“Deal with the faults of others as gently as your own“
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40 days of positive change
Today is Ash Wednesday, Lent has officially started. As I attended Liturgy of the Word this afternoon, the message I heard was nothing short of what I needed to hear. Growing up in the Catholic church, you are taught to “give up” something for lent as our way of “suffering as Jesus did in the desert”. Well as adults, we could give up senseless shopping or bread or some other guilty pleasure we constantly indulge in. The homily given today expressed that we should not just “give up” something but look to change our lives for the better — “40 days of positive change“. Instead of being negative, critical and mean, we should look to be positive, be less critical and give of ourselves (volunteering). To step outside of our comfort zone and take small steps to changing our way of life for the better.
Whether or not you’re Catholic, or even religious for that matter, I’m sure we all have something within ourselves that we can work on to make ourselves better. This message was in keeping with my theme of “change”, that until I started writing this paragraph I didn’t realize was a major theme in my posts for this year. I wanted to start 24 on the right foot and 2 weeks after I’ve been given this message that seems sooooooo fitting for me right now. It’s not just a time to change the physical stuff but the bad habits and mentality that are often so hard to work on. We need to be more forgiving, less selfish and more patient. With all of the technology we have now, it’s hard to imagine how we used to deal before it all. We’ve become “instant” people forgetting that waiting sometimes is part of life and can help us to take a moment to look at what is going on instead of getting lost in why we haven’t gotten what we we’re waiting for yet.
So if you need a new challenge in life, try changing something within yourself. We all have bad habits we’d like to kick, maybe now is the time for you to give it a try.
Becoming a better person has never killed anyone…
Change..
When I got married, it hit me hard fashion wise, change has to come. I’m not the tallest person, so I’d always found it difficult finding the right length in dresses and jeans that I liked, that didn’t make me look like a 40 year old wife from the 50’s. The jeans and t-shirt had to be revamped. I am no longer living in the tropics so slippers aren’t an option and I hate sneakers so they weren’t an option either. I needed proper shoes, proper jeans and no “graphic t’s” that screamed “college student”.
I’ve stepped up my heel game, but my flat feet make it hard to find heels I like that are comfortable, so I’ve taken to wedges more. Last year was the first time I had to look for ballet flats and it wasn’t easy but I got through with 2 off-white pairs that became my best friends. I currently only have skinny jeans in my closet (until I have a pair of wide-leg jeans that I absolutely love) and I won’t wear another flared jean again to shorten my body more.
By the way, if you were expecting me to say where I shop, this is more about changing up clothes I already have not where I got them.
In my quest to make my wardrobe more mature and less “cute” I’ve had some buys that were a miss more than a hit. So in preparing my pocket wardrobe for this Spring/Summer, I decided to go back to a few pieces that I really liked but something about them wasn’t working for me. I hope be posting pictures soon, I’ll be getting back two shirts this week and next week I intend to attempt tie-dyeing two maxi dresses. I find it sooo exciting to see pieces, observe how they could be changed and watching it come into fruition.
It’s kind of like cooking… You take out meat/fish to cook for dinner and immediately think to do the same thing you always do with that type of meat, and the day you decide to change it up, and try something new, you feel like you’ve never had it before! Well, I’m still to collect my stuff from getting the alterations done and I’m already feeling that thrill you get after shopping!!!!!! The other good thing is, since I’ve been working out (YES I’M STILL GOING!!) I can get back into shorts that I couldn’t wear last year! This also means I don’t have to buy new ones but feel like a million dollars that I got into the old ones!
I’ll go into the inspiration behind my pieces when I post the pictures. So I guess my little advice for the Spring/Summer wardrobe is to go through your closet now, and see what you have that you could cut, dye or resurrect and enjoy some DIY projects on your clothes (or take them to a professional for alterations like I did :)). I’m sure from the trends we’re seeing on the runways you can find something!
Just a Dash 