#ODP17: October Dress Project 2017

Since 2012, I've participated in the October Dress Project, with the exception of last year. (I was starting a new job and didn't think wearing the same day for my first 30 days would make the right impression.)

The October Dress Project (ODP) motto is "anti-consumerism, pro-simplicity, anti-conformity, pro-imagination." For 31 straight days, one wears the same dress (washing it often, yes), using imagination to keep it looking different each day. I've always enjoyed the challenge, but this year it was a lot harder. It was fun, but my heart just wasn't in it, and I don't know if I'll do it again after this. I skipped a few weekend days this month for various reasons, though I diligently wore it to work every day. Still, I want to recap my month of anti-materialism and think on any lessons I learned.

In all the other years, I felt I really learned something new during ODP. I think some of that came out of blogging every day or so; I would post a picture of the outfit then find something to write about to go along with it. I think the regular writing helped develop some lessons throughout the month. This year, however, other than posting daily in the ODP Facebook group, I didn't really want to post selfies every day for a month, so I didn't blog daily either.

Even still, I feel like this year, more than any other year, I really grasped the idea of anti-consumerism with this project. Most years, I've bought a dress specifically for ODP. This year, I realized how much that went against the whole idea of anti-consumerism in the first place, so I went closet shopping instead. I chose a gray dress from the back of my closet that I love but didn't wear often. It's a great dress to make The Dress - it's the right length, it fits nicely. (It's also very thick, I discovered, making it difficult to tuck into trousers and wear as a shirt.) Furthermore, I decided not to spend money on accessories for The Dress. I don't think I bought any all month, except a scarf that was in the $2 bin at Walmart. I just wore what I already had and made the most of it. Wasn't that supposed to be the point all along?

(I did take most of the weekends off. One weekend I was backpacking. Another I was cleaning a lot. I can't really account for every excuse I had over the four weekends of October, but I had them, and they generally weren't that good. But as for work days, I was pretty diligent.)

Besides some small lessons in anti-consumerism, did I learn anything else this time around? In past years, my new "theme" for the upcoming year generally emerged from ODP - simplicity, satisfaction, balance, etc. Did a theme emerge this year?

Maybe not directly due to ODP, I think a theme I've found myself revisiting lately is satisfaction. Being satisfied not so much with what I have which is how I approached it last time, but by what I am. And where I am. Too often I feel unsatisfied with who I am, how I am, what I am, where I am. I'm always striving to be something bigger, something better - to be somewhere bigger and better. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, but when that means I'm never actually satisfied in the moment with myself, then I'm never going to enjoy the journey I'm taking as I move towards achieving those goals.

Live in the moments, I guess. Be satisfied with the now. Love myself for who I am today as well as who I'm hoping to become tomorrow. Love where I'm at today, and stop living only for the future. Perhaps there's even a little lesson in patience waiting there for me.

Satisfaction and patience. I think those sound like themes I could strive to live by for the next 12 months!

And who knows, maybe by the time next October rolls around, I'll be up for doing this project a 6th time. We'll see.

For those of you interested, enjoy the photos below!

October Dress Project - A Leap Year

October is my favorite month. I love Autumn and pumpkins and Halloween and crisp air and fallen leaves and sweaters and the October Dress Project.

Only this year, I won't have that last part.

I have participated in the October Dress Project for the last four Octobers, and I had every intention of participating again this year. Then something big changed - I got offered a new job. I start my new job next week, Oct. 10.

And I am so super excited about my new job! And I'll talk about that in a minute! But for now, a little mourning over missing my favorite annual challenge. I really considered doing ODP again this year, but I just can't help feeling like wearing the same dress every day for my first three weeks at a new job would somehow leave a bad first impression...

I did look at dresses. I did try to find something that I could easily disguise from day to day. I considered toggling between two dresses even. And with two days to go, I even made a snap judgment and ordered a dress from Amazon, which arrived on Sept 29th. However, it was too small, and I had to return it. With no time left and a real concern about coming across as super weird at my new job, I decided to skip this year's ODP. A leap year, if you will.

