Happiness Challenge Day 22

I am not a fashion forward person. I don’t have a ton of shoes. In fact, I have three pairs of shoes: black flats, white sneakers, and red flats. The boots I’ve been wearing ate actually my fifteen year old’s. I don’t carry a purse. I have a bag my mom gave me. It’s from Disney world. It literally says it’s from Disney world on it. My hair is never done. Styled for my hair means I fell asleep with it wet and looks like I did it on purpose. I don’t get my nails done. Mainly because I don’t have money or nails to get my nails done. In short, I’m a fashion train wreck.

I grew up in the eighties and nineties. Fashion was so much easier then. Jeans, overalls, New Kids on the Block shirts. I rocked a side pony tail. But fashion doesn’t matter when you’re ten. People only real care about what you’re wearing when you hit middle school and high school. Then, all of a sudden, every day, the walk to school becomes a cat walk. You would think going to Catholic school would stop that but, news flash, you’re not in school all the time. Eventually, weekends happen and every one gets to see that you dress like your blind grandmother picked out your clothes and out them on you.

As your standard operating mom trying to strike it famous in the blog, YouTube, writing scene I can tell you my wardrobe sucks monkey toes. As I’ve said before, I dont have a lot going on clothing wise. Corgi leggings made me deliriously happy. I will totally be happy when Garanimals makes adult clothes. I’ve never been a stylish, fashion savvy chick to start with. In high school, I wore mom jeans. Yeah, totally high waisted, light wash. Oh my God, no wonder I couldn’t get a date. Mom jeans. I think that was really the secret plot of my parents because we all know my personality wasn’t enough to scare them off.

Brace yourself for this true story. If you’ve already read the cleaning out my closet chapter then you can skip this part. If you’re around my age, you’ll remember the boxer short trend. Everyone was wearing boxer shorts. Being the outsider trying to fit in I found the cutest pair of Mickey mouse boxers and a shirt to go with it. Now, I’m not sure if I was just invisible, so no one noticed or if everyone did notice and no one said anything to me, either being nice or talking behind my back, whatever. See, what I didn’t know was they were wearing boxers under their pants and showing off the waistbands. Not being weird and awkward and showing up to school wearing a pajama set. I was such a winner in high school. Ben Vinci, you missed out, pal.

There wasn’t a lack of effort from my friends to make me look cool. But you can only do so much. They would let me borrow clothes. There were styling sessions in the girls’ bathroom before school started. They tried to show me how to wear makeup. One girl tried braiding my hair. My hair ate her hands.

I went to a high school for musically inclined kids. I was fortunate to be included on a competition trip to the Bahamas. God bless those girls for trying to make me look “sexy.” They put me in a bathing suit and skirt. They did my makeup. Approximately five hundred Bobby pins were used to try and take my frizz. I was given walking lessons and how to shake my ass as I walked. I found Bobby pins in my hair for weeks. I set off the metal detectors in the airport coming home. Definitely, not feeling sexy then.

As time progressed, I really didn’t get any better dressing myself. I’m keenly aware there are three year olds with better fashion sense than me. In college, I owned a ridiculous amount of flannel shirts, mud covered boots, and a replica Indiana Jones hat. Ooh baby. Look out frat boys. Here comes your weird little sister who keeps breaking into your room and stealing your clothes. Still dateless at this point.

Again, my friends felt the need for an intervention. They would suggest I borrow their skirts and dresses and shoes. We would have Friday and Saturday nights in where I was the subject of many makeover sessions. Again, so many people tried to dress me up but you can only do much with so little.

Now here’s where life takes an interesting turn. Guess who winds up being a model/actress? Yeah, totally. Extras work mainly, but hey, I get to say I was a model and actress. And yet still completely clueless on how to do my hair, makeup, and dress myself. You would have thought I would have learned something about fashion and how to be feminine. Nope. It took drag queens to teach me that. My brother was doing drag shows at the time. Let me tell you, it is a better learning experience than any classroom when you have drag queens teaching you how to do makeup and hair. Do you see why I still have problems?

In my working adult life I’ve tried to dress to my environment. Child care – jeans and t shirts. Massage therapist – scrubs. Credit card customer service – skirts and blouses. Being a mom seems to have its own style as well. I’m sporting a gray sweater and Christmas corgi leggings. No shoes. No socks. Teeth brushed. Hair, well it is what it is. I even put deodorant on. Currently, I have nothing spilled on me, but the day is young.
I know there’s some conjecture on the topic of leggings as pants. I will say I love my leggings and you can have them when you pry them from my cold, dead butt. I do momify them in that I wear a long tunic type shirt to cover my butt. By all means if you want to look, go ahead, but I don’t carry eye bleach so ogle at your own risk.

With my call center job now, we have a fairly relaxed dress code. No crack up front or in back. No shorts after October 31st. It’s allowed me to explore a little more of my dressing up side. And by dressing up I mean dressing like a Disney character.

So, if you’ve been following me, you’d know I’m a Disney Bounder. If you don’t know, that means I dress up like a Disney character every day for work. Now, I’m not wearing ball gowns or mouse ears everyday. It’s more of a color blocking thing. Paired with the right accessories you have the feel of a specific character. Red pants, black shirt, yellow shoes gets you Mickey Mouse. Light blue can be Elsa or Cinderella depending on your choice of jewelry.

I’ve been wanting to dabble into Dapper Bounding. Dapper Bounding is still dressing like a character but in a vintage sort of way. The whole pin up style has always been a thing I love but have never had the courage (or money) to try. I have some dresses and shoes ready, but my hair. That’s the problem. My hair is a struggle for me. It’s frizzy and kinky and weird. And have you seen those forties styles? They are smooth, flawless, and perfect. A few YouTube videos and some Bobby pins later (I found some left over from my Bahamas trip) and I had my first set of victory rolls. You could say they were a victory for me.

So, that’s a start for me in my quest not to look so much like a train wreck.

If you haven’t been sucked into the singularity that is Pinterest, then stay away. Save yourself. If you’re like me then you already know there are so many fashion pins and ideas.

I’m a huge fan of the wardrobe capsule idea. It basically says that you can have ten pieces of clothing and make fifty different outfits. That means less laundry to wash, dry, fold and put away. I’m in. Although I do love my new folding board. Sheldon is a genius and I am so grateful for this thing. Check out different boards and see what works for you.

So, it may not happen right away, but I am working on improving my wardrobe. Especially since I’m going for a supervisor position at work. I’ll still Disney bound every day but I will up the my game. I’m pretty excited for that. Part of me really likes dressing up. It makes me special and important. Maybe I will try to dress up once a week. Maybe with each paycheck I will buy a full outfit including shoes.

And because today is Thanksgiving, I will get dressed up.