Mistakes of my fashion world

Much to the dismay of my husband, I am huuuge shopper. I love it all. I covet all nice designer things and I love Forever21. I love shoes and bags the most because they always fit, no matter how many double stuff oreos I eat, but I love dresses too. My obsessions include eyelet, lace, white dresses, cowboy boots, flat boots, pointy toed flats, round toed heels....oh i could keep going but I should stop because I am about to get distracted and see what's new on J. Crew.

A really bad combination with this love of clothes is my little issue of being a pack rat. I love love love to save things. I have actually thought, surely I'll wear these zumba Green Bay Packer pants again. Who's to say they aren't coming back in style? I think this began when I was growing up. When you move around a lot you begin to kind of obsess about certain possessions because they're the only normal in your new setting. The new house and friends in California aren't so scary if you've still got your barbie convertible. I was born in New Orleans and then moved to Massachusetts, Texas, California, back to Texas, Wisconsin, Seattle, back to Wisconsin, Nebraska, back to Texas, and now I am about to go to Florida. I think it's time to give up the dress that I wore to my rehearsal dinner that does not go over my butt anymore. But I just find it so hard! What if my daughter wants to wear it one day? Oh dear. What if I don't have a daughter....moving on!

So as I begin to pack up for the big move to Miami, I'm really trying to purge, as it is smart to do before you look some huge moving man named Dave in the eye and tell him yes, you really need 68 pairs of flats, 10 of which are black and look the same. As I am purging I am really noticing some of my "disaster" buys.

Post-pregnancy clothes...this one actually makes me kind of sad. Anyone reading this who has had a baby and gone through the hormonal tornado afterwards knows that anything you can do to make yourself feel better is probably worth the money. I wore an insane "belly bandit" that the Kardashians market (should have been my first sign this was insane) for weeks after birth that would make me sweat like it was nobody's business. As if you don't have enough issues going on with your body, I would fight with this binding strap around my stomach in an attempt to get it to go down to something that resembled my previous frame. About 5 weeks after Brooks was born we had the opportunity to go to the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas with the football team. This is by far the best bowl with gifts, stuff to do, fun atmosphere. It was a dream come true. For normal people. For a woman who has just had a baby and is leaking breast milk and cries at everything, this is kind of a nightmare. I knew I wouldn't be able to bring my enormous breastfeeding pillow that took up half of my kind bed or wear my Kardashian belly bandit. These are like security blankets for mommies so I nervously anticipated our trip.

So I wanted to look nice at these events obviously, but 5 weeks post Brooks I still weighed about 20 lbs off of my previous weight. Of course before Brooks was born I really thought I'd be back in my skinny jeans by now. So I drag my enormous breastfeeding porn boobs over to our insanely horrible out of date College Station mall and plan on trying to spend about $100 on possibly 3 or 4 pieces that could get me through 3 months until I could fit in my regular clothes. Little did I know at that point that I wouldn't be in my regular clothes until May, 6 or 7 months post labor. If you  had told me that I probably would have just given up so probably best I was still naive at that point.

What's hard about this process of post-baby body buying is you are still drawn towards what worked on your pre-baby fabulousness. Before Brooks I have always had a big old booty but a mostly flat stomach and smaller chest. So dresses that showed off my upper frame, the thinner part of me, were always a pretty sure bet that I would look classy and cute. So I walk around Macy's and grab what has always worked for me, and head into the dressing room. About 3 minutes later loud sobbing ensues as I realize that my enormous boobs are now taking over my life, and what used to work on me now makes me look like a not as cute version of Dolly Parton. What's hard to know is whether to keep all these clothes that don't work now but I'll probably need again for the 6 months after the last baby. Will they still be in style? I don't want to have another Macy's sobbing fest again. The poor woman who was working the floor that day came in and tried to comfort me only to finally tell me that before I did anything else, I really needed new bras, and her friend Marge would help me in the bra fitting area.

About 2 minutes later I'm half naked in a bra dressing room in Macy's and Marge is informing me I'm leaking. Oh gee thanks Marge I have felt like my boobs were about to explode for an hour, I would have gone faster but I've been sobbing on the floor in the dress area. Just what a hormonal mom needs, a naked bra fitting. What I really needed at that point was a sonic burger but instead I'm stuck in 1952 with Marge who has a measuring tape around my chest. She asked me what size I had been before and she is floored when she realizes I've gone up like 9 cup sizes. I agree at the insanity of it and inform her I could feed about 6 countries with my milk.

I guess I've sort of gotten off track here, so on to my other mistakes.

Leather pants....I am a fashion victim to the newest trends. I love InStyle and I love to follow what's hot in each season. I think it's fun to change up your wardrobe but with that being said, there are some things that aren't meant for certain people, and certain towns. This past fall, leather pants/leggings were huge. I spent one entire night searching the Internet for leather leggings that would work in the small town I live in in Texas and not be too offensive. I finally settled on a BCBG pair I found on clearance in Norman, Oklahoma. I was in a rush as we were visiting my in laws and didn't have a chance to try them on but had been looking for them so long that I just got them and left. Well about a week later I decide it's a leather leggings night, and I come to find out what it's like to put on these kind of pants. I thought there wasn't anything more painful than laying down and putting on my too-tight jeans I refuse to give up on, boy was I wrong. Putting on leather leggings is like getting in a wrestling match with a fish. Everything is slippery and weird and you don't even know how you got there. By the time I got them on my body I was so sweaty I needed another shower before going out to dinner. Not to mention that this was definitely one of those trends that just makes my husband shake his head.

Pink tie die jeans...oh man. I went to a Cabbie show of a friend and had just really gotten back to my pre-baby weight. Don't get me wrong, my body was still a hot mess to the naked eye but with clothes on, I looked like a form of my previous self. Well she had these hot pink tye dye jeans in a sample size 4 and I was determined that they would go on my body that day, and if they did, they would be mine. To buy something for this reason only is insane yet I do it all the time. Now my pink tye dye jeans haunt me when I go in my closet, as they and I both know they were a "because they went on my body" purchase.

The most sick part of this has to be the fact that every single day of my life, my main uniform is my workout clothes. Despite my love of high fashion, I am in my workout clothes about 90% of the time. I even have my more "fancy" workout clothes for the days Brooks and I do errands around town after our gym trip. All in all, writing this has been good for me as I know I am looking down the barrel of the next 40 years of moving just as much as I have in my first 28 years. I know that I don't need any silly purchases like pink jeans or leather pants. But I can promise you there will be some mistakes when hormones are involved.