School uniforms

The Big Boy starts school next week, and needs uniforms.   We have decided to send him to the private school that my husband teaches at, but it means they are a little more particular about uniforms than I want to be!  

He is required to have two different uniforms: day uniform and sports uniform.  (After grade three he'll also need a formal uniform.)   Different shirt, different shorts, different shoes.    At least the hat and socks are the same.  He will also be required to have a house (sporting team) shirt, and a school swimming costume.   This year he can wear his sports uniform all day on the days it is required, but from next year he will need to take it with him and change in and out of it.

Until I actually read the list, I had assumed we would need two day shirts, one sports shirt, three pairs of shorts (interchangeable between day and sports uniforms), a pair of shoes, six pairs of socks, and a hat.   According to my mum, whose seventh child starts high school this year, two sets of uniforms bought on the bigger side should last two years.  No-one wore hand-me down uniforms because she always bought just enough that they'd be worn out before we grew out of them.   However, because we need so many uniforms The Big Boy is not going to wear them out before he's grown out of them.  Hopefully they will still be in good enough condition that The Small Boy will be able to use them.

We have been given some secondhand uniforms, which was kind and generous of the family who was passing them on.   They fit him nicely now, but I anticipate we will be replacing them before the end of the year.  And the quality of the sewing doesn't give me a lot of confidence in their durability.  Mum used to make all of our uniforms, but most schools, including ours, require school logos or specific detailing which means that me sewing uniforms is pretty much out of the question.

He needs to have a pair of black 'academic' shoes, and plain white joggers.  We needed to make a decision whether we should buy expensive shoes, or cheap shoes.  We settled on cheaper black shoes - $25 as opposed to $100 - and mid-range joggers, because plain white are hard to find.   I'm willing to go by trial and error as to whether we should by cheap shoes or expensive shoes, and whether it's better to wear out or grow out of shoes first.   I'm not a big fan of hand-me-down shoes.

But at least we only need one hat!

One less: outdated clothes

I pulled out all my folded clothes, threw them on the bed and sorted them into piles according to style.   Should I confess right now that I found unworn clothing, still with tags?  And I have multiples of the same colour.

I decided now was the time to part with my graduation outfit from when I finished high school.  Yes, yes, it was only 13 1/2 years ago, but I figured that I'm never actually going to fit it again, seeing as I don't even intend on being my grade 12 size again, and after two babies I'm just generally bigger.  Besides, I cannot actually picture an occasion to which I would wear a black and gold lace halter top.

It was also the time to part with a few tired clothes that I've kept to just wear around the house - how many do I really need! - and the parachute silk pants with the broken zip that I've kept in case we do another trip to the snow.  Also gone are the jeans that never really fit properly.  Winter only lasts a few weeks here: here's to not spending those weeks in uncomfortable pants!

I am hanging on to things in multiple sizes. Shock, horror, gasp! A big minimalist no-no, I know, but my breastfeeding size is a little bigger than my ordinary size, and I'm actively trying to lose the extra kilos I found in between babies.  It's not actually multiple sizes, it's two different sizes to accommodate my body's not-finished-having-babies-yet flux in size and shape.   I promise that when I'm done all the too big stuff will go!

I Love Shoes

When I was 19 I had a pair of leather sandals (much like the ones in the picture) and a pair of dark green Doc Martens, and rarely wore my other shoes: a pair of imitation reef sandals, a pair of slippers, and a some old black army boots that I wore to work (I was working in a cleaning job.)  That was all I needed.

Then the sandals wore out. And I bought a pair of joggers so I could walk to work from where I was housesitting.  Then I started my teaching prac and needed appropriate shoes.  Then I was bridesmaid at a friend’s wedding.  Then I needed shoes to go with a dress to wear to the races on Melbourne Cup Day.  Then I had a job where I was on my feet all day and needed a good comfortable pair of shoes. And then and then and then. 

Ten years later and I have four pairs of high heels, one low heel, two sandals, a pair of joggers, black patent knee high boots, black leather mary jane style shoes, a pair of loafers, thongs (flip-flops?), sandshoes, another cute little pair of mary janes with butterflies on them that I love but they hurt my feet (I bought them on Ebay and think I’ll sell them again), a pair of slippers (possibly the same pair I had ten years ago), and my green Docs (yes, I still have them). And last week I threw out two pairs of shoes that had fallen apart.  A couple of months ago another pair of shoes fell apart and I threw them out, I sold my seldom worn Chuck Taylors on Ebay, and I have another pair of shoes sitting in my pile of things to sell.  

I love going into shoe shops and looking at the cute shoes and the funky shoes.  The problem is, the shoes I really like cost a lot of money.  And my foot is a little wider than average, and not all shoe brands make half sizes, and even then some don’t fit.  And I don’t have places to keep nor occasion to wear most of the shoes that I see and like.  And remember those days when I just had two pairs of shoes I wore everywhere... I loved that.  And when I think about it, it’s actually not that broad a range of shoes that I actually like.  I (mentally) screwed up my nose at shoes that my sister had bought recently, and I do that with a lot of shoes in the fancy shoe shops. It’s just that the shoes I love seem to outshine all the ones that I’d never dream of wearing.  

