Winter Capsule Wardrobe Outfits

 I managed to ignore the blog again.  I'm sorry.  Life has felt as though it is going a million miles a minute.  I thought I would share what I have been wearing from my capsule wardrobe this winter.  I am looking forward to transitioning to a spring capsule wardrobe in April.  This wardrobe has been functional, but it could have been much smaller.  I have learned a few things about myself in this process that I hope to be able to apply to my next capsule wardrobe.

Sharing the Mental Load

I have always carried the mental load of caring for my children.  My husband is a great Dad and is willing to complete any task given to him, but he has never had to carry any of the mental load of raising our children. I have been feeling burnt out consistently over the past year so my husband and I discussed how I needed to move certain aspects of the mental load to his plate. 

 

One thing that we have been successful in moving to my husband's plate is my daughter's homework.  My oldest daughter and I had become trapped in a never-ending homework battle and it was proving to be detrimental to our relationship.  My husband took over the responsibility of helping her complete her homework and my relationship with my daughter improved dramatically.  She gives my husband a hard time, but she isn't as resistant to his direction.

Transitioning the mental load of my daughter's schoolwork to my husband has not been seamless.  We had to clearly communicate expectations and I had to resist jumping in when he and my daughter forgot something.  It is really difficult for me to not step in and just 'handle it', but if I keep doing that the mental load isn't truly leaving my plate.  

Removing the mental load of my daughter's homework from my plate has been so beneficial for me.  I feel less overwhelmed and I feel like my husband is doing his part to alleviate the stress that comes with managing our children's lives. I am excited to add a couple more aspects of our kids' lives to his his mental load and I look forward to the relief that it will bring to my own life.

Winter 2023 Capsule Wardrobe

 I am so excited to be back into a capsule wardrobe.  I have tried variations of this over the past couple years, but I have been largely unsuccessful due to an ever-changing body that I found difficult to dress.  Things have begun to settle out, so I am excited to figure out what works for me in this season of my life.  I am still breastfeeding, but my baby is now a toddler and requires far less feedings during the day.  This gives me the flexibility to choose clothes that aren't necessarily nursing friendly because I am not planning around breastfeeding anymore.

As a reminder, in this season of life I am a stay-at-home mom of 3 kids.  I live on the Canadian prairies where our temperatures get very cold.  I am basically dressing for warmth and comfort.  

My 2023 winter capsule wardrobe consists of 35 pieces and it includes my active wear and lounge wear.  I don't include my outerwear (winter jackets, toques/hats, mitts, boots, etc.) and I do not include my pajamas.

TOPS & DRESSES

PANTS & JEANS

ACTIVE & LOUNGE TOPS

(3 of these shirts were taken from my husband's side of the closet.)

ACTIVE & LOUNGE PANTS

I am excited to get dressed from this capsule wardrobe.  I feel like it has so much potential for functional outfits that get me (mostly) out of my sweats.  I have included a lot of lounge wear, but I do wear my lounge wear to clean my house.  I had the unfortunate mishap of bleaching (and destroying) one of my favourite sweaters a couple weeks ago, so I have learned my lesson.  Old t-shirts are now my go-to for when I am cleaning.  Happy Wednesday, friends!

New Year, Old Me

I decided that this year would be a year of coming back to myself.  2022 was consumed with taking care of my new baby, adjusting to life with 3 kids and being back to in-person schooling.  It was definitely a learning curve, but there was a lot of joy and sweetness in my life.  As our routines become slightly more predictable and as I learn the ropes of how to get 3 kids out of the door on time, I am ready to step out of survival mode and back into life.  While survival mode is something that I suspect will happen throughout 2023, I am hopeful it won't be my main mode.

My word of the year for 2023 is restore.  I want to re-establish good habits that have served me in my life.  I want to start taking better care of myself again.  I want to take time to do things that bring me joy and make me feel like myself.  I want to create capsule wardrobes again and write in this blog.

I have a few goals for the year.  The goals are as follows:

• Catch up on making our family photo books.  I am 5 years behind.  Enough said.

• Make time for intentional movement/strength training 3-5 days a week.  This is so important for my mental health, but I wasn't able to do this well in 2022.

• Share the mental load.  I carry almost all of the mental load associated with our 3 kids and (mostly due to some pretty rough sleep deprivation) I am becoming burnt out.  My husband is a perfectly capable father and can handle taking over some of this mental load.  He and I are discussing how to make this work.

• Have better sleep hygiene.  Every time I complain about one of my children's penchant for procrastinating bedtime, I know that I should just look in the mirror.  I like being up alone at night.  I like having time to myself where no one needs me.  I crave alone time.  I am also exhausted.  So. Very. Exhausted.  The kindest thing I can do for myself is get more sleep when I can.  I have set an alarm on my phone for 10:00 so that I get up and get ready for bed.  My phone will also stop allowing me to scroll at this time.  I plan to be in bed by 10:30.

What are your goals for 2023?  I hope you all have a gentle and peaceful 2023.

