My Wardrobe, Myself

Am I Living a Deliberate Life?

Debbie Roes

July 17, 2015

NOTE: This post was originally published on my previous blog, Recovering Shopaholic.

Half of 2015 is behind us and I realized that I have yet to post an update on how I’m doing with my theme for the year. In hindsight, I wish I would have done at least a quarterly update, if not more often. It’s very important to keep our yearly themes top of mind, and an update from me may have reminded those who also selected 2015 themes to take a look at how they’re going.

Well, better late than never, as the saying goes. So today I’m going to let you in on my progress with my 2015 theme, which is “deliberate.” Early in the year, I shared this theme and my thoughts on what constitutes deliberate shopping, a deliberate wardrobe, and a deliberate life. While I will touch on all three facets in this post, my main focus will be on the third one, a deliberate life. The reason for this is because I write about my wardrobe and shopping all the time here. You know how I’m doing in both areas through my accountability posts and “Love It, Wear It” challenge updates, and many other essays I write on this blog. Yet I don’t write about my life at large nearly as often, even though the theme of this blog is “Trade Your Full Closet for a Full Life.”

Are YOU living a deliberate life?

On Loneliness – Some Thoughts and Images

Debbie Roes

90 comments

June 2, 2015

NOTE: This post was originally published on my previous blog, Recovering Shopaholic.

I mentioned what my upcoming topics would be in my last post, but I decided I wanted to write about something else first. It’s a subject that has been on my mind for quite some time and about which I have many thoughts… loneliness. In today’s post, I share some of my thoughts about loneliness, as well as a selection of my photos which evoke this theme. The photos appear throughout the post, starting with an introductory image that is one of my favorites.

A lonely and quiet place – Point Loma Nazarene University

In one of my earliest posts, I wrote about the reasons people shop too much. Some of these reasons have been explored in greater depth in stand-alone essays. I have touched upon the topic of loneliness from time to time, but I have never devoted an entire post to it. However, in recent months, it has become abundantly clear to me that loneliness is a major issue in my life and has contributed to my overshopping behavior. In addition, as I looked at the images I’ve shot in recent photo sessions, I noticed lonely-looking scenes showing up over and over again. Clearly, my innermost feelings are being conveyed through my photographs.

Cultivating New Hobbies – My First One to Share

Debbie Roes

53 comments

April 28, 2015

NOTE: This post was originally published on my previous blog, Recovering Shopaholic.

The last two posts have centered on the topic of hobbies. I started out with an emotional post about how shopping has been my only hobby for many years, how that didn’t fulfill me, and how I’d like to create more balance in my life by integrating some new interests. I received so many wonderful suggestions from readers that I wrote a follow-up post listing a wide array of things to do besides shopping, broken down into meaningful categories.

Today, I’d like to share a new hobby that I’ve been exploring as of late. I will tell you about my new interest, why I took it on, and how it’s been fulfilling for me. I will also show you a few examples of what I’ve done with this new hobby thus far.

My New Hobby Is…

I’ve recently discovered the love of photography…

Downsizing a Large Music Collection the “KonMari” Way

Debbie Roes

28 comments

March 20, 2015

NOTE: This post was originally published on my previous blog, Recovering Shopaholic.

My post on how my husband and I downsized our large book collection was very well received, and many readers told me they’d like to see more content from me on the topic of de-cluttering. Toward the end of that post, I mentioned that we had also applied the “KonMari Method” to our compact disc collection. Today, I recount that process and share the insights learned along the way.

Do you have a lot of these lying around?

On Music Collections

We didn’t start out with an insanely huge music collection. Between the two of us, we had exactly 400 compact discs. This pales in comparison to the stash of a guy I dated long ago, who owned 2000 CDs, all arranged in alphabetical order on four racks that filled an entire wall of his living room. In hindsight, I should have seen those impeccable racks as a red flag of an overly controlling person who approached his relationships with the same type of “things must be just so” attitude. But you know what they say about hindsight being 20/20…

On Tidying, Books, and What Sparks Joy

Debbie Roes

60 comments

March 9, 2015

NOTE: This post was originally published on my previous blog, Recovering Shopaholic.

I mostly write about clothing on this blog, but many of us also have a tendency to accumulate too many items in other possession categories. My husband and I have been gradually paring things down in all areas of our home, but one area that’s been challenging has been our books, particularly mine.

Does your book collection resemble a bookstore?

A Book to Help Me De-clutter My Books?

As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m what one might call an “information junkie.” For years, my shopaholic tendencies extended to books almost as much as with clothes, especially after Amazon Prime made it so easy and inexpensive to purchase books with a single click. My husband had also amassed quite a few books over the years such that we had two tall bookshelves stuffed to the gills, as well as a smaller bookcase for the overflow. Sure, we’d cull a few books here and there as time went by, but there were still far too many books in our midst.