Suzy Q Homemaker

I survived choir retreat with my dress.  Day two found me in some burgundy tights and a black 3/4-length sleeved-shirt underneath.  Yesterday I wore the dress with jeans and a brown long-sleeved shirt underneath.  It’s not as chilly here as it was in the mountains, so I busted out a pair of white cropped leggings that have been sitting in a drawer for at least seven years.  I wore them once for an event where I was dressed in all white, painted white and had to be Greek human statue for a couple hours.  After that, I had no use for the leggings…until today!

As you can see, I replaced all of the buttons with some slightly larger ones from my mom’s antique button collection.  I sewed them on during our car ride to the mountains on Friday night (while wearing the dress).

My fear of accessories is slowly dwindling, though now I live in constant worry about spilling something on myself or that one of the four boys will spill something on me, puke on me, or come at me with a face full of spaghetti to give me a hug.  To help ease my mind, I’ve taken to putting on an apron any time I am near food.  Cooking, preparing, and eating.  I am so clumsy that I am terrified of every bite I bring to my face.  So, yes, I wear a grown-up bib while I eat.  It keeps me safe.

I also don’t enjoy the rumples that linen gets when I sit down, but I’ll just have to get over it.  I’m usually rumpled no matter what I wear.  It’s nothing new.

Anyway, that’s my progress so far.  How is everyone else doing?

It looks simple enough. Hanging there from my skylight over the bathtub, I admire the potential. Putting it on, it feels a lot like a 20′s or 30′s style dress. A little frumpy and feedsack-like. But I think it’s doable.

Without the bottom button, though, I had to make some changes on this first day. I know already that I’ll be needing to wear aprons around the house to keep it clean. I have a toddler after all. He’s a mess and a half.

I found out about the October Dress Project from my friend Amie and it took me some serious soul-searching to finally make the decision to participate.  I don’t own many dresses that aren’t formal or three sizes too small, so I knew I couldn’t use anything I already have.  The logical solution would have been to make one with fabric from my stash.  I would have had to excavate my sewing machine, find a pattern, and actually have time to sew a dress, though.  And that wasn’t going to happen.

Goodwill was the answer.

I had a lot of ideas about the kind of dress that I wanted:

• Solid-colored, preferably a muted tone
• No longer than shin-length
• Capped or sleeveless
• (most importantly) Easy access for Timothy to nurse

After perusing the racks at the Goodwill, I narrowed my choices down to two dresses.  One was a green dress in a knit fabric that would have satisfied all of the criteria.   The nursing aspect, however, would have only worked if I pulled the front down.  After a month of pulling down the front, I think I would wreck the dress.  So that was out.

The dress I ultimately chose is a linen/rayon dress that buttons up the front.  The tag says “Dry Clean Only” which means it was dirty!  I’ll be handwashing the dress in Dr. Bronner’s castile soap and hanging it to dry after rolling it in a towel–much like I wash Timothy’s woolies.  Pictures will be taken soon, I promise!  Since the dress is missing the bottom button, I’ll be putting new buttons on the entire dress.  I like the ones on it, but they’re tortoise-shell and won’t lend well to playing with color.  My mother has a wonderful stash of vintage white buttons that I’ll be rummaging through tomorrow (thanks in advance, mom!).

So, for all of you reading this who will be joining me on Choir Retreat this weekend, I hope you like my new dress.  After all, you’ll be seeing it every day!  I have a rainbow collection of tights to wear with it.

The biggest challenge I think will come from this project will be accessories.  I’m not one for scarves, wide belts, and whatever else one would use to accentuate an outfit.  Any suggestions/support will be appreciated.  This project makes me nervous but excited.

Why am I doing this?

I want to step out of my comfort zone.  I just got rid of a HUGE bag full of clothes that don’t fit and never will.  I’m coming to the point in my life (AHEM TURNING THIRTY) where whatever today’s “fashion” is…well, it baffles me.  I don’t know what’s “hip” anymore.  I’ve been wearing whatever fits and smells clean for I don’t even know how long.  I no longer want to be depressed when I try to get dressed in the morning because I’m still in between some sizes of jeans or when I discover that the shirt I loved to wear two years ago has a giant stain right on the boob.  What I hope to gain from this experience is an appreciation for what I have.  I don’t have a lot in my wardrobe that works right now.  But by golly, this dress project is going to make me work my wardrobe.  If I run out of accessories, I have fabric and yarn enough to make myself something.

Really, I don’t have any specific agenda except to prove to myself that I can do this.  And I think I can.

Simon has a problem.  It started off innocently enough, this love of “blue pants”.  But it has grown into something ugly.

Every day, when we get dressed, Simon says, “I need blue pants.”

You see, the blue pants don’t necessarily mean “blue” like the color.  He has about five pairs of jeans that mostly qualify as “blue pants,” but there are other factors that make pants worthy of his taste.  In order of importance, here are the features of pants that Simon must have:

1. Front pockets
2. Back pockets
3. A button
4. Actually being blue
5. Bonus points for all of the above plus belt loops

Obviously, sweat pants are out because they do not meet any of the above requirements.  And if a pair of pants are corduroy or green, and they have pockets, he is OK with them.

So why this affinity toward “blue pants”?  I honestly don’t know!  Having access to pockets I can understand.  Simon likes to carry things around with him throughout the day: a small deck of Pokemon cards, rolled up pieces of paper that he found somewhere, or small toys.  If he has belt loops, the probability that I will let him play with a sword goes up and he’ll be able to put it in the loops instead of down his pants.  Yeah, he likes to stick things DOWN his pants, too.

In order to please His Royal Highness with the Blue Pants, we do have to make sure that at least one pair goes into almost every load of laundry along with a few pairs of underwear.  Even though he has been potty-learned for a year, pants-wetting still happens at least every other day because he has either waited too long or because Jamie tickled him too much.  The other night, they were playing around and Simon suddenly stopped to say, “I peed myself!”  He sounded so surprised that we laughed about it for the next three hours.

I hope this Blue Pants Phase goes away soon.  It’s frustrating that there are ten pairs of pants that he refuses to wear sitting in his dresser drawer, and the pants he is willing to wear are all getting worn out.  FAST.

My thirtieth birthday is creeping up on me in less than a year and a half.  I’m terrified, but not because of wrinkles or gray hairs.  No, I’m terrified about what’s going on in my closet. For one thing, I still can’t fit into about 90% of my pre-pregnancy jeans.  I inherited about 10 pairs of size eight Old Navy jeans from my mom and they are still too tight!

I have started going to the gym as regularly as possible with my family’s schedule, but the prospect of fitting into all those once-loved jeans is looking bleak.

Do I suck it up and buy some size 9′s so I won’t have to wear the same thing over and over?

Do I sew up some elastic-waisted skirts?

Do I just wear yoga pants FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE???

It’s not just the jeans that I’m worried about.  I also have shirts that aren’t long enough anymore or are really made for “girls” in their early twenties–cause that’s when I bought them.

My mommy confession is this: I’m afraid to dress like a mom.

What’s your confession?  See more at Life Starring the Kids & Me.