Capsule Wardrobe - Jan/Feb 2021 Teaching Online

Throughout this year of teaching (mostly online), I have learned a few tricks that helped me plan this capsule wardrobe.  A long time ago, I discovered that I need exactly 3 outfits for church to have enough variety.  For my current schedule of teaching math 3 days per week and English 1 day per week (making 4 teaching days per week), I need exactly 4 outfits to have enough variety.  I can wear the same outfit to teach English that I wore the day before to teach math.  Also, as quarantine life has continued, I've cared less and less about how I dress my lower half.  Early fall, it was still a bit hot, so I was comfortable in a maxi skirt, which would also be somewhat presentable if I stood up to get something and forgot to turn my camera off.  Then as it got colder, I switched to wearing jeans every day.  I think it was sometime in November when I gave up completely on "real" pants and just left on my pajama bottoms.  So for this capsule wardrobe, I planned a full outfit for church but only an upper half for teaching.

I started with a simple color palette: cream, teal, olive, brown, and leopard print.

First I looked at the sweaters and scarves I have in those colors.  Teaching online changes all the rules, so it was more important to have a higher neckline than to be flattering around the tummy area.  I even pulled a long-sleeve brown t-shirt out of my "too small" bag in the closet, simply because it is crew neck and also comfortable.

I made a list of possible combinations, then looked at them in the Stylebook app.  I narrowed it down to 4 favorites, in an order without too much repetition side by side.  Then I placed them on my calendar, in order, for all the days I will be teaching in Jan-Feb 2021.

After that, I chose 3 outfits to wear for church from the same color palette.  The outfits didn't transfer well to just add pants/skirt to what I chose to teach in, because when people can see your whole body, it matters whether or not it flatters your tummy.  Also, the neckline isn't so important.  I chose a teal dress, brown dress, and olive shirt with dark jeans.  Then I added a scarf to the dress outfits.  I still didn't choose shoes, because it depends on the weather if it is better to wear snow boots or regular boots.  

In general, I like doing 2-month capsule wardrobes, because the weather is similar enough, and I find it easier to choose a smaller number of colors for a shorter amount of time.  (The only exception would be that I always have a red/green Christmas capsule every December.)

Cooking Thanksgiving Dinner - Day 2

 Spreading out cooking over 2 days really is the best.  No waking up before dawn to rush to get everything done by dinner.  The whole family slept in until 8AM, and we had a leisurely breakfast.  I didn't start cooking until after 11AM.  The first thing my daughter and I made was "Bread in a Bag".  We made it for the first time in May as part of her homeschool preschool curriculum.  

It's pretty fun, because she gets to squish it around in the bag to mix, and then also gets her hands all messy kneading the dough.  It tastes really good!  (I guess I forgot to take a finished picture, but it is in the picture with all the other food on the table later.)

While the bread was in the oven, we used food coloring to make orange icing for the cupcakes.  Buying an icing dispenser was such a great investment.  

Next was the homemade macaroni and cheese.  We've been saving a block of Velveeta cheese my mom sent in a package.  It's funny how things that seem so simple to make in the US can become so complicated living overseas.  

I made a super simple apple cider in the crockpot with apple juice and cinnamon sticks.  I even had a few hours to spare to wrap my son's birthday presents and facetime with both sets of grandparents, without any worry about cooking.  I threw some green beans in a pot with bacon pieces and salt and some corn with butter and salt, about 30 minutes before our guests were supposed to arrive.  I heated up the stuffing in the oven and the mashed potatoes in the microwave.  A few stirs and putting some things into prettier bowls, and everything was ready!

The finished Thanksgiving buffet, complete with a rotisserie chicken and cranberry jam!  :)

Cooking Thanksgiving Dinner - Day 1

I thought it would be fun to keep a journal from cooking Thanksgiving dinner.  A few days ago, I made a menu, grocery list, and plan for when to cook which dish.  It's a bit of a juggling act with a small oven and only one burner that works at full temperature.  I've learned over the years that it takes 2 full days of cooking - and that it's much easier to use a rotisserie chicken instead of turkey, especially when living in a foreign country.

