

16.   Black Bermuda shorts

17.   Brown skirt

18.   Classy black zebra dress

19.   Casual black button down dress

20.   Casual black and green striped dress

21.   Black baby doll style dress

22.   Grey pullover sweater

23.   Grey ¾ sleeve jacket

24.   Black jacket

25.   Tan ¼ sleeve jacket

26.   Grey zip up hoodie

27.   Black flip flops

28.   Floral print flats

29.   Black boots

30.   Pandora bracelet

31.   Spoon ring

32.   Infinity hearts necklace

33.   Simple faux pearl necklace

Quite a list, isn’t it? I packed the rest of my clothes in a bin and put it under my bed, and left the rest of the dresses in the closet of shame.

The empty hangers are everything I folded up and put under my bed. The remaining clothes on hangers I am handing down.

The clothing portion of my 33 items all squished together. Not counting the scarves because it's not scarf weather anymore and I forgot to pack them up. They are harmless :)

For starters

For the last few months (I say few, it's probably more like 6 or 7) I've been reading blogs about the lifestyle knows as minimalism. It started with stumbling upon Everett Bogue's blog Far Beyond the Stars; more specifically the entry 27 Reasons Why You Should Never Have a Job is what caught my attention. Through reading several of his entries before that and all of the ones published after, I've realized that I have too many things. Most minimalists live with around 50-100 personal possessions (consumables aren't included) and are location independent. I shared the information I'd read with Krysta, and she's been reading up on minimalism as well, and sharing blogs with me.

Last night, Krysta sent me a link to this entry from Nina Yau's blog Castles in the Air about eliminating all of the "extra" in one's life, in order to fully live. Nina's blog is extremely inspirational, so I decided to read some of her other posts. While browsing, I came across her post about a wardrobe experiment in which she wore the same outfit to work for 7 weeks. At first that seems outrageous, but really, who needs more than one work ensemble anyway? At the end of the post, she mentioned Project 333 which is an experiment about living with less. This is a great starting point for anyone interested in minimalism- or not! I think tonight will be the night when I pick my 33 items, when all of my laundry is clean :)