let's just go with "i'm color blind..."

so today . . . my clothes don't match.  that's why i'm blogging.

i started to write a status update on facebook about the terrible mistake i made this morning, but it was too long.  i could have shortened it, but really... if i can't say it the way i want to say it, then why say it at all!

i was sitting in ms. martha's class while the kids were having music time.  i was sitting instead of leading music, because in a moment of weakness, ms. martha and ms. michelle agreed that if i would do chapel every tuesday, they would cover the music time for the rest of the week!  that's right, people, i only have to do music one day every week!!  ...and tell the bible story, but still, it is a good deal for me!

so, i was sitting there, in a teeny tiny chair, when i happened to look down.  and that's when i saw it.  my top did not match my pants.  at all.  before i could stop myself, i said out loud, "my clothes don't match!"

(perhaps this would be a good place to remind you that i have certain ocd tendencies...  i need things to look a certain way!  i can't even explain my "rules" of how things have to go together.  i just know what is right and what is not..  and if i have to walk out of the house and something isn't right?  it will bother me all day long--translation: i will feel cranky and annoyed. all. day. long.)

ms. martha just looked at me.  "my clothes don't match," i repeated.  "i thought these jeans were red, but they are not.  they are orange!  and there isn't any orange in this top, just some red.  and pink and ivory and brown and, and, red!  and the red is dark!  it isn't even a sort of orangy red that could maybe go with these apparently orange jeans!  it doesn't match!!"

and then, ms. martha, my dear friend and co-worker, said, "well, it doesn't look (insert big pause here) ba-ad."  and yes, when she said the word 'bad' it had two syllables.

anytime it takes a person two syllables to say the word 'bad,' it is not a good thing!

"oh thank you!" i said, "because that's just what i was going for when i got dressed this morning.  i really wanted to come to school looking 'not ba-ad!'"

ms. leigh anne walked in about that time.  ms. leigh anne is new.  she is still getting used to me, so she did not offer an opinion on my choice of wardrobe.  she probably couldn't figure out what the big deal was.  as i said, she is still getting used to me...

but ms. martha knows.  in an attempt to salvage the day, she fell on her sword and offered up her own outfit as an example of something that didn't match.  (yes, she really is my friend.)  to be honest, she was right.  her outfit didn't match.  but it didn't help, because she had a perfectly good reason as to why her clothes didn't match... which i would tell you if this blog was about ms. martha, but it isn't.  it's about me :)

the ironic this is, i spend my days surrounded by tiny children who don't even know if my clothes match or not.  they aren't oblivious.  they constantly comment on what i am wearing, but it mostly sounds like this-"ms. julie, i like your bracelet,"  or  "ms julie, i like your dress," or "ms. julie, i like your sparkly shoes."  which doesn't necessarily help, because really, can you trust the judgement of someone who can't even tie their own shoes or who wear their shirts backwards?!?

so now i have a problem.  i do not have red jeans.  i have orange jeans.  what exactly does one wear with orange jeans???  i can't wear black, because orange and black are halloween colors.  clearly i can't wear red--i tried that today and it didn't work out that well.  brown?  i guess that would be ok, but that feels like fall to me. i thought about a white top and a yellow sweater, but that would make me look like a piece of candy corn...

i guess i'm going to have to give color blocking a try.

but color blocking is dangerous territory for someone like me.  not every orange looks great with every purple... or green... or pink???  especially when i think the orange is red... and it sort of is under some lights...  i mean, i could spend hours in my closet trying to come up with the right combinations.  i would never be on time to work... or anyplace else!

and i know that right now some of you are saying to yourselves, "what is the big deal? just throw on some clothes and go out the door!" and while you may be right, i can't seem to do that.  i can't!  well, i can, but only when i am wearing my pre-arranged, pre-approved "throw it on and go out the door clothes."  which, i'm not kidding, i have...

and perhaps you are wondering why this is a problem at all?  why on earth would someone buy a pair of orange jeans??  this is a very good question, because i would never buy orange jeans.  but again, i thought they were red!  i tried to convince myself that it was just the lights at school that was turning them orange, but when i went outside at lunch time (yes, i ventured out in my mismatched duds--when i'm hungry nothing gets between me and jack in the box!) i'm sad to say that they were still orange...

so i guess i am going to have to go shopping for something that will look right with orange jeans.  because after wearing them all day, i've decided that i kind of like them.  they are different.  everyone has red jeans, but who has orange jeans?!?!  (no one in their right mind, you say...  i know, i hear you...)  and i'm thinking i should probably wear the jeans when i go shopping, so i can be sure that whatever i choose will actually look ok with the actual color of the jeans, and not just the color i think they are in my head!

of course, this means that i am going to have to find something in my closet that i can wear with them when i go shopping... now where did i put that top i wore today...?

