Day Four: Use Things Up

One of my favourite no-cost, happiness-inducing activities is to potter around the house using things up.

Such items as two partially-used body lotions can be condensed into one of the bottles for a new and different scented lotion, and I can recycle one bottle.

I go through my candle stash, choose one that is quite low and commit to burning that until it’s gone.

Same thing with facial skincare.  I tend to buy moderately priced skin products when they are on a special offer, so I always have a good supply.  However I like to test the new one straight away.  When I’m on my using things up jag, I put everything away except for one of each product, and use that until it’s gone.

I know this sounds so basic, but it really does bring a ray of sunshine to my day and subsequent days when I do this micro-sweep of organisation.

I can even extend it to my laundry and pantry by taking stock, combining like items and/or reminding myself they even exist sometimes.  Often dinner is an inspired creation that night!

If you really feel like letting loose and living it up, why don’t you open a cupboard door and see what you can find to use up – join the party!

Day Three: The Minimal Wardrobe

'French Girl's Wardrobe' by Lesley Sico via Pour l'amour de Paris

With the seasonal changeover, I’ve been enjoying playing around with my wardrobe.  I love reading about others tiny wardrobes on their blogs (like Janet at The Gardener’s Cottage, Sarah at Chic Mummy and Jennifer at The Daily Connoisseur), and on websites such as Project 333 (which I linked to via Tracy’s lovely blog) and also TheVivienne Files.

However, when it comes to putting it all into practice, I chicken out.  I go to my bedroom with grand plans, open the doors and then think ‘oh, I don’t have that much’ and close the doors again.  But over the past little while I’ve donated quite a bit of my wardrobe as well as down-graded going out clothing to home clothing, so having a small wardrobe is not such a far-away dream.

Inspired by Project 333, I put my winter clothing on my bed, looked at colours together and made up some new outfits.  I then put the hangers back into my wardrobe having weeded out ‘too summery, slightly too tight, the colour doesn’t go with this collection, etc’.  Those things went further along our really long clothing rail.  Our master bedroom is blessed with a triple door wardrobe which has extra railing beyond that even (behind the ensuite wall).

If you’re not familiar with Project 333, the central premise is to choose a selection of 33 garments from your wardrobe to wear for the next three months, and put everything else away in another room, or a suitcase etc.  You would potentially learn to put together a capsule wardrobe to get maximum possibilities out of your 33 pieces, and also refine your personal style.

In my ‘winter capsule wardrobe’ I now have about 20 hanging garments, half a dozen folded items and maybe 5-6 pairs of winter shoes/boots, two belts and a handful of scarves so I’m pretty happy with that effort.

My focus is on identifying what it is that I do on a daily basis, what would be the ideal clothes to wear doing those things whilst also looking the way I want to look.  Basically being realistic about what I like to wear.

I always feel so good in very simple outfits with not too much frou frou.  I like a colour with a neutral (such as denim and black, beige and light green, charcoal and light pink, etc).  I can very easily be over frou froued since I always wear makeup and jewellery, so wearing simple clothing styles balances that out.

Looking at my clothing and sorting through things gave me two thoughts:

1.  I don’t want to buy cheap clothing in the future.  I’d rather go without and save for something good.
2.  When I do go shopping, I will be very picky and the item will go with lots of other things in my wardrobe.

Both are classic French Girl aren’t they?  I thought it was funny that those two ideas popped into my mind.  You can read and read and read about something, but when you experience it yourself, that’s when it finally sinks in.

Day Two: Plan Ahead (But Not Too Far)

The beginnings of pumpkin soup

I love the idea of menu planning a week or more in advance, but just can’t seem to put it into practice.  So I focus on the next 24 hours of meals.  This gives me a chance to get meat out of the freezer for tomorrow night (or buy some), make sure I have the fruit and vegetables and any extra ingredients I need, and fit in times for food preparation.

More times than I care to count I have arrived at noon with a fridge full of salad vegetables (whole, unwashed and in bags) and a rumbling belly and not wanting to wait the time it takes to wash and chop.  If I can get organised enough to tear, soak and spin the lettuce ahead of time that’s a big help, but when I make little containers of salad in my beloved Tupperware or Gladware containers that’s even better.

It is a thing of beauty to open the fridge door and take out your own home-prepared ‘fast food’, tip it into a bowl, adorn with a yummy dressing and enjoy an ‘instant’ lunch.  Plus, everything is extra crispy having been washed and then chilled.  More so than when you chop and eat straight away.

I have even gone one step further than I used to and added the grated cheese/diced cooked chicken etc.  A sprinkle of grated cheese is such a divine treat on my salad.  I got the idea from Subway, but my salads are much nicer than theirs and much, much less expensive.  The final steps are avocado which can only be done just before, and tomato which is nicer out of the fridge.

I even eat salad in the winter, but I start with a bowl of soup first.  I made pumpkin soup this week and it’s so nice to start off with a hot bowl and then move onto a refreshing salad.