Simple Living: Entryway Organization

Getting out the door isn't always an easy task.  I try my best to give myself enough time before I have to be somewhere.  With all of the moving parts that come with being a Mom, one of the simplest solutions for getting out of the door on time is to make your entryway work for you.  I love all the beautiful pictures online of people's mudrooms and giant foyer closets, but that is not my reality.  My home's entryway is quite small.  It has a small closet area (we removed the red accordion doors from the closet) and very little wall space.  I know that others have smaller entryways than mine, so I hope that some of these solutions will be useful to you.  My entryway organization is neat, tidy and functional.  It really isn't beautiful, but I would choose function over beauty any day.

I came up with a few solutions for the entryway before summer.  They have served us well.  I needed to clean up the area and make sure that everything in the entryway was necessary and seasonally appropriate.

Before:

My husband installed three hooks for me.  This gives my daughters a place to hang their jackets.  They can both reach the hooks and be responsible for their own things. (Yay!)  

After:

I cleaned up the 3 hooks by making sure that the items on the hooks were necessary.  My daughters have splash pants that I put elsewhere because we haven't used them very much this year.  I also removed sweaters that had made it onto the hooks.  We keep sweaters in the bedroom.  My oldest daughter's backpack will go on her hook during the school year.  I didn't hang it yet because it is full of a year's worth of school supplies and is too heavy at the moment.

Before:

We needed more shoe storage space, so my husband brought up this shoe shelf from our basement.  He built it years ago when we lived in a different home.  We removed the closet's built in shelves and put our shoe shelf in.

After:

I took out shoes that we aren't utilizing and reorganized the top shelf.  I don't love these bins for the shelf, but it's what I have on hand at the moment.  I have measured the shelf and plan to replace the bins once I find what I am looking for.  The bin on the left holds my tote bag and items that need to go back to my vehicle.  The bin on the right holds containers with dog food.

Before:

This storage solution isn't pretty but it has worked so well for us this summer!  My kids can access all of their things and are able to put their stuff away on their own.  It is a shoe organizer from Walmart that I hung on our basement door.  The basement door is directly opposite of where we come in and having the items in a place that is easy to access has helped all of our family members get out the door on time.

After:

 

I went through the pockets and made sure that all the items were still needed.  I removed our sun hats because they aren't as needed now that the weather is turning colder.  My children's hats hang by the door with their bike helmets on Command Hooks.

Tips:

• Ask yourself if the items in your entryway truly belong there.  Can off-season shoes be stored somewhere else?  Does your summer gear need to be taking up precious space when your kids are back to school in the fall?
• Worry less about whether something looks pretty and worry more about function.  The shoe organizer isn't my favourite thing to look at but it is super functional and allows my kids to be independent.
• Make a habit (and help your kids make a habit) of putting things in their place.  Give essential items a designated spot.  My three-year old knows exactly where to find her hat, coat, and shoes.  My keys are always in the same spot and so are my sunglasses.  Getting out the door is much easier when you know exactly where your things are.

Happy organizing!

Simple Living: Playroom

The playroom in our house was starting to feel overwhelming.  Our toy bins were not doing the trick and cleaning up had become a big chore.  My kids weren't sure where to put things and often would tear the room apart looking for a certain toy.  I decided to purchase a cube organizer and get down to organizing/purging the playroom.  

I recently discover Dawn at The Minimal Mom and she had a great tip when it came to decluttering your closet.  Dawn asked the question, "Which items are your favourite?"  This helps us to make easy decisions as to what belongs in our closets.  I decided to try to apply this question to our playroom with our kids.  All my other efforts to declutter had been met with resistance, but this question worked beautifully. My kids quickly found their favourite toys and I sorted them into the bins.  I made a quarantine box (another tip from Dawn!). I told the kids that if they noticed a favourite toy was missing to let me know and I would get it out of the box.  We agreed that I could get donate the contents of the box after a few months.  The 'favourites' idea worked really well for our dress-up clothes.  The kids kept less than half of their dress-up clothes.

The other tip that Dawn gave was to make bins the "bad guys".  I told my kids that everything they kept (with the exception of a few larger items) had to fit in 9 bins for the organizer.  The bins set the limit and I didn't have to be the bad guy.  This idea will really help when we receive a new toy or gift.  The kids will need to make decisions about what can stay and what has to go.

Before:

During:

After:

The result is that the playroom no longer makes me feel overwhelmed.  The kids can clean up in less than 10 minutes with very little direction from me or their Dad.  They also know where to find their toys so there aren't as many toy explosions as there once were.  We have been so happy with the result.

Happy simplifying!

Wardrobe Wednesday- Summer Outfits

 I was aiming to have a capsule wardrobe this summer, but I am having trouble maintaining a smaller capsule wardrobe with this pregnancy.  I have had to purchase a few items because a lot of what I owned didn't fit anymore or it didn't feel good on me.  I will get back to capsule wardrobes after Baby is born, I am sure.  Until then, I am going to wear whatever feels comfortable.  I wanted to share a few of my summer outfits with you.  I found some great items at Mama Bear Maternity and Motherhood Maternity.  I am also wearing a few items that I have had in previous pregnancies or that I swiped from my husband's side of the closet.

Happy Wednesday, friends!