;-)

a new collection?

so today . . . i cleaned out my closet. again.

i'm sure you are getting tired of hearing about my closet. i've blogged about it before. more than once. i really thought that when we moved, i had finally cleaned it out for the last time. i got rid of bags and bags of stuff. and then i unpacked into my new closet and realized that i still didn't have enough room for everything...

well, i had enough room for everything, but only if i squished the hangers together so tightly that i couldn't get anything out. and i use skinny velvet covered hangers, so it isn't like those hefty plastic hangers were hogging all the room. i had things stacked so high that i couldn't remove anything without fear of an avalanche. this is not the way i wanted to live! so i cleaned my closet out again. and then a couple of weeks later i did it again.

we have only lived in this house for two and a half months, and i've cleaned out my closet three times...

it seems like i spent my whole summer packing and moving and unpacking. which, mostly i did. but it still wasn't enough time to get completely settled. even though the majority of our stuff had found a place, there were still random boxes and piles of stuff here and there. and where did it bug me the most? in our bedroom! (ok, that's a lie. actually the garage bugs me the most, but there isn't a lot i can do about it right now. it's day is coming, but it isn't today...) so today i decided it was time to get it under control!

i'm sure it is not a coincidence that this happened today, because we are going to be out of town for a couple of days, and you know what that means... yep, clean all night! only this time i can't do that. because this time rollie and i are speaking at this retreat, which means i can't just skip the sessions and sleep. which is what i usually do :-) AND i'm going to need my brain, especially when it is my turn to speak. so i can't stay up all night. i just can't. so everything isn't going to get done to my satisfaction. but the closet is!

i started in on the closet earlier today, but you know my attention span... so i would work for a bit, eat a snack, watch some hgtv (which, btw, is giving me waaay too many ideas, now that i have a house!) rotate the laundry, check facebook (yeah, it's saturday. i can check it all day long. sadly, all my friends apparently have lives, so not much was happening online today...) move some furniture around, move it back, work in the closet some more, play with the dogs... you get the idea.

really, working in our bedroom was a bigger job than just the closet, because our bedroom is really big. so when we moved, i put all the easy stuff away and sort of stacked the rest in the empty half of the room. but then i needed stuff in those boxes full of stuff that i didn't know where to put, and so i would open a box, take something out, see something else and think, "oh, that's where that is," and take something else out, and then leave the box open, because i might need something else in there... i'm sure a picture is forming in your mind... it isn't pretty, is it...

so clearly i had to tackle that stuff too. which i did. but this complicated my closet project, because i kept finding more clothes. that i liked. that i didn't want to get rid of. that i didn't really have room for in my closet.

part of my problem is that i am trying to get by without buying a dresser. we have this big closet (at least it looked big when it was empty!) and so i am convinced that we should be able to get all our clothes in there. really! if we can't get all our clothes in there, then we have too many clothes!

apparently we have too many clothes. actually, apparently i have too many clothes, because i am hogging over half of the closet and still don't have enough room. rollie, on the other hand, seems to be fine. of course, all he has are shirts and pants. he doesn't have shirts and pants and dresses and skirts and vests and sweaters and jackets...

but i am determined. so i moved things around. i refolded stuff so that no space would be wasted. i put two pairs of boots in one box (i know, shocking isn't it!) and i finally got everything in, organized in such a way that i could also get stuff out too. i was feeling pretty happy!

and then, as i continued to put stuff away from the messy side of the room, i found a stack of jeans. five pairs of jeans, to be exact, neatly folded, hiding under some pillows. this was not good, not good at all... i went back into my closet to see what could be done. sadly, nothing could be done. i was out of space. i sorted through my jeans again to see if there were any that didn't fit or were too ratty to wear or that i just didn't like any more. but that didn't work either--they were all perfectly wearable. i should be glad! i had 34 pairs of jeans that i liked, that fit, that were already paid for. but the problem is, I HAVE 34 PAIRS OF JEANS!!!

