Thursday, March 12, 2009

That Dreaded Time of the Year


Now for some of you this dreaded time of the year (from now on referred to as DTOTY) hasn't arrived quite yet and probably won't for a few more days (weeks or even months). It's called Spring Clothes Shopping. Yep. Spring has sprung where I live and I have the azaleas to prove it. My yard is this wonderful array of pink, coral, white, rose, and fuchsia poking it's head out from bright green. The horrible stick-figure of a "bush" called a Mountain or Oak Hydrangea is budding with fresh soft leaves and in another week or so it will be in its magnificent glory and make up for the pitifulness of it's winter nakedness. Birds are chirping merrily as they build their nests and my yard is slowly starting to turn from its neglected winter brown to an almost springy green.

All this color makes me want to put on soft lightweight clothes and don a hat while having a meandering romp on the beach, letting the still cold gulf waters tickle my bare toes. Therein lies the problem. I hate my wardrobe. I went through it yesterday and realized that aside from about three shirts and the same number of pants (none of which goes together) there is nothing in my closet that I truly want to wear. I want to be like Darcie Clover. Now before you go google Darcie Clover, you should know that she doesn't exist, well yet. Darcie is a character in one of my books and she wears soft linen pants, light woven shirts and large floppy straw hats. She's comfortable in her own skin and wears what is appealing to her. I wear what I have available. So I decided it was time for that DTOTY. I am going out and I am going to buy clothes. And not just what I find on the sales rack either. I'm going to buy what I want. Soft linen pants, light woven shirts, some shoes other than Crocs. And I'm going to buy the colors I want, not just those that are available at the stores, even if that means I have to go to the fabric store and actually make some of what I want. I have this wonderful image of lavender, orange, periwinkle, fuchsia and pink (yeah, don't ask how orange fits in there, even I don't know, but I do love orange so it gets thrown in there and I'll figure out how to make it all work).

So I'm off to conquer that DTOTY. There may be screaming. There may be cussing. There will most surely be the gnashing of teeth. I'm making sure I have a hanky in my pocket as I am counting on tears. And then I will come home and decide that I love everything I bought, but I need some spunky cute spring sweaters to go with them. Pray for me. Pray for the sales people I will run into today. And I will try to remember that it isn't the sales person's fault that what I want is not available. And since I'm probably not the first person this season who has tried to conquer that DTOTY, I will try to remain calm. But there better be ice cream when I return.

Oh and I promise a review of the new Spring Knitty when I get back.

2 comments:

angela said...

Now that I play mom, I can just shop for the daughter's clothes, and so DTOTY doesn't happen anymore. I remember a shop down in Key West that I thought had the colors you were looking for though: Fresh Produce. They seem to only have stores near the beaches? In any case, hope you had some good times. http://freshproduceclothes.com/?SID=teji7vdll0jna85pim2ak8t790

I'm Michelle! said...

Ya know, don't sell yourself short. I think that was my mistake. I lived through my children dressing them and ended up with a horrid wardrobe of t-shirts and jeans and ill-fitting capris. Enjoy your own wardrobe. Make it part of you rather than you part of it. Don't fall into the same trap I did.

Thanks for the link, and while there were some great colors there, living in Florida, the last thing I want to look like is that I am from Florida. I know it's weird. I stay away from anything with an anchor, boat, or beach scene on it. If it looks too beachy it doesn't get worn. I don't mind being from Florida, I just don't want to fall into the cliche!