I am sad.

But! I am happy! Because I am starting a new job, a new awesome job! I am going to be the Director of Communications for a very awesome humanitarian organization! (And even though finding out which organization that is ought to be extremely easy with a simple Google search, I do *try* to keep a few things in my life anonymous, at least here on my blog.) I am ridiculously excited about this new opportunity, and even though I'm sad to miss ODP this year and I'll be sad to leave "BANPO" ("Big Anonymous Non Profit Organization" which again could easily be searched for), I really cannot wait to open this new chapter in my life. Working for VAHO ("Very Awesome Humanitarian Organization") is an incredible opportunity, one that will lead to all kinds of personal and professional development for me. I get to help others AND do what I love, all at once. Can anyone ask for better?

So, there will be no dress pictures this October from me. Sad. Maybe, even though I'm now two days behind, I'll replace it with some other Fall-ish challenge. Ideas?


P.S. Half marathon update: I ran/walked (mostly walked) 4.5 miles today. Outdoor training is way harder than treadmill training. I might be the only human alive who prefers the treadmill. 

October Dress Project: The End Times

Dear friends,

Here's the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

I quit.

I'm not typically a quitter. No, I'm far too obsessive, protectionist, and competitive to quit.  I will usually persevere through all manners of personal inconvenience just to prove a point (usually to literally no one who cares).  Like last year when I cooked with pumpkin every day of November. It drove everyone in my house mad, but dammit, I FINISHED THE PUMPKINPALOOZA CHALLENGE.

But this year I'm going to be all about balance, and you know what needs to go? Perfectionism.

At work we're doing a "Stress-Less Challenge". From the get-go, I was like, "YES, I'M GOING TO GET ALL THE POINTS!!!!!!!!" And then two days into it, stressed from trying to fit in 30 minutes of exercise every evening after the kids went to bed while exhausted and thinking of all the other gazillion things I needed to do, I realized this wasn't really achieving the intended "stress-less" affect. I didn't give up - I just gave in.  I'll get SOME points by the end of the challenge, just not all. I feel like a bit of a failure, yes. But I'll stress less, and isn't that the real point?

Regarding ODP though, I just flat out quit. It's the home stretch, I'm nearly there, but I quit.

Monday, Day 26, was the start of "Employee Appreciation Week" at work, which involves JEANS DAYS ALL WEEK. Y'all, there are only so many ways to wear The Dress with jeans, and there are only so many days I'm allowed to wear jeans to work, and one of the benefits of Jeans Days is t-shirts, not dresses tucked in. I tried wearing a t-shirt over The Dress tucked into trousers* on Monday. It was okay, yet I just wasn't feeling it. So you know what? I bloody well quit.

*Trousers, not jeans, because I had an external meeting** that day. External meetings trump Jeans Day every sad time.

**The external meeting got cancelled. Lost my Jeans Day for nowt.

Day 25 is not pictured. It was a dark and stormy day, and I wore The Sunday Dress in the least interesting way possible - over jeans, under a warm hoodie with fluffy socks. It wasn't worth photographing, even on my crappy camera phone.

Day 24 I did not wear The Dress. It was Saturday, and I was busy. I just never put it on. Hashtag SorryNotSorry.

Day 23 I did wear The Dress, but it was literally exactly how I'd worn it the day before, with furry black boots and a scarf. The only difference was a pair of jeans underneath. In fact...

Just imagine Day 22 with a pair of skinny jeans and that was Day 23.  

Day 21 was possibly one of my favorite days. I loved the red trousers and the red scarf with The Dress tucked in.  

Day 20 was also kind of cute.  Wore The Dress under an A-line skirt I bought at Tesco a millennia ago, a black infinity scarf and black flats.

Wanna hear a funny story? After a month of crappy camera phone pictures because my real camera wouldn't work, my real camera started working again.