sigh. when did i turn into my daughter?

because diandra is the queen of jeans. i do not even want to guess how many pairs of jeans that girl has. and when she goes shopping, what does she buy? more jeans.

maybe it is a reaction to her earlier jeans issues. because when she was a teenager, living at home, and i was buying her jeans, we had issues. she wanted jeans that sat below her waist, and i did not want her to have them. tops were shorter then, and my daughter was not going to run around with even the tiniest gap between her top and her jeans! we spent hours in dressing rooms! hours!! she would choose some jeans and try them on. i would say they were too low. she would say moo-oom! i would say you are not wearing those out of the house. she would say but i like them. i would say no. and eventually we would find a pair that we could both tolerate. and then we would go to another store, and it would start all over again. neither one of us would be happy, but at least she would be clothed.

and then she became an adult and started buying her own jeans. amazingly, she still took me along! "want to go to the mall?" she would say. "i need to get some jeans." inwardly i would groan, but since it would mean an afternoon with diandra, i would go. she didn't say moo-ooom anymore, but she still didn't always like my opinion. which didn't stop me from giving it, even though i no longer had the power to just say "no." which turned out ok, because instead of rolling her eyes at me, she started listening to me. and sometimes she even agreed with me. occasionally :-)

jeans shopping was always such an ordeal. and yet still we did it. diandra was always on the search for that perfect pair of jeans... which seemed to be just out of our grasp. we found lots of nearly perfect jeans, seemingly perfect jeans, or but the price is right jeans. but perfect jeans? highly elusive. and so, even though she always had a drawer full, or two, or three, she always seemed to need just one more pair...

i, on the other hand, only had five or six pair total--light blue, dark blue, black, short (to wear with flat shoes,) and longer (to wear with boots.) really. i thought six pair should be perfectly adequate. and it was.

until today. because today i couldn't fit all of my jeans into my closet. i had several stacks of jeans, sorted by style--skinny jeans, "jeggings" (which is the dumbest word ever. i hate to even write it, but it's what they are called,) boot cut, cargo, and capri. (don't worry, i only had one pair of capris.) i tried rearranging them. i tried folding them differently. i tried to get rid of just a few more pair. it didn't help. i still couldn't get them all in the closet. i finally had to put a few pair on top of some shoes...

when did this happen?!? where did all these jeans come from?!?! i hate to buy jeans. hate. it! and yet apparently i have bought them, because they didn't just materialize on their own, and i'm pretty sure denim hasn't figured out how to procreate. and i never purposely go shopping for jeans. if i happen across a pair, while shopping with diandra, i will get them, but i never say to myself, "i need a new pair of jeans. i think i will go to the mall." never. but i also apparently never get rid of a pair either, and so their numbers increase...

i don't know what i'm going to do. it seems ridiculous to get rid of perfectly good jeans that are already paid for that fit me. and i'm certainly not going to give up going to the mall with my daughter (which, let's face it, is really the issue here. because when i go with her, jeans just seem to follow me home...) so i guess there is only one thing to do...

... start planning my takeover strategy for rollie's side of the closet.

:-)

it's hot. it's cold. it must be spring!

so today . . . it was cold.

i knew it was going to get cold again, because i just put my winter clothes in the extra closet and moved my summer clothes back into my room. i did this because it was so hot last week. the week before that it rained. and rained and rained and rained. but last week was really nice. and it is april, so you would think the seasonal clothing migration would be safe. so i moved out the warm sweaters and everything with long sleeves, and replaced them with summer tops and lightweight jackets.

and so, of course, today it was cold.

usually my clothes don't migrate until easter weekend. easter weekend usually marks the start of spring for me, not the calendar. but last week was sooooo nice. and you know, sometimes easter is in march, and the cadbury eggs are already out at wal-mart, and there is a new movie out about the easter bunny... so i jumped the gun and switched out the clothes.

i felt like i had to do it, because on thursday it was so hot, i was worried about the kids being outside at recess. i don't know why, but our chinese parents tend to overdress their kids. and by overdress, i mean that on a day when the forecast says it will be over 80 degrees outside, those kids will come to school wearing a turtleneck long-sleeved t-shirt, another long-sleeved t-shirt over that, a short sleeved t-shirt over that, and a hoodie zipped up over them all!

