My 10-Item Summer Wardrobe

I have been loving this challenge. My first rendition of it was such an amazing blessing-- no decision fatigue in the morning and everything goes with everything. 10 out of 10 recommend. 

I'm still breastfeeding Esther either 5 for 15 times a day, I swear this child is giving my boobs whiplash! I plan to wean it out around Christmas but who knows. Since she is most likely my last baby perhaps I will nurse her until 3. 

Above, we have my shirts and dresses. I have four linen shirts. I wear the first two, the blue floral and the gold shirt the most. I have only worn the white daisy crop top once. It was kinda an impulse buy and belongs to teenage me. But I can still enjoy it a bit. Of the dresses, I wear the one on the far right with the checks the most. The other three get worn perhaps once or twice a month. Usually I am in the blue check dress...it's my favorite. In full disclosure I have two of them, one in XL and a 1X because I wear it so often. One week I wore it four times. I only count it as one item. It's literally the same.

I have three pairs of pants and three skirts. One of my pairs of pants doesn't fit me anymore. It's shrank in the wash, I haven't grown. The pants are a 1X so I am baffled that this happened, but I guess it does. They are too tight in the thighs. They say 1X but run small--they are about an XL. Maybe now that they shrank they are a L.

The two pants that fit. I have a brown pair that doesn't.

Two of my skirts are too big and I have to safety pin them now which makes them look funny. I haven't weighed myself and I don't think I have lost weight, but apparently I have, somewhere? Or the skirts grew, which I don't think can happen. (Linen, that I wash?) So. While I have 3 skirts and 3 pants in my wardrobe, I can only wear 2 of the pants and 1 of the skirts and thats what I am counting towards my "ten items". 

I need to save up to replace them with a size down next spring if I don't gain any weight over the winter. 

skirts. the brown and green are too big now, the rust colored one fits!

That makes 11 wearable items in my wardrobe and 14 total. I have four cardigans as extras as well, light summery ones. I don't really wear them right now, it's been 90 out! But they are there. 

I am loving the 10-item wardrobe. My mind is free, my choices seem endless and I am happy. My laundry is minimal. I don't know how to express how much weight this takes off my day. I don't have to buy new things (I still do sometimes though but have noticed I usually donate or gift it again very quickly) and I truly love each item in my closet. This is a blessing and I am never going back.

Fall is just around the corner! I'll probably do like I did in Spring--for awhile I had Spring and Summer in my closet, each on one side while the weather was doing its schizophrenic thing--and it worked so well. Warm? Go to the left. Cold? Go to the right. Warm but cold later? Layers are your friend.

Is this helping me love my body more? That was one of the reason I started--I hated that my closet was full of things I loved but that wouldn't fit me. I think I will struggle with loving my postpartum body (Three times post now!) until I heal my diastases recti. I'm working on that too. But my bloating is down and I am feeling better. Getting rid of everything that didn't fit me, no matter how much I loved it--really helped. 

The kids are doing the 15 item wardrobe this fall and, well, only one of them excited. I won't make them do it but our budget is really limited and I'm not sure they have much choice? Anyway, in our house we have a try it once rule, and so we will try it once. I'm going to vlog their wardrobe choices, if they want me too! If I grew two inches or more a year, I'd need a whole new wardrobe too. Oh to be 12 again! 

See ya all later, I'm going to play Animal Crossing.

Budget July 27-Aug 9

I'm combining two weeks to get caught up. Also you might be like, how can you post a budget when it's August 4th? Because we spent all the money by August 2, so...we are enjoying a few days of a no spend challenge. Adulting is such fun.

What We Spent July 27-Aug 9

Budget: $1400

• Pandora Subscription: $13
• Trash Pickup: $26
• Brian Phone $35
• Internet $20
• Credit Card Payment $246
• Nintendo Game for Reuben (downloaded) $10
• Walmart Gas $32
• Savings $100
• Tithe
• Azure $300
• PJs x2 for Each Child: $72
• Cleets for flag for Eldest Child plus pair of slip on shoes: $118
• Walmart Groceries: $217
• Gamestop: $52
• Foodlion Run: $18

After all that we had $72 left and I bought becky a pair of sandals on our credit card with a pair of shoes for Esther and a pair of shoes for Reuben that was over the amount of money sooo... I'm going to put that on next week. 

