Prune to Bloom! Life Editing Services or My Dream Job

I'm going to jump right in here. In January's post I declared that I had found my purpose in life as an editor and then left my audience with a bit of a cliff hanger. You can let go now. I'll catch you :)

While searching for images I was reminded that there are different levels of pruning: superficial deadheading, surgical dead/diseased/crossing branches removal, and hard cutting back including suckers. 

In life deadheading is getting rid of the blooms that are spent after serving their purpose. You remove dead or diseased areas to maintain the overall health of the plant. Removing branches that are crossed and/or touching prevents harm to the plant. Suckers are offshoots from the roots that are non-producers and just take up resources. These freeloaders are also removed. And in the spring you cut back to the main stems to make ample room for new growth while maintaining a pleasing shape to the overall plant.

All of these pruning methods can be applied to life as well as rose bushes. You can think of any area but I find the easiest example (as well as my favorite) in the closet, literally.

Picture a wardrobe, perhaps your own. Imagine a very full closet with lots of items just waiting to be worn. But the space is packed to the brim which makes choosing an outfit a daunting task if what you really want to wear is anywhere beyond the first couple of layers of clean laundry. So you end up wearing the same things over and over simply because you can't reach the other options easily.

Or perhaps the closet isn't so tightly packed but you still feel overwhelmed by too many options so you still end up wearing the same things over and over again because that feels easy and safe.

And finally perhaps you have a curated closet of items that all are beautiful and waiting to be worn but you feel stymied when it comes to actually putting outfits together because you're afraid of "doing it wrong".

Do any of these feel like they are blooming?

No. To me blooming looks more like this: A well-organized space that is functional yet beautiful because everything is in harmony which also makes the process of dressing efficient and effortless. This space is full of confidence and purpose.

To achieve such a dream closet does not require more agonizing visits to a dressing room or more money spent on clothes that will only add to the mess rather than filling a void to answer the question of "what to wear".

So here's my pitch. If you dream of making the best use of your closet so that you can feel and look your best, then you simply need to follow my PRUNE method.

The idea is to take a mess, take it all out, do a hardcore sorting session, then reorganize in such a way that future maintenance should be effortless.

I'll be the first to admit that this process is not easy. You end up swimming through a mess for a while. It can take hours or days depending on your clothing volume and the time you have to commit to it. I can offer my expert services to help speed things along. I have a keen eye and a DYT background to help create an ideal wardrobe from the items already in your possession. Call me your personal Marie Kondo.

If you are familiar with Marie's work you know that any area can be organized. I'll go ahead and toot my horn to say that I can tackle just about anything. My main areas of work that I have already practiced in my own space are Wardrobes, Interior Design, Landscape Design, and Miscellaneous Organization.

Here on the blog I've already shown my hand in closets (Project 333, A Before and After, The Purge, ). My gardening exploits are here as well. To date I haven't done any interior posts but that's only because my ideas for my own home have been stuck in dream mode but I'm good on paper. It helps that I have taken design classes for interiors and landscapes. As for the misc. category, I've organized my friend's linen closet and junk drawers for fun.

So there's my credentials. This is my dream: to do one-on-one sessions with individuals at the end of their rope, ready for change, tired of dysfunction, needing a light in their tunnel. Granted, my scheduling is a bit limited since I am a mom of four small children with a hard-working teacher for a husband so available time is limited, but I can dream, can't I?

For now I can say that I can offer playdates of assistance, meaning I'll probably be bringing my posse with me but I can make the most of a couple of hours worth of time in the morning. If we're lucky I could throw in an occasional weekend naptime session too. It depends on the area being organized. Perhaps this will be a good summer job for me, but that also depends on my husband's conference schedule.

In the end, this is a dream in which I can fully use my talents as an organizer and life editor. If those skills could be of use to you then let me know and we can see how I can help. At least you have access to my method now.

Don't You Wish You Were My Neighbor? Garden Report 2018

Welcome to winter! Do you miss things being green? Hopefully dreaming of my summer will help scratch that itch.

I'm not sure what the science behind this thought is, but I'm pretty sure every human enjoys seeing Before and After images. Good things you're a human (unless you're actually a robot) because here comes a whole bunch with limited commentary. Give your brain a rest and let your eye feast!