ok. i tend to get cold. and so even when hot temperatures are forecast, i typically wear a lightweight cardigan over my short-sleeved shirt in the morning. but three shirts and a hoodie?!?! that seems just a bit excessive. so on thursday, as we were undressing kids (because we had to take off all those shirts so that they could just wear the t-shirt outside,) i was still worried about the heat. i was DYING, and i was standing in the shade!! but the kids seemed oblivious. they were running around and playing in that hot sun, beads of sweat forming on their foreheads, only stopping for an occasional drink. i kept expecting them to drop from heat exhaustion, but our playground seemed to be inhabited by energizer bunny clones...

so yesterday i gathered my warm weather wardrobe (ah, alliteration...) and prepared for spring. and then today proved it was spring, as the weather changed once again.

fortunately, i do have cardigan sweaters and lightweight jackets still in my closet.

fortunately, my "ugg" boots are still in my closet.

fortunately, i did not replace my long pants with shorts just yet.

and fortunately, diandra's winter clothes are still in her closet, which is just down the hall...

maybe i need a plan...

so today . . . i've been restless and lethargic all at one time.

you might think these two things are mutually exclusive, but they are not. and it is miserable to experience both at once! should i take a nap or take a walk? should i clean out my closet or go to the mall? should i eat a brownie (which is just sitting there in a package waiting for me to devour it) or a salad (which requires preparation.) it is unsettling...

i texted my dilemma to rollie. he is in illinois. he said i should forget about trying to accomplish anything and just do whatever i felt like doing. which was good advice, except i didn't know what i felt like doing. i wanted to work on my photo scanning project, but i couldn't find the big, rectangular folding table to set everything up on.

yes, apparently i have misplaced a table!!! i am thinking it must be the innocent victim of my perpetual rearranging of things, because it isn't where i left it and i know i didn't get rid of it. at least, i think i know i didn't get rid of it. but i can't imagine where i would have rearranged it to! i mean, there aren't that many places it could be... the one place i know it is not, is in the family room, ready to hold my computer and scanner and dvd drive and hard drive and photo albums!

so i decided to work on cleaning out my closet instead. i started that project yesterday, but then it got dark. i don't like to be in my bedroom after dark--it is not well lit, so it is very shadowy and i feel like i can't see anything. which is why i decided i should go in there today while it was still daylight. i thought i would watch tv while i worked, but unless you want to watch talk shows or judge shows, the choices are quite limited. no problem for me, though--we have netflix!!

i say we, but after scrolling through the choices, i realized it is mostly rollie and diandra that have netflix. because unless i wanted to watch the x-files, lost, dirty jobs, future weapons, survivorman, man vs. wild, deadliest catch, friday night lights, the hills, or various science fiction movies, i was in trouble. (i quickly logged onto netflix and downloaded a season of a show called miami ink--it is about a tattoo parlor. i can't wait to see what kind of reaction i get when rollie thinks i am really going to watch it--yes, i am easily amused! in fact, i might even actually watch it...) i finally found a couple of movies to watch and proceeded to try on every. single. thing. in my closet.

that might sound like fun. you know, kind of like playing dress up. but it was NOT fun. the whole point was to get rid of stuff, but i like everything in my closet. obviously!! i mean, i spent time and money to put each item in there, so getting rid of things was not all that much fun. i am beginning to think that i should just wear black or white and get rid of everything else, because it takes up a lot of space to have tank tops and t-shirts and sweaters in every shade of the rainbow... not to mention jackets and dresses! and shoes!!

as darkness approached, i headed to the family room (where there are decent lights!) and my computer. after checking to see what had been happening on facebook all day, i was thinking it might be time to indulge my restlessness and get out of the house. i was thinking maybe a movie and a hot dog at the cheap theater. so i checked the listings and found that iron man 2 is still playing! yesssss!! but only at 4:45 and 9:30. bummer!! it was 8:00 which meant i would have to go to the 9:30 show, and i was pretty sure i was too tired for that tonight. so then i thought i would go get my hair cut. i took it out of the ponytail where it has resided for most of the summer and decided maybe it looked ok.

so i ate an ice cream bar, and tried to blog.

but milo would not leave me alone!! the dogs get weird when we are not all at home. he was trying to get into my lap (where my computer was,) and licking my face, and pawing my hands. and when that didn't work, he rolled over on his back and waved his paws at me. and when that didn't work, he squirmed around to try to make upside down eye contact with me...