I'm sorry, ODPers, for my lack of enthusiasm and sticktoitiveness this year. It's been a helluva few months. I might possibly be ready by next October. ODP16!

With love,

A Winner Who Let Herself Quit Just This Once

That Balance Thingy

That balance thingy? I'm still trying to find it.

 So for ODP Day 19, this is what you get:

Gorgeous, I know.  Hair au naturale, a blue plaid blazer, The Dress, grey leggings, lacy white stocks and black slip-ons. Why the long face? Well, read on.

This morning was a classic Monday where no one could get ready in time, I didn't have the kids' uniforms washed (should probably do that now), nothing was in the fridge for lunches, and I didn't have time to fix my hair or make any effort with my dress.

But to balance out the morning, I had a good productive day at work. I got a lot accomplished I've been meaning to do and felt pretty confident by the end of the day.

But then I got home, and I turned the bath hot water on to run my dirt-caked three year old a bath, and hundreds of ants swarmed out of the knob and all over the bath. I freaked out. I wanted to both cry and move out immediately.

But to balance it out, I had dinner all ready to just pop in the oven, no prep. Well, I didn't have dinner ready per se; I decided on Sunday while at Sam's Club that in this effort to find what things can be let go and simplified, one of the things could be dinner. They do several fresh pre-prepared meals that just need to go in the oven, so I bought four for this week. Tonight's was a meatloaf and mashed potatoes.  I just threw it in the oven when I got home, and we ate 45 minutes later. And it was DELISH, I must say.

But then we then put the kids to bed, and I went to the gym to run on the treadmill for half an hour. Balance. I ran two miles in thirty minutes, which I know isn't that fast for runners, but it's fast for a non-runner like me. I went to the gym thinking maybe I'd go to the Yoga class, but I really wanted some cardio.  It felt good, really good.

Balance.  Ahh, it feels good when you strike it.


Now, it's been six days since I've posted my ODP pictures. This is one area I have not been very good in. Even getting the pictures taken is a hardship.  But here we go.

Day 18 - The Dress For Sunday is not pictured. Why? Because I had it on with a cute grey and pink scarf, a navy sailor blazer and a pair of jeans. Then I poured frappucino all over it. And literally, I mean all over it. I had one of those bottles of cold mocha drinks, which I like to shake up before every drink. Except I hadn't put the lid on all the way, so when I shook it, the lid flew off and cold mochaccino went all over my dress, my hair, my bed, and my wall.

Balance.  Losing it.

Day 17 - I wore The Dress to a fundraiser for a charity called Hearts & Hooves. They were hosting a polo match, and my good civic volunteer duty was to pin flowers on the VIP guests.  I'm not sure if eating the VIPs' food and drinking their champagne and watching a polo match in between pinning flowers on fancy lapels is going to win me an enormous number of good karma points, but I was there and tried to be helpful. My good friend from high school Liz organized the event, and my other good friend Devon and I were there as volunteers.  Here we are sipping champagne during the divot stomp.

I wore The Dress with my grey blazer, a colorful scarf, black trousers and fuchsia shoes.

Day 16 - Friday Jeans Day at work. I wore The Dress pretty much entirely covered up by tucking it into jeans and covering it with a t-shirt. Shrug. Whatevs. Friday. Jeans Day.

Day 15 - Not a favorite by any means. Gold velour blazer, brown belt, brown boots. The Dress. Mid-month rut. Happens every year.

Day 14 - Also not my favorite. Mustard sweater over The Dress, pink, burgundy, and purple infinity scarf, burgundy frilly socks, and brown ankle boots. Oh, and my camera isn't working properly. Which is why I'm back to phone pictures. This year is such a far cry from last year's backyard, tripod, pretendingtobeartistic shots.

And Day 13 - A bit cuter. Just The Dress with white tights, fuchsia shoes, fuchsia scarf, and my favorite earrings.

