Switchups and Storage

"Frosty Penguins"--Tuesday, 4/12/16

Focal item:  Pink grid print button up shirt

While she is wearing a pink plaid button up for the trivial purpose of supporting breast cancer awareness, I'm getting serious this week about wearing my light colored button up shirts for the Work the Wardrobe Challenge.  (This is the pink one that helped me decide to purge the orchid striped one a while back.)  And yeah, yet another white/cream sweater gets thrown in the mix, too.

From ladydianaspearls.com

And then when I put the shirt on, I realized that it was a weird combination of way too stiff (it's a no-iron cotton shirt, and I find that these can be extra stiff) and a bit too tight in the bust.  Putting a soft cashmere sweater on over it only exacerbated the stiffness problem.  It looked weird and felt very uncomfortable.  So goodbye pink button up shirt!  And hello magenta penguin blouse in soft polyester fabric that doesn't bunch weirdly underneath a sweater!  The button up sort of blouse is so great, and since I live in a place where this fabric is too hot for a very limited portion of the year, I should consider them more often as a substitute for the stiff cotton button up.  (Today I wore a thermal camisole under this and was very comfortable at work, though overly warm when I got home.)

Magenta penguin blouse (JNY), $3.06/wear
Black chambray skirt (thrifted, Larry Levine), $1.33/wear
Cream cashmere pullover sweater (Macy's), $8.00/wear+
Burgundy tights
Maroon ankle boots by Dolce Vita, $10.42/wear
Black/silver pendant (JCP), $3.84/wear

Outfit total: $26.65/wear

This time I switched things up a bit by wearing a dark-ish skirt and the burgundy tights + maroon ankle boots combination that I discovered serendipitously in January and just absolutely adore.  My outfit, and especially the tights/boots, got a thumbs up from a co-worker, too.

In other news...Check out Note of the Living Deb's rundown on vertical storage.  Reading her post made me remember a couple things I did in the recent past that really made a difference:

(1)  I bought a few cheap clear plastic magazine holders (which hold magazines vertically) and this means I can store my backlog of magazines on the windowsill next to the dining room table instead of in a big flat stack on the dining room table.

(2)  I re-purposed a (pretty nice looking, actually, for cardboard) white box that is taller than it is deep for holding legal pads, the calendar I use for planning rabbit photos on FB, a notebook with outfit notes in it, printouts of PT exercises I don't do, and other random stuff that used to be spread out all over the table next to my computer desk.

What do these have in common?  I did both to make it easier to move multiple items as a unit and to clear space off tables so that it would be easier to de-clutter on the morning's when the maid service comes in.  Huh.  Perhaps I would have stumbled upon some of these solutions a lot sooner if I had ever been in the habit of dusting my own apartment.  (Instead, I have spent my adult life letting my apartment get dustier and dustier until it's time to move to a different apartment!  And Robert has occasionally been prevailed upon to dust, but he's allergic to dust too so that didn't really work out.)

I'm sure there are approximately a hundred other ways I could improve my storage situation, though.

I think Tam's ex-roommate M. was the absolute master of vertical storage in the way that he utilized wall space to hang things.  Talk about zero footprint!  I only use wall space for hanging things like rabbit pictures. 

The place where I need vertical storage solutions most desperately is at work.  Almost my entire work surface is covered with paper laid out flat--notebooks and file folders galore (though unlike on my office mate's desk, they are neatly stacked).  I did finally get a bookcase a few months ago, where I was able to transfer my burgeoning book collection (to store vertically), so it's not as bad as it was.  Still, it's pretty bad.  It would be worse if I hadn't inherited one upright paper organizer from whoever had my desk before.  And I did immediately order tall cups to hold pens, etc.  But I need to do something about that paper!  Luckily it's very easy to order office supplies from our supplier's catalog, so I'll pick out some things and ask our admin to order them this week!