...and fell off the couch.

yes, we have had quite a full day. tomorrow, i think i will go out...

maybe i need a refresher course ... or maybe just new glasses.

so today . . . elvis wore this shirt to school.usually i don't take that much note of what the kids are wearing, but sometimes they are more stylish than me--even the boys! (i think that is because their mother's dress them.) sometimes i can look at a tiny little tot dressed head to toe from the gap, and i think, "did their mom realize those cute clothes would only fit them for a couple of months as she was signing a second mortgage to pay for them?" it seems like such a waste, because most of the time, the boys don't even care what they are wearing. as long as there is an action figure on the front of their shirt, they are happy.

but little girls are a different story. they care. they have opinions. (i know this, because i raised a little girl.) i can usually tell which little girls choose their own outfits and which ones have moms who are still making those clothing choices for them. (ok, maybe this little girl had some say in her ensemble--even i admit that is an awful lot of sparkles!)(and you may have your doubts about that last one, but trust me, i am pretty sure that was mom's idea.)

but i digress. back to elvis and his shirt.

so today . . . elvis came to me and said, "look at my shirt! do you know how many eyes are on it?" i was sorting papers at my desk, so i quickly glanced at the eyes, mentally grouped and added them, and said, "eight."

"no," he said, "there are seven."

"no," i said, "i just counted them, there are eight." and i was thinking to myself two on top, three in the middle, two on the bottom--eight. two groups of two, one group of three--eight. you do the math . . .

. . . yeah, i was wrong. because while my eyes were seeing 2-3-2, my brain was thinking 3-2-3.

i have no explanation for why my brain lies to me sometimes, but it does. it tells me brownies are good for me. it tells me i can stay up until midnight on a school night. it tells me i can never have too many shoes. (oh wait, that last one is true.)

but i'm the teacher. i've been counting for a long, long time. and usually they believe whatever i tell them. but clearly elvis had counted those eyes more than once. he knew how many there were. "no," he said for the third time, "there are seven. look."

and then he made my kindergarten teacher's heart do a little dance, because he looked at his shirt, and he counted, "two, four, six, seven!"

yessss!!! the boy counted by twos!! without being prompted or convinced that it would save him time. he counted by twos, and then added the odd one!!! it was all i could do to keep from leaping up and squeezing him to death!

and so, it is clear to me that my work here is done. these kindergarteners are ready to move on to first grade. they can count by twos. they don't need me anymore.

(except to tie their highly fasionable shoes . . .
. . . in double knots.)

defined by sparkle?

so today . . . i got the laundry folded. did you know that it takes twice as long to fold two week's worth of laundry than it does to fold one? i'm not kidding you--it's true!

i've been working on cleaning out my closet--i mean really cleaning it out. i can't work on it for more than a couple of hours at a time or i cease to be ruthless. and i am not really all that ruthless to begin with. but tonight, when i was making room for black sleeveless top #12, i thought to myself, "my clothes are really boring." this is a strong statement from a woman who has outlawed the word boring both at home and at school (just like my mother before me!)

i started to suspect this a few weeks ago, when we experienced "the great earthquake scare." as part of my earthquake preparations, i put 98% of my jewelry collection into very sturdy containers and packed them in a safe place. (you see how cleverly i kept from disclosing exactly where my jewels now rest? that's because i know some of you . . . ) i kept out just a few things that would be easy to replace or that have no sentimental value to me. but now, my clothes all look the same.

this is partly by design. my thinking is this--clothes wear out (or get ruined or go out of style or cease to fit,) but jewelry is forever :) so as my jewelry collection has slowly grown over the years, i am a major bargain shopper when it comes to my clothes. if it costs much more than $10 or $15 on sale, odds are that it is not coming home with me. and that works for me, because i will certainly have a necklace or bracelet that will make my cheap outfit look totally awesome!