We shall begin with my inmost circle of influence of my own garden starting with my new veggie garden.

We had been talking about about some raised beds for me, but hadn't decided on a location. Once we figured out that there was a good spot along the fence, I just started digging! Maybe we'll add some brickwork and more dirt in the future, but I was happy to have my "bit of earth". And I must say it really is very nice dirt once you dig all the weeds out. My planting scheme was loosely based on "square-foot gardening". I had raspberry starts which gave me a couple of berries this year, and then I planted peppers, onions, leeks, radishes, tomatoes, and basil. The basil was on accident; I meant to plant spinach instead but must've grabbed the wrong seed packet. I forgot to take any pics when it was in full production mode, but it looks quite lovely after the fall clean-up where I moved the berry bushes from the one end to along the back edge. I'm hoping the leeks and onions to over-winter ok.

Now for the front beds.

It's fun planning somewhat symmetrical plantings for the sides of my front steps. The goal is to take out more of the irises (let me know if you want some next fall), but this year I was happy to rearrange my other perennials. I forgot to take a true Before pic before the pre-digging pruning session. The geraniums were trying to eat everything. That is why they are in time-out in the big pots now. I'm happy my roses survived another year and I was able to split the mini rose along the left side. I was also excited to receive my first peonies from a family friend. I look forward to splitting those in the future to spread them around in place of the irises. Those irises have been very happy. I inherited them with the house when they were in one huge clump that had clearly never been split up after its initial planting. My have they grown since I spread them out three years ago-ish.

The boys sure enjoyed the part of this process when they had free reign over one side after I had harvested my "walking onions" (not pictured). (I need to improve on the timing of my Before shots.)

Step with me to the other side of the fence, for this year I gained my own Secret Garden.

I never met my neighbor, but he has abandoned his house and the yard that he obviously had no care for. It had been hard watching become more and more overgrown, but with the hedge along the fence growing through to our side, we decided enough was enough. Charles had a friend come with a chainsaw to cut it all down. Then it was my job to chop it into manageable bits to cart away to the dump. We worked together to load the other miscellaneous trash, like the tire and garbage cans that you can see in the pictures above.

I also tamed their front beds, gifting some of my geraniums and irises to create a planting. The pavers are actually metal plates of some sort that I found back by the shed. The mulch came from the rotted bits of the wood that was found within the hedge and the wood pile in the back.

Stacking all of that wood was another job of mine.

I'm so glad Charles bought me a wheelbarrow before I did this part of the project. A full cord of wood and a bunch of free mulch for my payment.

I did not take my own After pictures of the Secret Garden because Charles made a video to brag about his amazing wife's gardening prowess. Highlights are that we moved almost 2 tons of refuse in the course of the summer.

Bonus round: I was invited to help another neighbor with their front beds.

This was extra gratifying because it was a service I had offered to them before during a previous summer. I wanted to liberate their peonies from under the tree on the left side as well as some light pruning. It took any extra year of letting the grass grow on the wrong side of the border for them to invite me to step in, which I happily did. 

This is one way I help create a more beautiful world: one garden at a time. I'm happy to employ my landscaping skills in behalf of those who either don't think they need it or don't have the skills/time themselves to make it happen.

Here's my After-After photos to help us segue back to snow....For Now We Wait For Spring.

The Continuing Journey: Maryann's Closet Round 3

Since Memorial Day, Maryann has been able to enjoy her remodeled closet. After Round 1, I had gotten most of Maryann's clothes sorted by Type. When she moved into her new closet she mixed things up a little but had her blouses sorted mostly separated into two blocks of mostly pink and blue. She called her top section of pinks her "happy clothes". 

With Round 2, I facilitated a joint sorting venture using a simple 1 to 10 rating system. Something from an old Carol Tuttle video has stuck with the me and inspires me still. She said something to the effect of we should wear clothes that make us happy. In the rating system this translates to wearing only 7s and higher, with the aim of filling your closet with mostly 10s. This is an idea that is probably in the new Carol videos, but as part of the Lifestyle subscription content that I don't have yet.

