Almost ready to start something new

Later tonight I will be posting pictures of my last official summer project.

My husband has brought me various fall patterns home with him from Tennessee. I have been stalking the JoAnn's flyers, those I can read online, and texting him pattern company names and numbers and the dates the sales are on for. He has been very nice and gone and picked up all these patterns for me on his days off.

Most of these are dress patterns.

Have you ever got to the end of a season and found yourself so sick of all of your clothes to the point that you really wanted to throw the bunch of them into the garbage rather than packing them away until next year?

I felt like that the end of last winter.

By the time I had taught my last class I was ready to burn every worn-to-death black skirt, grey and black pants and all those tops and blouses that I had pulled off those hangers a million times in the early morning dark while I got ready for work. My clothes felt to me like those last five papers that you find at the bottom of the pile after you had thought they were all marked - you can hardly face them.

I just can't stand looking at this same stuff again, not one more winter. Mind you the stuff I have kept is still "good", as my mother would say, and there is no good reason why I can't wear it again. After all it is new students I will be teaching, and my wardrobe will be new-to-them.

But I can't do it.

I feel different than I did last year and the year before. I'm feeling more stylish, a little more independent, a little like I am not in the mood for standards. I am not feeling all that standard any more. Maybe as my kids are definitely older and I have more time to myself, maybe as I see myself working more and more only at and when I want, I am starting to feel that my life is taking shape again as my life, my own life and you just can't wear old clothes to that.

I'm going to start cutting out and cutting into that life tomorrow.