Breakfast and dinner are faster to prepare.  It doesn’t take much time to chop a bowl of fruit, or prepare the broccoli/carrots/pumpkin/beans that are to go with the main part of our meal.

Thinking 24 hours ahead also allows me to stop at the supermarket when I am out somewhere already, rather than make a special trip which uses petrol and my precious free time.

I feel like I’m really making the most of the money and time that I have available to me when I dream up and prepare my healthy and delicious daily meals in a stress-free way, and that makes me very happy.

Day One: Be Pressed, Be Chic.

‘I love ironing’.

This is the mantra has helped me get over my lifelong aversion to ironing.  If I could choose something to wear that did not require ironing, I would.  Even though I love wearing a fitted and crisp cotton shirt with jeans or wide-leg pants I just couldn’t stand ironing in the morning.  And I told myself that my shirts would get crushed and wrinkled in the wardrobe if I did them ahead of time, but really that was a big fat excuse for my laziness.

One day on my day off work I set up the ironing board with an audiobook playing and set to it.  I ironed every one of my shirts and hung them like in a boutique buttoned at the neck.  I was so proud of my wardrobe and getting dressed the next day was very exciting.  Everything felt so new!  And I was finally wearing and enjoying all my lovely shirts.

After that it was a simple matter of ironing a handful of shirts a week.  Every so often I’ll get behind but then I’ll just have another big ironing afternoon with a good (audio)book.  I don’t have the ‘they’ll get crushed’ problem anymore now either.  Because there are less clothes in my wardrobe they have room around them to breathe and stay nice.

What really cemented my newly created mindset of ‘I love ironing’ was that one of my most slender, stylish and elegant friends who went on a Scandinavian cruise last year told me she asked for an iron to be brought to her cabin because she irons everything, absolutely everything she wears - she just cannot not iron her clothes.  I found that really cute, and if her ironing OCD is how she always looks so polished, I’ll take it.

Thirty Chic Days - June

Eiffel Tower painting by artist Leslie Saeta

I’m in the mood for another Thirty Chic Days.  Even though life is going wonderfully well - I’m (almost) keeping up at work and home despite having lots to do, eating well most of the time, and feeling generally good about things, I know there are areas where I’m dragging the chain a little bit.

I do know that when I’m really ‘on’, I feel amazing.  When I’m up to date with home and work and have done things ahead of time life is easy.  I deal with issues as they come up no problem.  But if I let little things slip here and there, that’s when I get irritable and grumpy, and it’s only because of me.

I’ve thought of all the little things that I can do to make me feel good rather than lazy and guilty.  None of them are earth-shattering or even particularly major.  But that doesn’t matter and in fact is preferable.  They will be easier to do and all it takes is a gentle upward swing to set me off in the right direction again.

I’ve started by listing all the ways I feel unchic and created an action plan.  Just little things I can do day to day to feel more chic and less blah.  Instead of feeling demotivated and down, creating an action plan of simple steps reminds me how easy it is to feel chic again, rather than ho-hum.

A good friend reminded me of the quote below, and it started me off on this new Thirty Chic Days idea of what little things I can do for life to feel magical again.

‘If you want an extraordinary life, you must have equally extraordinary routines, because your daily actions are creating your life.’ -Tonya Leigh

Tomorrow is the first day of June.  It’s winter here in the southern hemisphere and summer in the north.  A fresh new month of thirty days just waiting for us to dive on in.

Chic Habits: Having Empathy

I read recently that having empathy for others makes you a happy person, and I can totally believe it.

I have been putting my ‘empathy’ mantra into practice over the past little while and it has helped me make better decisions.  I then feel good about myself, I am a nicer person and everyone is happy.

Whenever I am in a situation – serving a customer, out in public, driving, whatever, when I think about the other person I think of them with empathy.  Sometimes it is hard and I don’t always get there, but most of the time I see things from their point of view and am happy to give way graciously, sometimes figuratively and sometimes literally.

At the very least I think I come across in a more caring way and that in turn often triggers them to be more thoughtful.  No matter what, I always feel better afterwards.  The few times I’ve thought it was ‘my right’ to do something, even if it was, I’ve had a bad feeling afterwards (and I didn’t like it!). 

Even people I dislike, I can feel for them and therefore feel happier for myself if I think of them with empathy.  I don’t feel good when I think (or say) bad thoughts about someone, but I would think to myself ‘well they’re x’ as if that made my thoughts valid.

Having empathy takes away the bad thoughts and replaces them with better ones, and so I feel positive and happier rather than negative and picky.

Sometimes I might seem to be ‘giving in’ to someone or being ‘too nice’ for my own good, it actually is for my own good.  And it’s not just situations, it’s any time I interact with another human being, I think of them with empathy and all is well.

If you knew me in person you would know I am not the pushover type.  I fight for my rights and sometimes I probably go too far for my own peace of mind.  So cultivating empathy is beneficial for me.

It’s about finding balance in how we live our life and conduct our day to day moments.  When you find something that enhances these it’s like a blessing from above.