So, in this sorting phase, I did the heavy lifting and let Maryann tell me which pile to put the items into. This worked really well since she was feeling a bit under the weather anyway. Happily, we were able to find a good pile of 10s and a substantial pile of 7s in her Type 1 colors to work into a capsule wardrobe in our next round. Here are her tops. See how happy they look!

There was still a hefty pile of off-type clothes that she wasn't quite ready to part with. But we also eliminated about 50% of what she had hung up in her closet in this round. What an amazing amount of purging!

A lot of what we got rid of were Type 3 clothes. She'd already been chipping away at those in the months since Round 1 on her own which was great. She we also able to identity a lot of items that she hadn't worn in a while due to fit and whatnot. 

We were also able to identify a lot of themes in what she likes to shop for so she can continue to find those things in her bright happy colors. Maryann is a big fan of paisley, lace overlays, stitched embellishments, tie dye, and the colors pink, purple, and oceany shades of blue and green. The styles she gravitates toward include peasant tops, button-ups (for riding horses), and blouses with the high-low feature.

 

It was fortunate that I had all four Style Guides to show Maryann so that she could see what I see when I differentiate between the different color families. She was also able to read the backs of them and get more familiar​ with the styles that will support her Type 1 nature.

We found a lot of great basic pieces along with a lot of fun patterns that will be really fun to mix and match. I hope Maryann will have a lot of fun exploring these options. I was able to show her a couple of combinations that she hadn't thought of before that got her excited about this next phase of utilizing her clothes in new ways. I think she's even interested in buying her own DYT course so she can have her own copy of the color cards to shop with. 

In the couple of weeks since this latest transformation, Maryann has been in a very normal regrouping phase. She lost a lot of her old outfit combinations, so she's had to stretch a bit in putting new looks together. As a Type 1, she feels the loss of that 50% decrease in items, but she also feels lighter. Plus, some of the 7s have become new 10s.

To help her feel better about the purging process, I told her about the 80/20 rule (Pareto Principle). In closet terms, this means we wear 20% of the items 80% of the time. What we did was eliminate a chunk of the unworn 80% so she could have better access to the 20%.

If you are interested in buying your own DYT course and feel that I have helped inspire that, please use my referral link to start that process. 

In the meantime I'd encourage you to "shop" in your own closets and sift out the items that don't make you happy for whatever reason. Why spend any time in clothes that don't make you feel great? Who knows, you may even rediscover pieces that can be worn in new and exciting ways that you hadn't thought of before. That almost feels the same as getting something brand new from a store right there. 

Bonus Feature: Remember those Type 3 clothes Maryann was able to release? I took a bunch of them for another friend. Once I got them home I played with them and made a capsule out of what was there.

This capsule is more like a 10 Item Wardrobe, but it would be a great base for a Project 333 wardrobe. It has 3 skirts, 2 vests, and 4 blouses. Just add some jeans, a couple more tops, and accessories and it is set.

Time to Try Minimalism: A Project 333 Experiment

As a Type 4, minimalism is something that is supposed to come naturally in theory. In practice, the habits and accumulations of life lead to stuff building up.

I've read the purging challenges of the Mary and Martha book. Sarah Mae doesn't go into any depth about purging your wardrobe, but I felt that was a natural place for me to begin anyway.

I've had thoughts of doing a capsule wardrobe percolating in the back of my mind for some time now, and so I have now begun. I've heard of the 10 Item Wardrobe, but my lifestyle doesn't match wanting to do laundry more than twice a week and my little bit of Type 1 balks at having so few options to rotate through. And as I've looked more at this system, it seems a little confusing to me to only have 10 core items and then extras. So I've settled on an extended version of the Project 333 format. Project 333 means going 3 months with only 33 items, including clothing, accessories, and outerwear. This seems easier than deciding what constitutes a core item or an extra. Project 333 kind of lumps things together and counts everything (except pajamas, workout clothes, and lounge wear, which are all the same for me). I've stretched it a tad. I may be closer to 40 items. I justify this by saying it's winter, so I have an extra coat to count and then I had a hard time narrowing down my jewelry choices.

In choosing my items I used the Vivienne Files All Seasons Packing format as a starting point keeping this post about color schemes in mind. I kept to a concise selection of black, white, cobalt, teal, and red. It's a beautiful thing really. I'm only a week into my 3 months, but I'm still having fun making different outfit combinations.

