hope your holidays were merry, your new year bright...

and 2012 brings everyone a great deal of opportunities.

I am of the opinion that every year is full of opportunities, we just choose to act on some rather than others. We wake up in the mornings immediately with the choice of dreading the day, or making it a good one. Sometimes good days take work and I'm ready to work so that I don't have to rely on luck so much. I'm ready for 2012.

Reflecting on my clothes-less 2011, I can say that there were times I felt I was losing out on not buying certain articles of clothing while they were on sale - I really can't remember any particular articles. After 365 days of going cold turkey and getting reacquainted with my closet, I can say:

- you really only need one or two dresses for every wedding you go to, ever. Just change up the accessories and wear a sweater if it's cold. (Texas perspective is coming out here.) Attention should be on the bride anyway.

- sales are not life and death situations.

- granted that you do not indiscriminately buy clothes, within your own closet you'll notice what you wear more of and why. It's like putting your style preferences under a magnifying glass. You see them a lot better.

- like your style preferences, you'll also see what is less of a preference in your closet. If you're not buying clothes for a year and there are still some things you don't wear, it's time to consider using that closet space for something else.

- on a personal note, I'm short. I'm use to buying clothes and getting them altered but after having good fitting clothes for a year, I find now that I try to get clothes that just fit without alterations or very few. Clothes like that do exist and according to anthropologie, my legs are ankle length...well...if the shoe fits...

I really think everyone should try this once. I also think that you need to endure the full year and not just a number of months.

Merry and bright describe my most recent pants purchases. I will get on that.

Oldies but Goodies

Howdy! On break from the students and I've gotten a chance to do some Christmas shopping. I'm going a little on the light side this year. Twelve more days until I can start buying clothes again. The most recent Anthropologie double sale is killing me...and it ends on New Years Eve. I suppose this will be the truest test of my resolution, and it's not fun.

Anyway, here's something cool:


In addition to high school chemistry textbooks, Prentice-Hall also made an awesome cosmetology book around the 1950s-60s. It has it's share of quirky dated information, like how ladies should get out of cars, how ladies should pick things up off the ground - it's like the preppy handbook, but the lady handbook. Even cooler is the picture by picture tutorials on doing short hairstyles from the 20s-30s era.







Living in the internet age has it's perks and all, but it's hard to find tutorials like these over these kinds of hairstyles that have as many pictures, and videos aren't quite the same thing. Merry Christmas to my sister Irene, I have no qualms about posting this as I know she doesn't read my blog. I thought this would be a pretty cool present for a hairstylist.

I'm looking forward to the new year and my renewed ability to buy clothes. I'm thinking about getting a brown leather bomber once 2012 comes around just because I'll need a reliable go to piece for the apocalypse. I took off my orange coat to try on a jacket. I had been contemplating retiring my coat because it has a chemical stain on it, and it looks University of Texas burnt orange rather than just a cool coat in it's own right.


Here's the only picture I have of it where I'm not holding a drink. Well, after I took off the jacket I tried on, I walked off then realized that I had left my coat back with the other jackets. When I found it, a lady was looking at it trying to find the price tag because she thought it was a cool coat. That felt good.

One day at a time

In the spirit of trying to maintain my blog without resorting to half-assed posts, here I go.

So far in honor of my resolution of not buying any clothes (among other resolutions), I've gone a good 17 days without any new clothes. I feel as if I'm going into this resolution rather confidently. Knowing that I'm not going to buy any clothing has drastically decreased my interest in outlet malls save those that contain Cosmetic Company Stores or MAC stores.

I think nature is working against me, guess what came in the mail over a span of two days?


Seriously. As if I didn't already get 5-6 emails a day telling me the exact same thing. It's kind of easy to see how I got into clothes in the first place. Catalog bombardment definitely contributed to my consumerism. Now I just feel disgusted at the waste of paper.

2011 is going to be a bit of a minimalist year. For me, it's not about new fashion as much as it is examining my past decisions while wondering "What was I thinking?" Interesting year. Very interesting year.

And a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Again I have to tell myself I haven't abandoned this blog. I've neglected it pretty horribly, but I haven't abandoned it. I do think about it a lot. This happens to be the blog where I talk the most about my life. Life's been busy. Another year has past and there's always the opportunity to develop good habits under the guise of a New Years Resolution. I find that it's good to have more than one resolution because then the odds of you keeping at least a few of them become higher. For example:

(from last year)

1. I refuse to buy pens this year.
2. I will not buy anymore t-shirts.
3. I will not buy a purse this year unless it is a staple piece.
4. I will not go out and buy new underwear just because I've put off doing my laundry for
months.

- I was definitely able to keep #1 and #4, I think I did end up breaking #2 but I don't remember when. Oddly enough, I might not have broken #3 because it's really hard to find a good bag out there. I'm just going to say I did break that resolution even though I'm not sure.


I'd been getting into tote bags a little bit and this bag kept looking at me. It has eyes, you know. After seeing this bag constantly at Target this past summer, I picked it up and it turned out to be my most overused bag. I suppose using purses requires training, totes are a good gateway into purse usage. I suppose my cat bag can be considered a staple.

Overall, I didn't do to shabby this year.

Resolutions for 2011:

1. I will not buy ANY new clothes.
- I have a feeling a pair of hot fuchsia Barbie heels are going to cross my path many times this year.
- Any clothes I get rid of will be either donated to Goodwill or sold on eBay

2. I will blog once a week.

3. I will make the time to dance at least twice a week.

4. I will finish a project each quarter (if not even more often than that)

5. I will try to make more sensible make up choices.

I know that the last one is a bit subjective, but...

seriously...who knows the next time one of my sisters is going to get married? I need to redeem myself for the rainbow eyes at the wedding. While I liked the job I did, I think it looks cool, for a wedding? I must've been feeling crazy that day...truthfully, I was. There was no worse time to really get into wacky colored make up than the wedding. Ugh.

So there we go, enough resolutions to break and enough to keep.