Hi all, it's been busy and distracting this summer, but I was inspired by Angie's post today to check in on my own goals from January. I had decided to think more in terms of 'intentions' than goals to avoid provoking my tendency to hyper-focus and micro-manage, but I did also have a few practical items to attend to. Here's the update:

Intentions: To move forward with self-confidence, use a combination of pragmatism and emotions to make style decisions, and play with the balance between my personal style and incorporating trends:

Not doing tooo badly here ... definitely have moments of self-doubt, but I'm not getting swamped by them, so that's good! Have been good with balancing pragmatism with emotion and not being led by over-analysis. Still working out the personal style/trends balance but I know that will work itself out naturally once I stay focused on my other intentions.

Practical To Do Items

Upgrade my pyjamas – CHECK.

Focus on my essentials, making sure they are both current and classic – IN PROGRESS. I did have success with a striped sweater and new black boots. Still figuring out my jeans situation (see below) and updates to sweater will follow from that, depending on the silhouette – this will be a fall project. Still on the hunt for a polished black bag to replace my threadbare H&M one that I’ve had for years! Dithering on white shorts and might just make do until next summer at this point. Have been relying on lightweight button ups a lot this spring and summer; sweatshirts too – might these be new essentials for me?

Add a few specific items if the right one shows up: IN PROGRESS. Success on a striped sweater, a UV jacket for the pool, new Birkies, and black booties. White shorts and black bag still not done as mentioned above.

Experiment to find a new ‘signature’ jean style: FALL TO DO ITEM. This will be a fall project. I currently have slim, straight and wide options in the closet. The straight ones are not optimal but they will do for playing around to see which one rises to the top for day to day. I suspect it will be the straights because they work the best with flats while also looking like a real break from skinnies. I am open to try bootcut or flares as well … not sure yet.

Next Steps

I have a good enough sense of what’s been worn this summer to do a bit of a closet cleanse (no over-editing!) and have a look at what I’m excited to wear for fall. After this, I think I should revise my essentials list and then focus on any gaps between what I’m looking forward to wearing and what I deem essential that’s relevant to fall. And then have a poke around the shops as the fall stuff starts turning up to see what gaps I can fill!

Thank you for reading - advice, comments, challenges all very welcome! xoxo