Oh hey there. I haven’t posted much lately because it’s been surprisingly busy work-wise. The upside to a lot of work, though, is that I haven’t had as much free time to think about shopping. Hence I’ve been very good with my #20in2020 goal so far. The goal, which I decided upon while reviewing my 2019 shopping habits, is to buy no more than 20 items this year, and to make half of them secondhand.
Usually I take a look at post-holiday sales, but not this year — not on purpose anyway. While shopping at Muji for notebooks, I stumbled upon their winter clearance. I ended up buying a pair of wool blend touchscreen gloves marked half off. Plus, it was an extra 20% off if you bought two or more sale items. (They’re even cheaper now.) I picked up a pair in a different color for the Mister too. It’s true that we don’t really need to wear gloves all that often, if at all, in the San Francisco Bay Area. But these seemed like practical gloves for visiting colder climates.
My gloves replace another pair from Uniqlo that turned out to be a shopping mistake. They are in excellent shape — I’ve probably only worn them a handful of times (pun intended.) But, they are way too long in the fingers for me and somehow I did not pay attention to this when I initially bought them.
The Muji gloves remain the only thing I’ve added to my wardrobe so far this year.
I also took a quick inventory count of my wardrobe. I don’t have the numbers in front of me right now (I’ll try to share them in my next diary post). But it was an eye-opening exercise because it made me realize that I own a lot of tops. I have more than 50, and that’s plenty. I really shouldn’t buy any more, though I will make allowances for something versatile that I absolutely love. But anything I add pretty much needs to be perfect. A culling is probably in order too, even though I went through my tops not that long ago in the fall.
I did make some time last month to journal and reflect on what I want to accomplish this year. In this touching essay by the writer and poet Saeed Jones, he recalls how his mother made determinations, not resolutions. I really love this perspective.
Recently, I also got a bit into bullet journaling. Last year, I started keeping to-do lists in one large notebook. Every week I’d migrate the things I didn’t do to the new week. And while that’s been helpful, I wanted to organize my thoughts and to-dos even more. I’ve set up trackers for habits I want to encourage in myself (like planking on a regular basis). My pages are not pretty — some people really go all out with illustrations and washi tape (just search #bujo on Instagram) — but I’m really enjoying it. I find setting up a weekly view the most helpful. Some people set them up daily.
Welcome Objects 20 in 2020 Wardrobe Count To Date
Additions: 1 this month = 1 item total for the year
Subtractions: 1 this month = 1 item removed from my wardrobe for the year