I am on the home stretch.  Looking forward to "balancing" out my wardrobe a little better and not wearing the samedamndress every day.

The Dress In Days Past

In case you've been wondering (I know how you stay up late at night biting your nails and worrying about stuff like this), I have still been doing the October Dress Project. I just haven't had time to post anything about it.

But have no fear! As I sit here with hair dye on my roots and a pumpkin loaf in the oven, I present you with Days 8 through 12.

(And because of how Facebook interprets photos from my blog, I begin with Day 12 and work down, because Day 8's photos are really meh.)

Day 12 (today in fact!)

I wore The Dress as a shirt with black trousers, black patent heels, lacy white socks and a black and white chevron infinity scarf. My hair was down when I started the day, but it ended up in a ponytail by the end of it. Because stress.

(Aren't my lacy socks pretty? Very annoyed about the seam traveling to the front over the course of the day, though obviously not enough to do anything about it.)

Day 11

A dress for Sunday! Which is kind of silly since a Sunday dress infers churchgoing, and I don't churchgo.  I did however attend a fundraiser full of cupcakes, and cakes are one of the major pluses of churchgoing.

I wore The Sunday Dress under a Quiddich World Cup t-shirt (dork), with black legwarmers, flats and a black zip-up hoodie (until it got warm).  Hair was meh. No makeup. Easy like Sunday morning.

Day 10

Zoo day! My mom, aunt, and I took the kids to the zoo. It was a warm day, so I wore The Dress tucked into a pair of black and white floral shorts with some black knock-off pretend chucks. Comfy and even kind of cute. The sunglasses however...

Day 9

Pink Out!  Our work was doing a Pink Out day on Friday for the Race for the Cure (on Saturday), and we were supposed to wear pink. I wore The Dress with a pink workout jacket, skinny jeans, and totes adorbs pink flats ($9.99 at Payless, holla!).  I put my hair in a loose, sideways French braid. I love casual Friday.

Day 8

Since I started every other day with an exclamatory sentence fragment: Conference Day! I organized the photography for one of our company's initiatives at a conference on Thursday morning, so I wanted to dress a little smarter than usual. I don't think I succeeded, but in effort, I wore The Sunday Dress with a black blazer and brown chunky necklace. (I know, black and brown!) Not visible in the photos are my beige patent wedges.  Not my best outfit at all and not my best photies. We were running late that morning. I managed a surreptitious office selfie.

I also got Scott to take my picture in front of a big bear chef at lunch, so there's that too.

And with that, I'm almost halfway through. What?! I'm not even tired of The Dress(es).  Yet.

ODP Days: Fifty Shades of Gray...

I've got to locate my actual camera.  All my phone photos so far have looked like this:

And then when I tell my seven-year-old child to take the picture without moving, she takes about three minutes to finally click, and I look like this:

Today I wore The Dress with a pink and red infinity scarf and a dark red belt. I wore black leggings and black shoes. My hair was in a bun.

Yesterday, I wore The Dress with a gray blazer and brown suede furry boots, with  my hair down and a black rosy headband.

I'm starting to feel the gray getting to me. It's getting a little depressing. I need some color. I need to raid my closet for something super bright to wear with The Dress tomorrow. I did order the cutest greenest shoes ever, but when they arrived they were too small. Sad days. I hope I can return them. I think they may have come from China. (Thanks, Amazon.)

Today the skies were blue, but me and The Dress were feeling awfully gray.

One Dress for Weekdays and One for Sunday

Avery, the creator of the October Dress Project, was inspired by her grandpa who once said "that in his day girls wore 'one dress for weekdays and one dress for Sunday'".  This year, my dress is made of 100% cotton, and I'm afraid to dry it in the dryer, lest it shrink. So I washed it last night and hung it up this morning, thinking it would be dry by the time I left to go anywhere.

But by lunch time, it was still wet, and I had promised the kids and their friend who had spent the night that we'd go out to eat.  I remembered Avery's grandfather's original comment - one dress for weekdays and one for Sunday - and decided this year I'd allow myself that option too. So I've got my gray dress for weekdays, and my tan dress for Sundays.

