I'm a newbie, still on the steep learning curve. My first big revelation was that stereotypes don't hold up here. The Cattiness and shallowness I expected are not present in this kind, supportive community. I don't learn well by hearing other people's experiences--have to live it myself. This can make me frustrating to deal with, and y'all have been patient with me. I noticed one reason for the gentle tone right away; it was Angie's birthday. The heartfelt good wishes to her made it clear that many people here have felt warmth from her personally, and like attracts like. Fashion-wise thus far, I've really liked finding new ways of thinking about color and pattern combos, shopping, and my wardrobe.
I've enjoyed 3 trips to the mall where I didn't buy anything. I wrote about the first here, and how I was more observant of style than I have usually been. The second was a "research" trip to try on all the things at any price range and just really see what I liked. That was surprisingly fun. The third was last week when I was looking for blush being used as a winter color. The most fun about that was the freedom from wondering if I should buy random other attractive things that were on my path. (Ok, ok, I did buy a pair of fuzzy socks that go with my pjs). I don't typically enjoy shopping trips much, so these were all huge revelations to me.
I'm working on defining a style/shaping my wardrobe. I'd like to get my wardrobe down to less than half (more like a third) of its current size, but I'm not worrying about that now, because I'm hoping for further changes in my body and location (it's not the clothes--I look pretty decent dressed, but don't like my body naked right now). I'm currently doing a 30x30ish challenge, and am very curious what it will yield. Lots of people were doing them when I joined, and they made no sense to me. I think I kind of get it now.
There are lots of other things I'm still figuring out, like organizing a closet by color. I've done that with the "challenge" pieces, and so far it does not feel natural or helpful to me. When I want to put something on my bottom half, I still don't like looking past the shirts and other top half pieces that the shorts and skirts are mixed in with, and when I want short sleeves, I don't find it easy to mentally sort out the long sleeves & tank tops. But I'm giving it a go. At the end of the month, maybe I'll like it, maybe I won't.
Oh, and I'm pretty sure online shopping is my equivalent of emotional eating. I have set up a notebook with mindless tasks I need to do online next to the computer so I can do them instead, need to set up something similar on my phone.
Sorry to go on so long--you guys already know all this stuff from your own lives.