but now that my jewels are all in hiding, my daily wardrobe for work pretty much consists of two outfits--either a knit dress with a cardigan sweater, or a skirt with a tank top and a cardigan sweater. (i like cardigan sweaters, ok?!?!) oh, and tights. i have these items in numerous colors, (with an unusually large concentration in black, brown and white,) but no matter how i mix them up, i pretty much look the same every day.

i guess that is ok. i am comfortable. i am clean. i am classic.

i am boring.

i need my big turquoise necklace or my interchangeable cuff bracelet or my gold dangly earrings to turn my clothes into an outfit. i need my mom's jaguar pin to keep my jacket from looking ho-hum. i've been trying to fill the gap with scarves, but most of my scarves don't sparkle at all!

and there it is. i am missing my sparkle.

my sparkle is what makes me unique. i wear sparkle more than anyone else i know--i even wear it when i am at home alone all day. it is beautiful, it is interesting, and it tells a story. i can look at my collection and see when i was in the gemstone phase and when i was in the 'it has to be real gold' phase and when i was in the 'bigger is better' phase. i can look at my collection and remember holidays when sparkly gifts were received and vacations where all other souveniers were rejected until the perfect piece of jewelry was found. i look at my collection and see the "if i have to move to california" ring and the july jewels and my grandma's faux pearls. i look at my collection and remember summer days when my mom said, "we should clean out my jewelry box" and i said, "yes, we should!" because i knew anything she was getting rid of would find a home with me. if it sparkles, i think it should be mine!

so i think i am going to have to liberate some more of my jewelry--because at this point, my only other option is going to be buying tops with stitched on beads and sequins. i know they are out there--i was at new york & co last weekend. but they will probably have to be hand washed and line dried, which means they will spend a good portion of their time in the laundry room waiting for my attention.

and i am guessing they will cost more than $10 . . .

the never-ending battle!

so today . . . i decided to clean out my closet. again.

the last two houses we lived in had large, walk-in closets. and i managed to keep them pretty full. but in oregon, you need a lot of clothes because it really does get cold and wet in the winter. and when you have big closets, you have lots of room for clothes.

when you have lots of clothes, you need a system in order to find what you need. my system is this--put the same types of clothing together, and then arrange each group into rainbow color order. i don't remember coming up with that system--i just thought that's what everybody did.

until the day i mentioned it to the other teachers at school . . .

you would think i had just confessed to being a clown in my free time! they looked at me in disbelief. and they laughed. and then they mocked me mercilessly. i tried to get them to explain to me how they found what they were looking for in their closets without rainbow color order. they couldn't really explain it, but their clothes usually matched, so they must have had some sort of system . . . it just apparently had nothing to do with color.

then came the day i couldn't find my orange blouse. i loved that blouse. it was an unusual color and was so soft. i looked and looked and looked, but it was not where it belonged. could i have taken it on a trip and left it somewhere? was it in a stack of clothes in the sewing room waiting to have a button replaced? would diandra have borrowed it? it didn't seem like the type of thing she would wear, but it had to be somewhere?!?! and yet it remained inexplicably absent.

until we moved. and as i was packing the clothing from the closet, i found the orange blouse, nestled in among the red blouses . . . when i told this story at school, they couldn't understand how i couldn't see the orange blouse when it was right there! but it wasn't where it belonged! it was out of rainbow color order. i didn't look for it with the red blouses--i looked between the red ones and the yellow ones--where the orange should be!

it is a good thing i was moving, because the laughing and mocking were getting a little out of control . . .

here in southern california you can wear summer weight clothes most of the year--you just have to add a sweater and tights for the few days in the winter where it dips below 60 degrees. which is a good thing, because the closets are small. when we moved into our current house, i went into the bedroom, looked at the closet, and thought, "houston, we have a problem!" there was one double-sized closet that i had to share! i looked in that closet and knew that there was no way our clothes were going to fit. so rollie went off to home depot to look for a solution. he came back with extra clothing rods and some hooks and chains, and proceeded to add a second rod for hanging clothes. that helped, but it seems like it is still a constant battle to balance the amount of clothing i have with the amount of closet space that is available to me.