Here is my new closet and the color palette broken down.

 

So simple and so Type 4. I'm sure more refining will happen and there are some gaps I'd like to fill while keeping a "one in, one out" mindset. But already I'm loving how streamlined my outfit making has become. Dressing Your Truth got me to one level of clarity with keeping only one color family on hand, but Project 333 and pared it down even more.

I really like the Project 333 motto of "Be more with less". I'm hoping to carry that through more of my life in the coming months as I follow through on doing the Martha challenges.

Let me know what you think and Enjoy this holiday season!

Something is Different!

Happy Birthday to Me! In honor of my 25th birthday I made a big change.

I've actually been looking forward to this for about two years. That's about how long I've known about Dressing Your Truth. This is not a total coincidence. Part of having my own DYT course is having a personalized Fashion 101 class, basically. The Type 4 course provides guidelines for what will look best on my Type 4 body to match and express my Type 4 personality in a beautiful way.

These guidelines are actually quite thorough. Everything including clothing, makeup, accessories, and hair are seen in terms of design line, texture, fabrication, pattern, and color and many examples are shown. Now, all Types can have long or short hair. I've had long hair for most of my life. I've even cut and donated it a couple of times. But I'd never gone this short. After DYT, I had the confidence and knowledge to know that I really could do a pixie cut.

So two years ago, I decided that I wanted to give it a try when I turned 25.

Unfortunately, the place I went to get my hair done doesn't have WiFi (weird, I know), so I wasn't able to show them the Pintrest picture of the exact cut I wanted, so I'm not fully in love with the details of the cut that I got. Fortunately I am very familiar with the fact that hair grows and I can get it fixed in a couple of months. Here is the picture of what I really wanted:

Gorgeous, right? The cut, not the color. Sorry, but I don't think I'll ever go blonde. I did however also die my hair when I got it cut. I went darker to an ash-based brown a couple of shades darker than my natural brunette and I LOVE it!!

For such a big change, I've only gotten positive feedback. My babies didn't freak out. Charles didn't really care other than he was happy that I was happy. And everyone else has been really supportive as well. All the compliments are right on point with what I was going for.

The whole point behind changing my look was to turn up the dial on my Type 4-ness and the compliments I've gotten just prove that I got it right. Each Type has a list of great descriptive words and you'd think that people were just reading off my list. my favorites have been, "Chic" and "Stunning". Stunning is actually the "Beauty Code Word" for Type 4 as a whole.

Another reaction I got a lot at the beginning was remarks at how brave I was for going through with such a big change. I don't feel like "brave" is the right word. I feel that I've been "bold" (another T4 word). I think that is the power of the empowerment of the Dressing Your Truth program. They give you all the guidelines and then you are left to follow your (more informed) "Beauty Sixth Sense" in creating your own style.

I don't think you should have to be "brave" to live and dress your truth. That makes it sound that most people are in fact scared to do so. Admittedly, I know that without the DYT program most people are left to guess their truth in a world that doesn't give us great tools to navigate a trend-driven fashion industry. That's why I'm so passionate about sharing this "makeover system" that goes far beyond just the surface appearance.

Currently there is a very exciting sale going on. Until Nov. 22 the courses for all 4 courses are being sold as a bundle for only $100. What an investment! Please use my link to get registered and start learning what Type you are before you buy it so I can get some referral benefits. I'm here if you have any questions or if you want a closet makeover. I'm particularly gifted in being able to sort clothes by Type.

I want everyone to feel empowered to look amazing in their own special way.

Bucket List Report Item Five: And My Inspirations for Living a More Uncluttered Life

This one is obviously going to be a life-long process, but I feel like I have been making some really good efforts in cleaning up my external and internal spaces lately. So I consider this item of my bucket list as being closer to mastery then it was six months ago.

I believe the big reason behind my success has been that we have been able to settle into a reliable routine. The funny thing is that we got to this point in a rather organic way. But I recently began reading through and do the challenges in Having a Martha Home the Mary Way by Sarah Mae. The basis of this book is having a more spiritual motivation behind your homemaking efforts. It is a 31 day challenge I guess you could call it. I'm only on Day 6 but I feel like I'm benefiting from the Mary challenges already. (I haven't started doing the Martha challenges yet because I'm already in the middle of a different cleaning assignment I've given myself of washing all our walls.)

