Short version: We finished the Challenge. It was great.
Long version:
I realize that we're a month and a half into 2013, so reflecting on my 2012 challenge is basically old news. I'm just taking my time in the blogging sphere, apparently.
However, I do want to write a little on Amiee's and my clothing challenge from last year. Here's the original post from last January, where I explained our rules. Over the past year, we successfully accomplished most of our goals (although we're a bit slow in finishing up posting the completed projects. Oops.).
In essence, our primary goals were to learn gratitude for what we have, practice frugality, and make decisions about what is essential to our wardrobes and what can be repurposed. This whole project originally started with me; Brad was in the middle of applying for graduate schools, and I knew, based on all the places to which he was applying, that I would need to start thinking about how we could downsize a bit. Most of the schools are located in larger cities where we would probably be living in apartments with far less storage than our awesome house in Jackson (how correct was I??). So, the idea of spending a year of not buying anything new started percolating in my mind. I figured it would only be beneficial.
I mentioned it to Amiee, and she was very supportive of my decision. You know...for me. That would be crazy for her. Except for the fact that once I'd mentioned it, it started percolating in her mind, too. Right near the end of 2011, she sent me a text saying that she wanted to join me in not buying anything for 2012 (We called it "No Buy 2012" among ourselves. We actually did a mini-version of this challenge in July 2011, and we called it "No Buy July," which sounds cooler than "No Buy 2012." We just weren't creative enough to come up with another moniker to rhyme with 2012.)
I was super excited. I knew it would be easier to stick to my guns if I had someone else in on it with me. However, I did start thinking about our personality differences; I'm much more inclined to walk past the cute $5 t-shirts at Target while Amiee is magnetically pulled into their force field. I realized really quickly that this plan had the potential to be almost physically painful for Amiee when a good deal crossed her path. I started scratching my head to come up with a way to make the whole process more interesting. That's when I stumbled across Disneybound boards on Pinterest. I knew Amiee would love it.
So, I pulled up some of the boards and showed them to her. Of course, she adored them. I suggested that we set ourselves a weekly challenge of using what we have to create our own character outfits. She was sold. She immediately started putting outfits together and had about 18 before I had even one. Thus, the challenge was born.
Some weeks were much easier than others. Some character outfits had us itching with excitement to wear them and others were just sort of "meh...gotta have an outfit, so I guess this will do." We actually ended 2011 by sorting through our clothes and accessories, making piles of things we knew we were going to get rid of anyway. We went through each other's discard piles to see if there was anything we wanted/needed for specific characters and then donated the rest to a local charity thrift store. Mom got in on the Challenge, too, giving us some awesome accessories for Christmas that we could use throughout the year (some might call her an enabler...we call her awesome.).
The Challenge changed a bit for me when I found out that I was pregnant. Obviously, I was going to have to acquire some new clothing before the year was up. Side note: that's actually how I broke the news to Amiee. I told her that I had bad news: I wasn't going to be able to finish the Challenge...because I'd need maternity clothes (which was good news)! She bounced around the house. Literally bounced. I know...all of y'all who know her are so shocked, right? Anyway, I did try to stick to the spirit of the Challenge when adding maternity clothes to my closet. I have exactly three pairs of maternity pants: casual jeans, dressier jeans, and a pair of black pants. I have a black maternity skirt and 3 pairs of yoga pants (which I don't wear out of the house- they're mostly pajama bottoms for me). Those are all of the bottoms I have.
As for tops, I straight-up purchased a few (but all were bought using a coupon or coupon code, gotten off the "as-is" rack in Maine, were gifts, or were bought with a Belk gift card left over from our wedding), but I don't have just tons of them. I have 4 long-sleeved solid-colored shirts, 4 short sleeved, 4 sweaters, 2 camisoles, and a pajama top. Thankfully, for a really long time (until about months 5 and 6), I was still able to wear a lot of my regular tops, too. I also already had a lot of cardigans and such that I can layer over the maternity tops that I do have. So helpful.
Despite having that additional hurdle, I think we did pretty well with our goals. Amiee was definitely the winner, though. Her outfits were far more stellar, and she was actually able to complete the Challenge in its entirety. Hopefully, she'll have time to blog her thoughts on it sometime soon; she has some great things to say about it. And, we had a good time with it. Doing it together and having the added "character" element did a lot to make it interesting and fun. I got tickled the other day when Amiee called me to "confess" that she'd made a clothing purchase at Target (to replace a pair of older pants that she'd discarded at the end of the Challenge). We've definitely changed in our mindset to buying things. We deliberate more and really evaluate the necessity of something before going for it. I count that as a positive outcome, though. We end up with clothes we really love and keep money in our pockets by not making purchases on a whim.
It's not a challenge that's sustainable year after year, but we have talked about doing it again in a year or two. Just to make sure we keep our perspectives in place. I'll probably keep you posted. :)
Gaston. Not sure why I liked this one so much, but I did.
Fawkes (from Harry Potter). I loved the colors in this one. I also just love Fawkes. He's such a good phoenix. Dumbledore is lucky to have him.
Siamese cats. I liked doing this one with Amiee. So fun.
Meg. I liked this one because I got to wear shiny, sparkly gold things. Also, given the fact that I'm currently 8 months pregnant, I like being reminded that I used to fit in regular clothes.
Eloise. I just love Eloise. I definitely wore this to church.
Snow White. I liked this one because several of my students came in and immediately knew who I was. It was so fun.
And, Rapunzel. I loved this one, not because of what I wore, but because of what Brad and Amiee wore to humor me:
Flynn Rider, Rapunzel, and Pascal. They love me. They really do.
I hope you've enjoyed my musings on clothing over the past year. I'm not really much of a fashionista, so I find it funny that I wrote about clothing at least once a week. I'm so glad Amiee and I did it; we learned so much and had a great time. Perhaps I'll do a baby version soon. We'll see...