this is the reason that i have to clean out my closet every few months. it isn't that i buy that many new clothes--it's just that i had so many to start with. my goal is to get all my clothes into one closet. what i really need to do is be more ruthless with the winter clothes, since i rarely need them. and yet, i love sweaters and jackets! even if i hardly ever get to wear them, i always think, "yes, but what if we have a cold day . . . " and then it seems the colors i like come in slightly different shades--so i have 3 brown jackets, 2 olive ones, 3 red sweaters, and i am not even going to tell you how many black sweaters and jackets i have . . . and that isn't even counting the heavier jackets and coats. really.

i should probably clean out the coat closet next . . .

but today i made progress. i let go of a little more. i think it is starting to get easier. which is a good thing, because the garage is looming . . . and winter clothing should be going on sale any day now :)

i'm a gym rat--i have the clothes to prove it!

so today . . . i bought workout clothes.

i'm not all that worried about how i look when i go work out, but i want to be comfortable. ok, i also want to be color-coordinated if possible, but that is a secondary concern. so what to wear to the gym has been a bit of an issue, since i am more likely to have clothes i can wear with heels than clothes to wear with sneakers.

i am thinking i will get hot while exercising. i think if i am doing it correctly, i should even sweat. so jeans and a cute top are not going to work. not only would that be uncomfortable and hot, but i'm pretty sure it would draw the disdain of the other people laboring away on the equipment. and my ineptness on the machines already draws more attention than i would like, without adding inappropriate clothing to the mix. so i am going to need shorts.

i have several pairs of shorts, but they are the cotton plaid bermuda style shorts. they are cute, but not really gym-appropriate. i did have two pair i thought might work. i bought them last summer before i went on vacation, because i thought they would be comfortable to sit around in at night. they are stretchy cotton knit and go clear to my knees! (ok, i am not at the gym to pick up guys, so these shorts will be perfect!) but i only had 2 pair and if i am going to the gym 4 times a week, i am still a couple pair short. (don't even suggest i do laundry in the middle of the week! that is not going to happen--and when would i find the time anyway, what with hanging out at the gym all the time . . . )

tops were another problem. tshirts would be ok, but i do sweat on those terrible machines of death (i speak of the elliptical machines or stair steppers, or whatever the heck i was on!) and a shirt with sleeves just compounds the problem. i need tank tops! but the tank tops i have are just barely long enough to meet the tops of my shorts, and i am pretty sure i am not a "bare-midriff" type person. some people are--mostly the people who have already been going to the gym for the last 5 years and are showing off their abs! i would not be one of those people. ever. also, my current crop of tank tops are made from a ribbed knit which is a little heavy--translate that to mean warm--so while they are better than a tshirt, i am going to be less than comfortable in them.

but even though i was going to have to get some workout clothes, i hadn't really planned on buying them today. i went to target to buy a sweater that i had seen was on sale. and then i found a pair of shorts--nice long shorts--on sale for a mere $7. ooooh, i thought. i wonder what else is on sale . . .

i made my way to the area set aside for work out clothes. this is not an area i frequent. in fact, the only time i have ever given it any attention was last summer when i went to purchase the shorts for my vacation. i think of this area as the place where gym rats spend their money, while i prefer to spend mine on shoes.

i was hoping to find one more pair of shorts on sale, but instead i found tops! tops made of a feathery light miracle fabric that promised to keep me cool and dry and ventilated(?!?) no matter how hard i worked out . . . and they were on sale for $7! and they had my size! and they came in fashionable colors!!

although, i have noticed that most of the gym ratty people wear black, white, and gray. i too would wear black, white, and gray--which would further my quest to remain unnoticed--except black, white, and gray were not on sale. pink, turquoise, and dark blue were on sale (probably because the gym rats beat me to the black, white, and gray!) so that's what i got.

and i'm not quite sure why i have to be ventilated. cool and dry i understand, and i am looking forward to seeing just how these tops accomplish that seemingly impossible task. but ventilated . . . ?

i guess i am going to have to work at becoming more proficient on those machines, because my new, colorful clothing might make me stand out from the crowd a bit. which means if i fall off the ellipical machine while trying to drink from my water bottle (hey--it could happen. ask diandra,) more people will notice. and snicker.

and i guess i'd better keep that appointment with a personal trainer on monday. even though i'm pretty sure the personal trainers are minions of the devil. maybe he can at least teach me to use the machinery without embarrassing myself. although, he'll probably want my soul in return . . .