Day 3 was actually about establishing a workable routine. I don't feel a need to change much of our current routine (other than my own bedtimes and wake-up times), but I still like what Sarah had to say about not seeing my routine as an hour-by-hour schedule and thinking in terms of "anchors" instead. These anchors are the activities that consistently happen everyday at about the same time. For us (and most people) these include meal times and (for our stage of life with little ones) nap time. (David is finally making the transition to just one nap at about the same time as Jon. I am soooooo excited!)

My point here is that having a routine in place helps tremendously with a level of mental clutter for me. I don't have to worry about what I need to do during any given day. I just focus on what I can do in working around the anchors of our day.

The next level of mental clutter elimination is the omnipresent To Do list. No joke, this is the best secret weapon for getting anything done. Now, not everyday gets a full list for me, but when I need it, I sure use it. Sarah Mae's Day 5 actually talked about this as well, but she takes it the next level. The big piece of advice she gives comes from Ivy Lee's Six List from the 1920s. Instead of writing down everything that you could possibly do in one day, you write down the six most important things you want to get done the next day the night before. Talk about decluttering if the To Do list is getting streamlined as well.

On the days that do have more going on or more that needs to get done, I've already been making ample use of my white board in the kitchen to make To Do lists. It helps me get the big picture of my day out of my head and into a visual form which then makes my head feel less cluttered. Sometimes I have to make these lists for the day the night before just so I can go to sleep without those thoughts running in circles in my head in an effort to not be forgotten in the morning. I really need to just get a small notebook and pen for my bedside table. I just haven't gotten around to that yet.This is probably because I don't need it all that often, but it would be nice knowing it was there anyway.

Now that the inner realms feel less cluttered it's time to address areas of physical clutter that I've been able to get under control. In Lessons from Madame Chic by Jennifer Scott there is a chapter entitled "Clutter Is So Not Chic". It contains this definition of what clutter is:

Clutter is an accumulation of miscellaneous things that do not belong where they currently are.

I think Jennifer goes more into detail in talking about clutter "hot spots" in her other Madame Chic books, but they are basically any spot that ends up accumulating clutter like a little magnet because of location and convenience. I've been able to tame some of my hot spots.

My big examples are the top of my bedroom dresser and my entire craft room. A month or two ago the top of my dresser was just driving me crazy. I had several baskets containing odds and ends and they were getting close to overflowing and I realized that I really didn't need all of that stuff out at all. So I attacked! I kept out only the very basics of my toiletries that I use every day (lotions and scents, mostly) and I couple of other items I like to have easy access to (nail trimmers and a file and a couple other things). I then went the next step and made it pretty, because why not? It is so nice having a tidy surface to greet me whenever I get anything out of my drawers or just when I'm passing through when going about my day.

My craft room was another space that had just gotten ridiculous to the point where I wouldn't want to actually use the room for its intended purpose. I had boxes of stuff covering my craft table and things just weren't where they needed to belong. Plus the feng shui was just off with how the big items were arranged anyway.

So, after a solid day I was able to get the boxes consolidated and in the closet, got the tables switched around (the craft room also has my massage table in it), and things just tidied, and now it is a much more welcoming space. And just today I went another level and went through the boxes in the closet (I was looking for something among the randomness) and did some more consolidation and gained a view of what the next level of organization could be... maybe in another year.

Part of the clutter in the craft room was a stack of art that I hadn't gotten around to hanging. After being in this house for a full year, I finally got some of it hung. So that stack is smaller if not fully eliminated yet. I just don't have a vision of which walls they will go on yet.

Having a workable routine, a high comfort level with To Do lists, and taming my hot spots has brought more peace to me on more than one level. I look forward to continuing the Mary and Martha challenges as well as taking opportunities to live more chic-ly in creating the higher quality of life that I wish to achieve.

Hope you have enjoyed these bucket list reports  (1, 2+3, 4). I've enjoyed making these improvements in my own life.

Bucket List Report Item Four: Scar Removal

We're almost done with the bucket list reports (see reports 1, 2+3 at these links). It is time to reveal the results from my most recent attempts to remove my acne scars.

