What to Wear: Capsule Wardrobe

I am all about the capsule wardrobe. Having a foundation of key-pieces that you know you love? Right up my alley! Now...as for not shopping for more clothes to add to the mix? There's the hard part - shopping is truly my favourite down-time activity! All that to say, I am still really in love with the concept.

Last Spring, we went through "The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up" and subsequently purged our whole house (and I mean purged!). I kept only what I knew I loved, in every aspect, but the most significant change for me, was my wardrobe.

Gone were the ripped tank tops, the $6 flip flops & that dress that I never even took the tags off of. Gone were the colours I didn't love, the too-big/too-short/too-long/too-itchy. Gone! All of it! I felt like Oprah doing a massive giveaway, when I dropped off our 60 (you read that right!) garbage bags of stuff to goodwill. "You get a car! You get a car!" ...Only this time it was: "You get an old shirt! You get an old shirt! Everyone gets an old shirt!!". It was so cleansing to know that whatever I had left, I loved.

I came home to a closet that almost had an echo. I had cleared out so many things & yet I felt like I had more choices than ever to work with! Why is that? Well, either way, there it was - a bare-feeling closet, spacious drawers & a plan to make. I sat down with a sketch book & drew up some of my favourite outfits to wear, listed the different occasions I needed them for & then started to put it all together. (If you know me, you know that the making-of-the-lists is also among my favourite activities - so this was bliss!)

I discovered that I really do like just a few variations of the same things; white dresses, cropped denim, lacey/floral/eyelet detailing & always a touch of the colour "mustard". My husband states it plainly: "you are such a hippy".  I am admittedly a bit of a flower-child at heart - I blame it on an awesome picture of my mom that I first saw when I was about 9. She was standing on a beach in Hawaii, with long hair down to her waist and a beautiful, bohemian patterned sundress. I instantly asked "do you still have that?!" and grew up always wanting to emulate my mom in that look (in so many other ways, too) - sunny, happy & feminine & free!

So, back to my closet...What did I keep? Well, since my purge, my closet looks like a lot of white, distressed denim & floral (who are we kidding, it totally looked like that before - but now there is la plan!). I live within what I like to call a very flexible capsule wardrobe.

I have always been interested in simplicity & the seemingly tireless endeavour to "simplify" life - so this really works for me.  Do I still shop? Uh...yeah! (Within reason!) But now, I live by the "one-in, one-out" rule - and try to be faithful to donate one piece when I bring in a new one. And that's why mine is a "flexible" capsule wardrobe, because if I see a piece that I just love & feel I can't rotate something out for it, I have the flexibility to grow my capsule by 1 item.

Picture above👆🏽, is a representation of my capsule wardrobe; the 16 pieces I rotate throughout my weeks (I would say I realistically wear each of these pieces once in a 2-week span). I have always been an outfit repeater - wearing the new dress I bought 3-days in a row out of sheer excitement for the piece - so this works for me. I love the simplicity of it & it makes getting dressed (slightly) quicker (I am still a woman, though - we all know what my closet floor looks like after a frenzied outfit-choosing!).

What do you think? Could you slim your closet down to your fave 16 pieces?

Here's to the simple life!

XO,
Love from, Valerie

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Thoughts: This Path We're On...

January 26, 2017. 1:00am.
Those first steps out of the hospital doors that night felt so much like the day we first took him home as a new babe. We were standing in the same place, eyes wide with excitement; with this precious life to care for. We felt the incredible weight of responsibility paired with this new depth of a love we had never known before. The only difference between this night, and that day in 2009, is that this time, instead of excitement, we were wide eyed with an overwhelm of information & unsettling fear that I truly thought would never leave me.

That night at the hospital was filled with testing, waiting, wondering, listening, comprehending...a few tears...and one shot of insulin that would become the first of hundreds to come. (He will have had over 1,200 injections by Christmas).

Once we got home, we put him to bed and then...we cried. Well, I cried. My husband held my hand, lay beside me, hugged me and held back the tears that I know he wanted to let out, too. We cried, we watched, and I laid awake, checking every few minutes for a sweaty brow or a shaky body... it was more than I thought I could ever learn to handle.

The following morning, we began what would be our new routine: finger prick - test sugars - count carbs - injection - eat (repeat...and repeat and repeat). I will never forget that first injection I gave him: shaky hands, nauseous stomach, trying to hide tears from my little one as I lifted his shirt & poked his skin. It felt wrong. I knew the insulin would help, and this was all for good, but I felt so wrong - inflicting the (albeit, small amount of) pain that my child was cringing over. Giving him a needle. Mums are supposed to be the hand-holders in those moments, not the needle-givers.

I was grieving so many small things that week. So many comforts that I had become used to - so many eases of every day.  As I said before, I thought, "surely I will never be able to handle all this".

> > > Fast Forward > > >

April 1, 2017. 10:22pm.
I sit here, beside my husband, both of us finishing up some writing on our computers. Our little one is sleeping in his bed - and all is...normal.

Normal...whew.

I did wonder if we would ever feel normal again; I honestly wondered if I'd ever even breath again. I couldn't imagine being anything but worried in the future (In my irrational worrisome nature, I even gave thought to rearranging my schedule so that I could sit in the car outside of all his lessons & playdates...).

They say hindsight is 20/20 - (they say a lot of things, don't they...) but, what is foresight? Because mine was just so off. I could never have pictured us here, back to feeling like "us". Not worried about every little moment. Making it through the highs & low's (and I'm not talking figuratively this time!) and being...okay. I pictured a struggle for every injection, a scared child, a whole new menu of foods, endless doctor's appointments. When I looked 2017 in the face, I saw worry & overwhelm clouding every corner. I just couldn't have imagined...peace.

And yet, it always shows up. (Why do we always wonder?)

Peace.

I really couldn't have imagined it. Me? A worrier in the truest sense of the word, experiencing peace - through this? ...I could never have imagined it.

...but, then, as always...entering quietly in the depths of my heart...Jesus. The One who can grant peace where peace seems impossible. The One who can calm a raging sea. Jesus came & covered me with peace when I thought that any chance of it was gone...

"He is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we could ask or think!" -Ephesians 3:20

I know it won't always be a peaceful path that we walk and changes will surface over the course of the year and years to come, but, diabetes was not nearly the worst news we could have received from the doctor that night. So many parents have experienced so much worse. So many long to be parents, so many wish they still had their child with them to even worry about... No question, Diabetes or not...we are blessed. As my sweet Irish grandpa said every day "No complaints, whatsoever".

So, no complaints - not even one.

Here we are, 2 months later, feeling, both, back to our normal selves - and yet completely anew...and I have to say I like it. I can feel God's peace in my heart in a new way than ever before - and it all came through this trial.

I love the line in the song "Through It All" that goes "I thank Him for my mountains & I thank Him for my valleys, I thank Him for the storms He brought me through - 'cause if I never had a problem, I wouldn't know that God could solve them...I wouldn't know what faith in God could do."

Such a perfect line that sums it all right up. I have seen yet another beautiful side of my Jesus, through this - and I hold Him even closer to my heart now.

Watching God work is amazing. To watch your heart go from broken pieces to a beautiful mosaic of trust & peace, is the most beautiful thing you can imagine, and, if this is what our trials can bring us to, it might just be worth it.

XO,
Love from Valerie