In my defense, I wanted to get all the fall shoe buying done all at once! Everyone's feet changed sizes. Becky is a 2 now, Reuben is a woman's 7.5 (he's half a size away from me!!!) and Esther is a toddler 9. Now they all have fall shoes on the way and I think their mama is the most excited.  Anyway, it was fine and will fit in next weeks budget BUT spending before the week hits its never a good idea. I don't know why I do it except for that I have a hard time waiting and because I can.  

Once again we spent all the money in the budget. I really want a week where I'm like wow, we have 500 left over! But I have only myself (and I guess my husband, we shop mostly together) to blame. 

matching so cute

So, I suppose I could have tried to thrift the PJs. I went to goodwill twice last month and tried that and found one pair for Esther but nothing for the other two. So I just bought them new from the Carter's website which I think is pretty affordable, they have sets of 2 for only $24. And they have good sales. But this is me criticizing my budget after the fact and yes, I could have spent more time searching for deals. But I'm not perfect and it was easy just to order them and I know the quality of their cotton Pjs are fantastic.  

My husband is the one who took the kids to GameStop and he picked up another copy of Animal Crossing New Horizons so we can play together, and he also got a squishy hello kitty ball for Becky which wasn't needed. 

For Walmart we stuck to only food items with one exception: Esther got a fuzzy bluey blanket. She needs a blanket now that she is older and I don't worry about her suffocating herself, and with fall coming it seemed like a good idea. But we could have waited.

And that's a wrap. What did you buy this week? It's kinda crazy to put this online but I am learning a lot by writing it all down and when I know I have to report it later, it does help me say no to things I know I really don't need.

We all got covid

this is what her spots looked like on Friday

Day one of school last week turned out to be the only day of school, because Wednesday night my throat started to hurt and I woke up Thursday with the covid. Or flu, I mean I didn't take a test or anything but my gut says covid. I had a temperature of 102, full body aches and the worst sore throat I have had in years and no energy. I spent the day in bed sleeping and taking care of the kids. Becky did a lot of care for Esther. Reuben also woke up with the flu so whenever I would make myself tea or dose myself with homeopathic medicine I did so with him too. (though I didn't realize until after Esther's nap he wasn't drinking any of the things I was bringing him) Reuben never naps but he took three naps and one herb bath just like he was 2 months old again. He and I were really sick.

It was hard walking up and down the steps to fetch and administer all the things. Thursday is a complete blur. I think it was for Reuben too. I did one garlic enema Thursday and one on Friday.

Becky did so well with Esther. They basically watched television all day except for 12-2:30 when Esther blessedly took a nap with me.

The only thing I could get Reuben to eat was fruit. He ate his way through strawberries and watermelon and grapes and I am so glad because I couldn't get him to drink anything but I knew with the amount of fruit he was eating he was probably okay.

I had leftover soup that I am so glad was in the fridge. I don't think there was a dinner.

Oh, I just remembered. My husband brought home some fresh market meal stuff and I slept through it, but Becky said it was good. 

At the end of the day I was feeling a bit better and I was actually able to shower and eat a bagel. Reuben woke up around 5pm and asked what was for breakfast. He thought he had slept through the night and was really confused to find it was still Thursday. We all laughed. 

farmers market time

Blessedly, my husband had Friday off and he spent it taking care of us and we rested, ate soup, and well, mainly me--tried not to look at how messy my house was. Friday is also a blur. 

Saturday we were all on the mend but I was starting to get a cough and I had a double ear infection. Luckily due to Reuben's recent ear infection I knew exactly what to do. My right ear is better but my left one needs more garlic oil.

I spent Saturday deep cleaning the house from our sickness. We also made it to the farmers market and went grocery shopping. Esther was pretty much spot free by Saturday so no, I wasn't trying to infect anyone. She did not catch covid, and neither did Becky or Brian. I am so grateful it was only Reuben and I and we had three well people to take care of everyone. Well, Esther is a baby and doesn't really count...but babies are extra work when they are sick so just that she was well enough to be distracted by a 8 hour Bluey marathon was great. I swear every time I try to lower the screen time in my house God laughs and sends a virus.

Now it's Sunday and I just have the lingering sore throat and left ear pain. 

Esther's spots are gone--I think it was chickenpox but I could be wrong. I googled the difference between pox and HFM and the internet said it's where the spots are. According to that she had chickenpox, but who knows. If she did, that's great. If it was HFM, at least it's gone.

Tomorrow we will try to start school again. 

What a week! We better not be sick all fall. I'm dosing everyone with fermented cod liver oil and raw butter and elderberry syrup my mom dropped off. Immunity 2025, here we come.