Previously I had found an oatmeal mask on Pintrest. Here it is again:

 

I've gone ahead and done the course of using the mask for the full four month program. And I took notes as well as pictures, which I'm really glad I did.

At the beginning, my face was a lot more sensitive to the cinnamon in the mask so I did a layer of aloe to help cool down the redness. That lessened as the weeks went by, but I suspect that may have been because the potency of the mix may have lessened as it sat in the fridge for a couple weeks. The consistency of the mask also became more thick. 

So after the first month of doing the mask every week, I went ahead and made a fresh batch of the mask. That brought the potency (read: redness and burning sensation) back. If I ever do this mask again I think I will make smaller batches to keep it fresh for all the applications.  

The third month brought the beginning of our Whole30 diet, which was pretty good timing to get that Before picture. It was less than a week into the diet and I had already noticed that I was having less new spots showing up and healing was already happening. 

With the last application I had the thought of separating the cinnamon and oat aspects of this mask. Some mind of cinnamon paste to get the burning-scar fixing effects and then some kind of oat rinse to then get more anti-inflammatory benefits. I didn't actually do that, but it would be worth further experimentation.

Now to get a little more into the Before and After. (My favorite part!)

So, some things got better, but there are some new spots. In general I'd say my face felt better, but I think I attribute that more to the healing benefits of the Whole30 than to the mask. My face would be even better if I were to stick with that program or at least cut more sugar out of my usual diet because I think that is the main trigger for my acne.  The mask just added a feeling of having more toned skin and tightened pores directly after the applications.

Fortunately I've mastered makeup enough to be able to hide all the spots I end up with. So I can still look amazing when I feel like it. Thanks to Dressing Your Truth, I feel like "putting my face on" more than you would think for a stay-at-home mom who doesn't really go anywhere during the week. That is not the only reason to feel and look pretty. But this is not the place for that particular soap box.

Bucket List Report Items Two and Three: Food and Diet

In my bucket list post I had two food related items. I made it a goal to figure out planning lunches and snacks to get a better handle on my less-supervised eating. And then I wanted to complete a Whole30 diet.

I can't say I've had huge success in the lunch department. Of course we did just come off of our Whole30 and lunches were the hardest part of that too. I'm still great at dinners, comparatively. At this point I'm getting used to the idea of letting lunches be a little more repetitive where dinners can be more varied. Lunch is now a sandwich or leftovers.

As for snacking, the easy answer I learned during our Whole30 was don't. Simply put, I think our Whole30 was as effective as it was this time around because of cutting out snacking entirely. Or if we do get hungry between meals it's better not to turn to the easy, processed, snack foods. It's better to see a "snack" more as a mini meal so that you can make better food choices and be more satisfied with what you eat rather than just turning into a mind-less grazer. That is one lesson that really stuck with me from my nutrition classes in college: avoid mind-less eating where it's more about going through a motion rather than eating with intent to actually focus on enjoying what you put in your mouth. You end of eating less this way, but you are more satisfied.

Now, I failed to take any Before and After pictures of us for this round of Whole30-ness, but we wrote down our starting and ending weights and I also have my body composition numbers thanks to our smart scale.

I am pleased to announce that Charles lost 20 lbs and I lost about 13 lbs. But that's not all! Charles says that the only other change he noticed was that he just felt tired and hungry all the time. I didn't ever really get into a good "Tiger Blood" phase myself (more on that later) but my body composition numbers all settled into the healthy ranges where they hadn't really been before. Towards the end, my muscle mass actually squeaked into the High range. That is probably because of my exercise program. That right there is probably why they stress so hard the rule of not using the scale during the month; because there are other changes at work besides straight weight-loss. (Weight-loss isn't even a main focus of the Whole30 program at all; it's simply a pleasant side effect of the body healing itself.)

Confession: in truth I think we really only should get credit for half of a Whole30. We did a pure Whole18 before we "took a break" when we went out of town for a weekend to spend time with family. When we got back it was rather difficult to get back in the saddle. Part of it was because I was sick when we got home. After eating just about everything on the "no" list, it really isn't surprising to me. I'm just a little jealous that Charles' system is less sensitive than mine so he didn't get sick at all from our lapse. But that is why we didn't get any "Tiger Blood", because we didn't stay faithful to the program for the full amount of time so we did not reap the full benefits.

