My Wardrobe, Myself

Closet “Oldies But Goodies”

Debbie Roes

March 6, 2020

Yes, it’s another wardrobe-related post! I seem to go in waves in terms of the types of essays I write for this blog… If you like the wardrobe posts, you’re in luck. If you instead prefer my articles on other topics, stay tuned, as I have a few of those in mind to do soon. It’s just that as I worked out my wardrobe, shopping, and style goals for 2020 and am also nearing the end of my wardrobe “half project,” I’ve been spending more time contemplating the contents of my closet and what I am – and am not – wearing.

In today’s post, I decided to revisit a topic that I wrote about on Recovering Shopaholic back in 2015. Back then, I shared statistics, photos, and information about the pieces that had been in my closet the longest. I also looked at the characteristics that those items had in common and revealed some lessons to carry forward from having examined my longtime wardrobe favorites.

What items have been in your closet the longest – and what do they have in common?

Below is a 2020 update on that classic post. As with the 2015 version, I’m only including the garments, shoes, and purses that have been in my closet for a long time. Although I have many jewelry pieces and accessories that have also been around for a number of years, I don’t have purchase dates and photos for many of those items. Therefore, I’m leaving them out and just concentrating on the clothes (my “problem area” in terms of overbuying), shoes, and purses that I own.

2020 Wardrobe, Shopping, and Style Goals

Debbie Roes

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February 19, 2020

In my last post, I reflected back on the capsule wardrobe challenge that I did in late 2018 and was pleased to learn that many of my capsule pieces remain in my wardrobe today. I also recapped my 2019 wardrobe goals and summarized how I did in fulfilling upon them (it was a “mixed bag”…).

Today, I’m going to share my 2020 wardrobe, shopping, and style goals. These goals are more in-depth than the ones I took on last year, which basically amounted to a single intention (reduce closet churn – I didn’t do so well with that) and a shopping list for priority items to buy (I bought two thirds of them). Some of the goals I highlight today are also part of my “20 for 2020” list, but I’m including them here as well so that all of my wardrobe-related goals for the year are in one place. I also want to expand upon those goals a bit here and provide additional information and clarification. Additionally, I include my style focus words for the year and my 2020 shopping priorities list.

It can be helpful to set yearly goals related to your wardrobe, shopping, and style.

Reflections on My Last Capsule Wardrobe Challenge and My 2019 Wardrobe Goals

Debbie Roes

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February 7, 2020

Just about a year ago, I debriefed my fall 2018 capsule wardrobe challenge and shared my wardrobe goals for 2019. Today’s post was originally going to be solely focused on reviewing my 2019 wardrobe, shopping, and style goals in preparation for my 2020 goals in those areas. But after I reviewed my January 31, 2019 post, I thought that it would be helpful – and hopefully interesting to you – to reflect upon the state of my wardrobe a year following my last capsule wardrobe challenge.

Why am I doing this? Well, I’m still trying to reduce the size of my wardrobe by half, so I think it would be beneficial for me to better understand what pieces in my closet have stood the test of time. Anything that is still being worn regularly over a year later is definitely a “keeper.” Also, since my fall 2018 challenge straddled both the warm and cool seasons where I live, most of my favorite wardrobe pieces were likely included in my “out and about” and at-home capsules at some point (I allowed myself the opportunity to swap out items as the weather shifted to cooler temperatures). This fact will enable me to see what colors, styles, and silhouettes should be in the smaller wardrobe that I plan to carry forward in 2020 and beyond.

Taking on a capsule wardrobe challenge can teach us a lot about our wardrobe and our style.

In today’s post, I’ll let you in on what I still have today, what has been passed on, and how I utilized the key lessons that I learned from that challenge. I’ll finish this review by reflecting on how I did with my 2019 wardrobe goals. In my next post, I’ll move on to my style focus and goals for this year, including what I’d like to buy – and not buy – and what I’d like my wardrobe to look like at year’s end.

Why Not Try a “20 for 2020” List?

Debbie Roes

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January 24, 2020

The New Year and the new decade are now well under way! I like to start each year with a few posts that are focused on what I want to create for myself over the course of the upcoming twelve months. I started a bit early this time when I introduced my 2020 theme, “enough,” on the final day of 2019. Today, I’d like to share a helpful practice that I started last year but didn’t write about on the blog. I decided to share it this year because you might also want to give it a try, plus the accountability of writing about it on the blog may help me to be more successful.

Happiness writer and podcaster Gretchen Rubin and her sister/podcast cohost Elizabeth Craft come up with a series of goals each year, the number of which corresponds with the current year. Last year, it was “19 for 2019,” and this year, it’s “20 for 2020.” The goals can be big or small and can be related to any area of life: health, relationships, work, creativity, home, finances, etc. Some people have opted to incorporate the number 20 into the items on their lists, such as doing 20 things for themselves and 20 things for other people, doing 20 things that include the number 20, or working on a challenging item for 20 minutes per day.

I created a list of 20 goals that I would like to accomplish this year.

You can see Gretchen’s and Elizabeth’s lists, as well as some additional suggestions for creating your own list, on the show notes page for their January 8^th podcast, when their “20 for 2020” lists were revealed. For the first time since starting this yearly exercise, Gretchen opted to divide her list into categories, while Elizabeth simply listed out her items in no particular order. If you want to find out why they chose the items on their lists, I recommend that you listen to the podcast (episode #255, around 49 minutes long).

The Best of Full Life Reflections 2019

Debbie Roes

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January 16, 2020

Happy New Year! I hope that 2020 is off to a great start for all of you. Before I dive into new posts and topics for this year, I’d like to take some time to reflect upon what happened with Full Life Reflections in 2019. I think it’s beneficial to periodically take a step back to celebrate our accomplishments and progress, and the beginning of a new year can be a perfect time to do that. I’ve done this type of retrospective for each year of my blogging journey since 2013 (except for 2017, when I was mostly inactive) and I’ve found it to be a valuable exercise, so here goes…

During 2019, I published 22 essays on this blog, which was quite a bit less than the previous year (I published 33 essays in 2018) and not nearly as much as I ultimately wanted. However, given the fact that it was a challenging year for me in many respects, I’m glad that I was still able to post about twice per month on average. As was the case for 2018, my posts were on a variety of topics, including life balance, freedom (my 2019 theme), peace, happiness, and wardrobe management. Today, I’ll share the most popular posts from 2019, as well as my personal favorites. I’ll also highlight the outgoing links that were clicked on most often by visitors to the blog.

This retrospective post will give new readers of Full Life Reflections a chance to check out some highlights from 2019, while longtime readers will have an opportunity to revisit posts they either missed the first time around or would like to explore again. As a reminder, you can browse all of my essays by topic via the “Browse by Category” links on the sidebar of the site, and a full article listing is available in the Article Archive.

In case you want to check out my previous “best of” collections, here are the links: