I Win the Award For Worst Project Keeper

At any given time, I might have five or six lists going. One for work, one for home, one for knitting, one in the car, one on the laptop, one on the bathroom mirror, one on the phone . . . and there are very rarely any duplicates. If I have something that I really must remember for the morning, I'll write it on the bathroom mirror in dry-erase marker. I usually have things that I need to buy written in the phone: printer cartridge, cat food, box of red pens, tampons, new book. So you would think that tackling a few projects at the beginning of the year would be easy-peasy.

Wrong . . . dead wrong. I signed up for Ali Edward's One Little Word class on Big Picture. I've loved her work from the years when I scrap booked. So it seemed like the perfect fit. Sadly, I haven't completed a single month. Not from lack of want, mind you, but I haven't taken the time to figure out Photoshop yet, so I'm putting it off until this summer. I also signed up for Tracey Clark's Picture Inspiration, and I was keeping up with it pretty regularly but having a student teacher and trips to Philadelphia and a billion other things got in the way. And I'm putting that off until this summer, too.

Two projects that I've kept up with are Project 365 and Project 333. You can click on over to the Flickr stream for the Project 365 updates. But Project 333 takes on its own life. Originally, the rules ask you to take a daily photo of your outfit . . . but that didn't sit well with me. Seriously, sometimes it's hard enough to get a good BAM, but every damn day in grey or black pants? Ummm, no. So I posted my original list and stuck to it for three months. But come April, when I was supposed to post a new list, I didn't partially because I was pressed for time but also because the weather here was shit.

But a project is a project . . . and here's my list for the next phase of Project 333:

1. black 3/4 sleeve shirt from LL Bean
2. black 3/4 sleeve shirt from Tee Street
3. green 3/4 sleeve shirt from LL Bean
4. white 3/4 sleeve shirt from Tee Street
5. green linen sweater from Gap
6. teal short sleeve sweater from Old Navy
7. teal short sleeve t-shirt from Old Navy
8. green short sleeve shirt from Apartment 9 (Kohl's)
9. ivory sheer sweater from Old Navy
10. green sheer sweater from Old Navy
11. green short sleeve cardi from Lane Bryant
12. black cropped 3/4 sleeve cardi from Torid
13. green 3/4 sleeve butterfly top fro Old Navy
14. grey swing cardi from Old Navy
15. black swing cardi from Macy's
16. black capris from Daisy Fuentes (Kohl's)
17. black capris from Apartment 9 (Kohl's)
18. black capris from Dockers
19. khaki capris from Old Navy
20. boyfriend jeans (can be cuffed and are quickly becoming my favorite)
21. capri jeans
22. Mossimo jeans
23. denim skirt from Lane Bryant*
24. teal dot skirt from Target*
25. white Old Navy tank
26. pink Old Navy tank
27. white Lane Bryant cami
28. TOMS in natural
29. black Clarks pumps
30. black Clarks sandals
31. brown Bjorn sandals
32. black t-shirt dress from Target
33. Chamila bracelet

For my three mix-in-and-mix-out pieces, I've chosen a Temple t-shirt, Old Navy's Love Proudly t-shirt (coming out tomorrow), and grey pants. You can probably tell by looking at the list that green is the color of the season. And until today, the two items with the asterisk weren't even out of the attic. I had a lovely teal 3/4 length shirt from LL Bean, but sadly I spilled gunk on it . . . so now it's a beautiful teal rag.

I spent most of today updating my laptop's operating system (pain-in-my-ass) and cleaning out the attic. At this point in time, I've kept one tall tower of shelves - that I've had since 1988 when I started college - to store my seasonal clothes, and I have one clear storage container of clothes that didn't work for phase one or two but might for phase three or four.

So, there you have it . . . two projects I've kept up with. Two projects I plan on catching up in the summer. And one project that I've abandoned all together. A while back I said I wasn't going to eat out for three months. Lasted about one week if you really must know.

- Jill

PS - And yes, I know I've left bags off my list. I'm down to just three: an everyday purse by Kelly Moore, a work bag by Emera*, and a knitting bag by Namaste. Seriously . . . getting down to just three was a feat that anybody who knows me would be shocked by.