But we still lost weight, my face did finally clear up, and I'm very happy with my body composition numbers. So it was still worth it.

It seems that every time we do this diet, we get a little better at it. Last time we cheated on the snacking rule but stayed "true" for the whole time. This time we did lots better about not snacking but we cheated on the scale rule. It was fun to see the weight slough off, especially at the beginning. I was surprised how fast the weight came off at the beginning. So we actually exceeded my expectations in that regard. Next time I can hope we shall continue to improve.

Closet Before and After: Maryann

As a DYT veteran, I can't help but try to share this knowledge with everyone I know. Of course I do try to be tactful and wait for "opportune moments".

One such opportune moment came this Memorial weekend. I'll admit I only briefly mentioned this part of our big road trip in my post about it, but for me this was kind of a big deal. Being the catalyst of someone's journey of self-awareness through this program is exciting. And to have this gift so well-received was much appreciated.

Maryann is my father-in-law's wife and we have become friends. During that weekend we bonded over gardening and how cute my boys are. In fact, I can attribute the "opportune moment" to them.

We were discussing how similar yet different Jon and David are. To me, this of course makes sense because of their shared genetics and different Types. So, yes, I approached Dressing Your Truth through The Child Whisperer.

Explaining about how I can approach parenting my babies differently with the intent to honor their true natures segues quite nicely into introducing others to how they can discover their own natures in turn.

Plus I was able to point Maryann to my own experience as recorded here because I was also finishing the post about my closet purge while we were there.

The bonus for me was that Maryann was very open to watching the free Beauty Profiling course while I went through her closet. How nice of her to let me scratch my organization itch.

After viewing the course she decided that she is a dominant Type 1 with a secondary Type 4.

The course is fairly short and I wasn't done in her closet yet, so I pulled up some YouTube videos I had compiled to give some more context for the program.

Now, we know how I love makeovers but Carol had gone the next step of having members of her crew try on all the Types and share how they feel when not dressing their truth. Watching these was where Maryann got her big "Ah ha!" moment in seeing what a difference dressing your truth can make in your attitude, demeanor and confidence.

Unfortunately, there seems to have been a major pruning session in the online realms and those videos are now private. Furthermore, the Carol Tuttle online space recently went through a major consolidation as well and I cannot kind those videos anywhere.

Fortunately my angels listened to my frustrations and there is a new version of Carol in the other three Types. I just hope they will do the same for the other Types because I recall that each Type reacts to the other Types differently.

There are still plenty of makeover videos to watch at liveyourtruth.com. (Real Women, Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, Type 4) For those not already in the program, seeing these women's stories can be a great first step to be able to say, "That sounds just like me!"

Now, back to Maryann's closet.

This was her closet when I first walked in.

A fairly ordinary closet with straightforward organization but not much by way of cohesion or theme. most of us would be familiar with such a closet.

And here's her closet after my first go-through.

I was able to get it all sorted by Type and then the blouses by rainbow order within the Types.

Since then, they have finished a big closet remodel and Maryann has done some eliminating of her own. Here is her new closet or at least the sections of tops.

I can tell that Maryann is doing more to embrace her truth because the colors seem much brighter and happier to reflect her Type 1 nature. (I also suspect there is better natural lighting in the new closet.) She is still at the beginning of her journey but she can recognize what items aren't really her colors and being okay with the fact that she isn't quite ready to let go of all of those off-Type pieces. It took me a while to get rid of everything not Type 4 as well, so that is very normal. Just the awareness of what is truly right for you is a big first step.

With (DYT) I am more aware what is better for me inside and out. And now I see happy colors in my closet associated with my personality. What an education now to being clued in! With this new knowledge I am able to shop for who I am. It is really strengthening. -Maryann 

I wish Maryann all the best in her future journey and extend my assistance to anyone else who would like help in starting their DYT journeys. I can do the closet sorting but the true first step is figuring out what Type you are. My personal referral link is heatherh1.dressingyourtruth.com. It takes you to a login page so you can get signed in the system before viewing the Free Beauty Profiling course. I think my referral benefits kick in once you buy your Type's course.