Hey all! I haven't been around much the last few weeks as I've been on vacation and to be honest, lived in shorts & tees the whole time!

I undertook a project over my vacation to de-clutter my ENTIRE house - as in every single room and every single closet. Four car loads of stuff to the Salvation Army and one 5-ton truck load picked up by 1-800-Got-Junk. It was nothing short of therapeutic.

This de-cluttering project has furthered my interest and excitement for simplicity. Remember my series of Shannon's Simplicity Search posts that I started about a year ago? My desire for simplicity in many areas has not only remained, but increased over the last year. I suspect a great deal for that need is linked to the personal stress I've dealt with over the last while, but it's deeper than that.

With no offense meant to anyone on this forum, these are strictly MY personal thoughts: I no longer want to spend my time and energy searching for the "perfect" item, continue to add to my closet, spend hours looking at fashion blogs and perusing retail websites, take up space in my home and in my head with more and more stuff I don't need, spend more money than makes sense for me, etc. I want to get off the "hamster wheel" so to speak. I want my life to be more about experiences than stuff. Our family vacation to Victoria in July completely solidified that for me.

I have been with YLF for over four years and have learned so much and had a great deal of fun. But...I am basically a weak-willed person and the amount of money I have spent in those four years trying to keep up with all of the wonderful, stylish ladies on the forum, makes me feel ill. That's nobody's fault but my own.

And for my personality, analyzing every single detail of my outfit has become stressful and exhausting. I don't suppose the people I see in real life every day notice if my pants are 1/4 inch too short - so why am I stressing over it? I also find that it makes me feel slightly vain, which I'm not comfortable with. Again, these are just MY thoughts related to ME.

So I'm trying to figure out if there's a place anymore for me on YLF. I'm not going to be shopping any trends. I'm not going to be purchasing new items for K/R posts or to show in new outfits. I'm going to be wearing the heck out of the items I have - changing up the exact ensembles as often as possible - but if not, wearing the same things the same ways. That's ok with me.

And when an item does need replacement, I'll probably just be heading to my reasonably priced local retailers like Reitman's or Cleo's - stores that I used to enjoy shopping at because they are close by, have petite sizing, fit me well and are more in my price range. I've gotten away from that as I've felt these types of items/stores aren't necessarily appreciated on the forum in comparison to higher-end, trendier items. Maybe that's just me projecting.

I guess this is my way of saying that if you don't see me around anymore, don't worry. I'm all good

xoxo,
Shannon