Hi, remember me? The girl addicted to shopping? Well, I'm back, and I'm here to tell you I have almost survived 40 days of wearing 10 pieces of clothing. Now with Holy Week approaching, I thought this would be a great opportunity to give those interested a little update on how my fashion fast is going. If you have no idea what I'm talking about you can read about my Lenten fast here.
So, here's how it went:
Equipped with the enthusiasm that accompanies a new challenge, the first two weeks of my fast were -- dare I say it -- FUN. I began to think that this was going to be way too easy and I needed to give up something else quick if this was going to be fruitful.
But then week 3 hit. The newness of it all wore off, and I realized that this decision is a true sacrifice for me. The night my husband surprised me with a fancy date night, I couldn't wait to wear one of my favorite pre-pregnancy dresses. But that didn't get to happen. And when the weather warmed up, I wanted to immediately break out all my spring worthy outfits in celebration that I survived another Indiana winter but nopppppppe that couldn't happen either.
I also started to get bored and frustrated with my limited options, and was tempted to go to the banned side of my closet to cure my fashion boredom. That's when I realized that by eliminating the excess and fasting from the convenience of an endless wardrobe was HARD. It may seem like a silly or small sacrifice to some, but it was (and still is) a real challenge for someone as attached to clothes as I am.
That being said, my 10 piece wardrobe has challenged me to be creative with the pieces I already own. I wanted to document some of the ways I've done this but I'm a lazy pseudo-blogger and don't know how to do a self-timer thing on my camera... There IS still a week left of Lent so maybe there's hope that it'll happen! But probably not...
Oh and when I said I planned to give up shopping, I meant all shopping (even the online variety). I tried to limit my online shopping as much as I could. I'm going to be honest though, the online shopping habit way is way harder to break than I thought it would be. I do love to window shop through my computer screen... When I'm tired, sick, or just bored it's so easy to turn on my computer and start browsing for an outfit for an upcoming event.
I tried to keep one of my favorite prayers by St. Therese in my heart during these moments and on the days the hard things felt really hard:
“Jesus, help me to simplify my life by learning what you want me to be and becoming that person.” - St. Therese of Lisieux
I still catch myself online shopping...but when I realize what I'm doing I try to walk away from my computer and say a quick prayer. Shopping in general stirs up feelings of discontentment and I would much rather spend my time doing something more fulfilling like exercising, praying, or reading.
One last thing:
How do fashion bloggers look so cool in pictures?! For real!!! My mom took these pictures when she was in town (thanks mom!) and I could barely keep a straight face. For every 1 normal picture there were probably like 20 of these:
Guess that's why I'm not a fashion blogger. Anywayyy, this has been super fruitful for me so far, so much so that I'm considering adapting this post-Lent. Crazy right.