Hi,

I have finally made it to my final post for my NAS closet purge. This was the hardest round.

To recap, here are the first 4 posts.

Round One was here.

Round Two was here.

Round Three was here.

Round Four was here.

Now onto round five and then for some reflections.

#1-Black Leather Jacket and Teal Scarf

New NAS items.

#2-Grey Leather Jacket and Pink Scarf.

I was very excited when I found the black leather jacket. I purchased the grey one years ago as a "I'm settling" purchase because I got tired of looking for a black leather jacket that worked for me. Solid blacks were always too harsh so I went with grey. The grey never made me happy and was hard to remix in my heavy cool shades of blue colored wardrobe. I'm happy to pass along the grey jacket to my sister who looks much nicer in warm greys. The pink scarf is another warmer shade that never remixed well in my closet.

#3-Bow Blouse

New NAS item. This was an impulse purchase and I have no item it's replacing right now. Shame on me! But I do adore the top and have already worn it twice.

#4-Peplum "Suit"

These are two more items growing my wardrobe. I have wanted to expand my business capsule a little so hopefully this outfit will work for that need.

#5-Dot Print Sweater

This is one item I am now returning. I wanted to break away from team blues, and while this sweater does that, I already picked up a new sweater in tan I like better than this one so back it goes.

#6-Black Suede Booties

New NAS item. I really liked these booties (Clarks Rosepoint Dew) but the heel is too high for me to sport them as an 8 hour shoe which is my real need.

#7-Black Buckle Shoes

New non NAS item. (Aerosoles Episotic) I just adore these shoes. I think they will work very well with my new jeans and they have a much lower heel than the black booties above. Plus they are shoes and not boots or booties. My first "winter" friendly shoe that is not a boot. My only other shoes are black loafers that I don't wear in winter because the top of my exposed foot gets cold. Unfortunately they are not replacing anything, just adding to my shoe collection.

There were a number of additional NAS items I purchased and were returned after YLF votes of nay, or fit or material issues, so they are not summarized here. Only the items I planned to keep have been covered in my purging posts.

Now onto some observations.

1. One In One Out is not easy to do, at least for me. It took me hours to figure out what items were really going to work in my current closet and what items have to be returned.

2. Shopping without a plan leads to returns and orphans. I've been a member of YLF for years, so one would think by now I would know better. And it probably would have made my shopping and closet purging much faster if I had known in advance what items I needed to replace instead of figuring it out "after the fact."

3. When it's the right time, you find what you need. Last year I only picked up 3 items from NAS. This year I picked up over a dozen! I think shopping goes in waves and sometimes you just hit the jackpot. I think my new pieces are great upgrades and for many of the items I am purging I am truly ready to let them go to new homes with little regret that I am letting items go.

4. Refreshing a wardrobe is work. I tried on many sizes and made quite a few trips back and forth to Nordie's during the sale as I tried to streamline my purchases and figure out which items truly fit well and would work for me. I know I've gone too many times when the SA start greeting me by name.

5. It's easy to get overwhelmed and loose focus. Looking online, in the store, and sorting through all my orders, it was very easy to say "I'll do it later" and then forget about it. If I had purchased less overall I probably would have found it easier to shift through everything.

6. Once you start it gets hard to stop. Once I got the shopping maven started, it was hard to stop. You get used to the thrill of new items and coming home to new packages after long days at work. The first few days of no new items to sort through felt "odd."

I'm looking forward to wearing all my new goodies and also to smarter shopping for NAS next year.

Thanks for looking and reading!

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