Day 25 Landed on Lunch day. This is the day once a month that I serve lunch to the middle schoolers, and that is always fun. I have 5 days left of my static wardrobe experiment, and every day I love the ease and comfort of it more and more. The question I hear from people almost every day is, “are you bored with it?” Nope, the ease has outweighed the boredom and now, it is just habit.
It’s like any habit you start, bad or good. Diet or exercise, experts say if you do something for 21 days it becomes a habit. You get up in the morning drink 20 ounces of water and take your vitamins, after a while it is just a habit. Maybe in the beginning you have to set a reminder on your phone to do it or put a sticky note on the cabinet that houses the vitamins, but eventually it’s just routine. I am an absolutely terrible habit person: I love the idea and I love forming the habit … I get so excited to start something new and I even can keep it up for a few months (maybe longer), but inevitably something always gets in the way and my good habits fall to the wayside in replacement for either nothing at all or bad habits.
For instance, after my abdominal surgery in January I was on 20+ days of anti-biotics. With these I made sure to take my probiotics, and then I learned that probiotics were not enough; I needed a prebiotic along with that, to balance my gut. So I bought a huge supply of expensive probiotics in a powder form and choked them down with half a gallon of water every morning. Because of my surgery I felt like I also had hair loss, so at the same time decided to start taking the hair and nail vitamins I had purchased a year prior and never cracked the seal on the bottle, hoping they were not expired. I was killing it with my diligence for 3 months, even zip locked bagged up my powder and vitamins to take while I was on the road. Then the spring business craziness hit all the kids’ activities, not to mention trying to ingest as much caffeine as possible to fuel it all, and you guessed it: my habit faded and had disappeared. Now I type this wistfully … wow, I really need to do that again. It’s not hard, but it is just another thing.
I think the habit of a static wardrobe is different, because you can move through life without taking your vitamins, you just may not feel as good. But have mercy if you tried to move through life without clothes on the best thing you would get is stares and the worst you would be in jail. So you have to wear clothes, you might as well make it as easy as possible, when you can.
Why does life seem so much busier and crazier than it was for our parents? My theory is because of “More.” We have more stuff, bigger houses, more cars, more toys, more options, more activities, more shoulds, more things we “need” to do, “need” to pay attention to. Just look at social media: Pinterest alone has added 10 new categories to my needs list. “I need flower boxes that look like that,” I need to recycle those bottles into art work,” ” I need to use that space under my stairs and behind the wall, for pullout storage or a doghouse,” I need to color coordinate my closet and hang artwork in there,” “I need to use a health new recipe every night” … the list goes on and on.
Think of your static wardrobe as eliminating an entire category of “needs” and “shoulds” from your life, at least for 5 days a week. What do you do when you’re just out of the shower, blow drying your hair in your robe and the doorbell rings? Your son runs up and says Mommy there are two women and a little girl at the door and they want to talk to you (this actually happened last week). I knew I had my static wardrobe sitting right there, I threw it on as quickly as possible and ran down stairs. Feeling perfectly fine to answer the door and to go about my day after they had left. If this had happened pre-static wardrobe, I would have had to take longer to scramble for something to wear, probably grabbed my yoga pants, felt disheveled coming to the door and after they were gone, I would have had to change again. If I were to estimate time saved, I would say 27 minutes a day, which roughly equates to about 47 hours a year that I am saving … so adding almost 2 days of time to my life from not having to hem and haw about my wardrobe.
We will see how long this habit lasts and if in fact I do get bored or I get addicted to the ease and the time freedom that comes with the static wardrobe, especially moving into summer: we spend tons of time at the lake and packing is a feat in itself. Maybe this year will be bathing suits, my static wardrobe, and a few dresses for Sunday, and my three pairs of shoes. I think that sounds like a great plan and I have already made my packing list … Bam! Hours and space saved already!
Pop by to see Day 26: Anniversary cheat day (sounds scandalous, haha!)