Yesterday was a laid back, bum around Saturday, full of errands and chores, so I simply wore The Dress tied up on the side over a pair of black workout capris and black flats. It was actually a little chilly by the evening, so I added a black cardigan for our campfire and cookout we had in the backyard with Fifi and Lolly's friend E-. 

Today I wore The Sunday Dress with brown leggings, brown flats and a gray blazer.  

I like having a Sunday Dress.  

The Importance of Being Human

It's been almost three months since I've been to the gym. After going religiously for a year and a half, I've really missed it.

Well, today after work, I tried out a new Zumba class at the gym down the road.  While it lacked the rowdy energy and ambiance of the Zumba classes at my old venue, it was still good.  Good enough, anyway. Good enough to consider just joining that gym, because it's close and cheap and open 24 hours and I need to find a place soon.  Tomorrow I might try out the Yoga class.

One of the things I miss most about working out is the feeling of control over my life. I used to feel guilty for needing control, but now I've come to accept that it's just my personality type. I'm a control freak. I need to have control over things. Is that such a bad thing? Yes, it can take over my life in a bad way, but in other ways, it keeps me calm, it keeps me going forward. Getting regular exercise feels good and keeps me level and grants me control over various aspects of my health, such as what I eat. I feel I make better choices over all when I've kept up my exercise routine. It clears my head.  It wakes me up. I love the way it feels, the burn, the sweat, the energy, the endorphin.

I don't think it's a bad thing to need a sense of control, as long as there is a little perspective. My problem is, I don't have much of that.

The problem I have with control is the feeling of disarray and confusion I feel when I don't have it. When things don't go as planned, when routines get interrupted, when I make a mistake, I tend to lose it. I'm not only a control freak, I'm a perfectionist.

And that's what I think I'm going to work on this October and this next year.  Imperfection.  Or rather, allowing a little imperfection. There's probably a better word for it, like Acceptance. Letting It Go. While I've stopped feeling guilty over needing control in my life, I also recognize I must find some Balance.  I seriously need to learn to relax a little and accept that things cannot always be perfect. I must find the things that grant me control - like exercise - but also let go of some things that are simply too much for me right now. I hate that my house is harder to keep clean now that I'm at work eight hours a day. I hate that I'm not the mum who can go on field trips and help at class parties anymore. I hate that dinner isn't on the table at 6:00 sharp every night now.  But I've got to learn to accept these things, I simply have to. I'm only one person; I'm only human. I try to be superlori, but I can't always achieve that. No one can. Perhaps it's the year for learning to Let It Go, for creating Balance, for finding Acceptance. What's that serenity prayer? "God grant me the serenity to change the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." Seems about right.

Balance. I like that. We'll see what all comes out of October, but I'm thinking that will be the main theme of the upcoming year. Balance. It seems to fit. It's something I need to work on.

Oh, and speaking of October...

Cue segue:

ODP Day 2!

Talk about something that makes me feel in control! I love ODP. I love the challenge. Today was Casual Friday at work, so I couldn't pass up the chance to wear The Dress with jeans. I tucked The Dress in to a pair of straight leg jeans and folded up the sleeves to vary the length. I added one of my favorite infinity scarves and brown flats. I wore my hair down and natural (it's getting so long!) with a pearly headband. Which I'll admit, gave me a bit of a headache all day but was worth it for the cute factor.

One thing about this dress - I freaking love that it has pockets, but pockets make it difficult to tuck in and wear as a shirt. Still. Pockets are WORTH IT.

Another thing - since we moved, I can't find my camera. I'm sure it's somewhere in a box or something, but until I find it, I must rely on my phone for photography and my husband or children for photographers. Or I can just take camera selfies, like every other human being in the developed world. Selfie stick this year instead of a tripod?

(Just look at this. My hair is getting so long!)