Falling Forward

Fall is, hands-down, my favorite season.  Don't get me wrong, summer is a close second (I am from California after all), but I've realized that summer-time on the east coast, where you're far from the beach and have to deal with things like walking to work in the humidity, is not always so awesome.  But, Fall . . . is perfect.  You can wear things like sweaters and puffer vests, but it's not so cold that you have to bundle up all the time.  You get crisp mornings without the slush that people out here call snow.  And, you instantly feel more scholastic.  Just the change in weather makes me more excited about my accounting homework (#saidnooneever)

I love it all--the cozy cable knit sweaters, riding boots, the move to more subdued colors, the crisp mornings, the fact that you can curl up in front of the yule log video with a cup of soup . . . like I said, My. Favorite. Season.

The one dangerous thing about a change in seasons, especially to a season that I love, is that I become more susceptible to seasonal amnesia disorder (SAD).  Have you suffered from this? It's that feeling that the weather's changing and all of a sudden YOU HAVE NO CLOTHES.  Which means that you NEED ALL THE THINGS!!!  It usually takes me a week of drooling over all the emails I get from retailers to remember that, wait, I have a closet full of fall clothes that I bought last year.

This year, I'm determined to combat SAD, by being a more savvy, analytical shopper.  So, I decided to take a look at what's in my closet right now--filtering out items that are only for spring or summer. (oh yeah, going old school with the excel spreadsheet)

Not going to lie, it really doesn't feel like I have 83 items in my closet to wear.  I'm going to remind my "monday-morning" self of that number the next time I feel like I have nothing to wear. Also, I did a double take when I saw the number of t-shirts and had to go back and recount them to make sure that was correct and that I wasn't including things like my "Willie's Weenie Wagon" shirt.  Sadly, the number was right, but I am realizing I probably don't wear t-shirts often enough to justify owning that many.  Interestingly, in total, I have 29 bottoms and only 22 blouses and sweaters, which supports my feeling that I don't have nearly enough tops . . . I know what you're thinking, 22 seems like a lot, but not all of those are school/professional appropriate.  Also, it's still not cool enough to wear sweaters everyday, which means I really only have 12 blouses.  (I'm not counting the t-shirts for now, since I have found that I really wear my blouses and sweaters during the week)

* * * 

What does all this mean? 

1. I have more clothes than I realized (though I am also going to go back and make sure I didn't include any of the items I "purged" when I left D.C.)  
2. Some categories skew heavily in the "work" category--particularly dresses (over 50%), pants, and skirts.  This means I have less that's appropriate for school.
3. I need to check out this whole "t-shirt" situation.  I might be like my jeans collection.
4. Finally, is there a magic number for how many clothes someone should own?  Is 83 too many? I think I might have to go back and dig into those numbers a little bit and see how many of those items I wear because there seems to be a pretty big disconnect between perception and reality in my mind.