My ideal minimal shoe wardrobe contains high heels, low heels, a comfy-wear-anywhere slip-on shoe, a comfy flat sandal, a pair of shoes I can go walking in, closed in shoes for the cooler months, and a pair of thongs.   Bonus luxuries would include my knee high boots, which I only wear a handful of times a year because it is rarely cold enough (I bought mine for 99c on Ebay because I couldn’t justify the expense of a new pair), and another pair of coloured shoes - high or low heels, sandals, mary janes, doesn’t matter - because that would add a little more variety and help keep my clothes to a minimum. 

If I could only have two pairs of shoes? Black leather mary-janes and a comfy brown slip-on thong-style shoe.

I don’t really need all the shoes I have, I just thought that I because I love shoes, and collection of gorgeous shoes would be a good thing to have.  The truth is, I love having a small range of comfortable shoes.   And it isn’t shoes that I love, it is a particular style, into which shoes often fall.

Post Maternity Clothes: lessons learnt

After Small Boy was born I couldn't fit into most of my clothes, so I bought a 'temporary' wardrobe, which I'm still wearing four months later: 6 skirts, 2 shorts, 9 tops.   I haven't been bored with my selection, but I have been a little frustrated because it was mostly bought in a rush and just had to buy what would fit and not necessarily what I would ordinarily choose.  I've lost all the baby weight, so I should try on some of my old clothes and see what fits again.

To be honest, I’m hesitant to start raiding my old wardrobe because I like having so few clothes. 

I can’t quite believe that I’m actually saying that. Somewhere, somehow, the connection between my clothes and my identity has been detached and I didn’t even notice.  

I remember the days when I would dream up outfits the day before. Clothes were an outlet for my creativity, but also a means of drawing attention to myself.  An emotionally tough childhood saw me doing a lot of things as a teenager and young to get people to notice me and like me. Which is crazy, because, in reality, I’m an introverted person who likes to stay out of the spotlight.  I have found people now who love me unconditionally: my husband and two sons. I don’t need a wardrobe full of clothes to impress them! 

But more recently, my clothes were a symbol of who I was.  I wanted people to know I was more than just a mum.  Soon my shoe collection was expanding to include more heels and pretty shoes, and my clothes became more dressy than cargo pants and t-shirts.  But, I know that I am more than just a mum: I’m a wife, a musician, a writer. I am an intelligent, educated woman.  I thirst for knowledge and I read and analyse everything that comes in my path.  Wearing jeans or a cocktail dress doesn’t change who I am. 

Having less clothes hasn’t meant I am less creative in what I wear.  Necklaces, scarves and earrings don’t take up much space and can change an outfit.  Heels instead of flats can change an outfit, and I only need one of each.   Less clothes doesn’t mean not choosing items that I love and that suit me best. I can still buy a piece of fabric and make my own skirt that I won’t find in the shops.  I just don’t need ten of those skirts hanging in my wardrobe at once. 

Less clothes means I can see easily what’s in my wardrobe. I don’t have a mountain of ironing that needs to be done.  I wear shorts and skirts two days a row if I can (it’s too sweaty here to wear shirts twice!).   In future, there won’t be things hanging in my wardrobe that I feel bad about buying and not wearing because I will have purposefully bought the item, not just grabbed it off a clearance rack because it was cheap and looked nice. 

So what have I learnt from having such a tiny selection of clothes for the last four months?  I don’t need as many clothes as I thought I did.  

One Less Belt

Last week I had six belts.   So I got rid of the three that don't fit around my post-childbirth waist.   Two of them are on borrowed time and will need to prove their worthiness to me.   The other one is a nice brown leather belt that I wear regularly.  


 

Maternity clothes: a lesson learnt

During my last pregnancy I needed maternity clothes from about 12 weeks.  With my first baby, I managed with mostly what I had in my wardrobe until 20 weeks, but this time my belly popped out sooner.

I started out buying a belly band, so that I could extend the wear of my regular clothes for a little longer, theoretically for the entire pregnancy.  That's all well and good if your waist and hips are the same dress size, but mine aren't, and it just kept gaping around my waist.  So I ended up sticking with a couple of elastic waisted skirts I already had, and a few maternity items.

This was my wardrobe (I could have missed something!):

3 dresses - one print, one black, one black with white embroidery
5 t-shirts
7 skirts
1 pair of jeans
5 blouses (3 had 3/4 length sleeves, so they were too hot past 7 months just because of the weather)
1 pair of yoga style pants that didn't look so great, but were okay for if I was just at home doing housework and were incredibly comfortable in the first few weeks post-partum.

So I had twelve complete outfits with two spare tops over 5-6 months, and most of them were interchangeable. I didn't start out with that number, or finish with that number: I had to get a couple more things towards the end when things were getting too short and tight to wear in public!  They were all casual clothes because I'm a stay-home mum.

As it turned out, I had plenty to wear.  I never got bored with my wardrobe; some things I wished I could keep wearing.  I bought a pair of red shoes to jazz up a couple of things because my pink heels got relegated to the unwearable-for-the-time-being pile, and accessorised with what I already had.  

It was probably less than a third of my regular wardrobe. No wonder there are things that never get worn.  There are only seven days in a week after all.

Lesson learnt: I probably don't need as many clothes as I think I do.