Wednesday morning - Sausage Stuffing

I got this recipe from a friend several years ago, and even though it is a LOT of work, it is completely worth it.  If I lived in America, I would probably still use a box of Stovetop stuffing, but this homemade recipe with ground pork is incredible.  

In Romania, it is possible to find celery, but much more common to use the celery root (shown above), called telina.  A couple of Romanian friends helped me learn how to use it - you need a very sharp knife, and it helps to add a carrot or two for flavor.  It takes a long time to chop the vegetables so small.

This year, my 4-year-old daughter helped me cut the bread into cubes.  She did a great job at first, but got tired as she was cutting all 16 pieces of bread.  Her pieces got bigger and bigger, but she finished it all!  I am so proud of her.  Unfortunately, when I asked her to hold the bowl to let Mommy take a picture, she spilled some on the floor.

My husband was, as usual, my hero and cleaned up all the bread.  He also cut more and made sure it was all in small cubes.

The main ingredients

Wednesday afternoon - Cupcakes and Mashed Potatoes

We had another mishap while getting out the ingredients for cupcakes.  Luckily, the cupcake paper baking cups were still inside a Ziploc bag, when my daughter busted an egg on them.  My mom sent the cake mix and a can of icing for my son's birthday, which this year is on Thanksgiving day.  

Licking the beater :)

It's much easier to get the cake batter into the mini size cups with the icing dispenser.  

Both kiddos got to lick the bowl :)

I will put the icing on the cupcakes tomorrow.

I only make mashed potatoes for special occasions, because it is so much work, especially with small potatoes.  But it is always worth it.

Licking the beaters one more time :)

Overall, I feel like I planned well so far.  I even sat down to watch a Christmas movie while the stuffing was in the oven, and I was still finished cooking for the day by 7PM.  Tomorrow we will make homemade bread, homemade macaroni and cheese, green beans, corn, and apple cider.  I'm looking forward to celebrating Thanksgiving and my son's birthday.

Hot Weather Teaching Capsule Wardrobe Aug-Sept 2020

I jokingly told my husband the other day that you can tell when I'm excited about something when I start planning what I'm going to wear.  I'm excited about the opportunity to teach a couple high school math classes at a local Christian school this year.  Who knows if it will end up being in person or online, but I had fun planning my wardrobe nonetheless.  Tomorrow I will get the textbooks, so I can start planning the actual teaching part.

Hot weather makes it more difficult to keep things interesting, because you can't use layers as much.  The first thing I did was take out all the clothes I had put away when I was pregnant with my second.  I had left a lot of my clothes put away even after he was born, because I am still breastfeeding, so I've needed only the clothes that are nursing friendly.  Since I'll be teaching and I don't really nurse him much during the day anymore, I pulled out a lot of old dresses that I'm excited to wear again.  Some of the clothes are a *little* tight, since I've struggled with losing the baby weight, but I was surprised at how much I can wear again.

First, I started with my color palette: cream, brown, olive, teal, coral, floral, and leopard.  I bought some leopard print pointed toe flats this summer, and I'm excited to get to use them.  I made a list of all the clothes I have that are those colors and are dressy enough to teach in them.  I chose 3 silhouettes: dress, blouse/skirt, and blouse/pants.  Then I made a list of my dresses, blouses, and skirts/pants.

 1. white dress, 2. floral dress, 3. olive wrap dress, 4. olive t-shirt dress, 5. teal wrap dress

 1. cream blouse, 2. floral blouse, 3. coral blouse, 4. teal blouse

1. coral skirt, 2. olive jersey skirt, 3. olive dressy skirt, 4. brown jersey maxi skirt
5. brown corduroy midi skirt, 6. brown midi skirt, 7. brown cropped wide leg pants, 8. brown dress pants

Next I make a list of basic looks.  Each dress is obviously a look all on its own.  Then I listed each blouse with the bottoms that would look good with it, for a total of 19 distinct looks.  After that, I looked at the possible color combinations and what outfits I could make for each one from the clothes that I have.  I put an asterisk beside the ones I liked the best, then I started putting together the looks using the Stylebook app.

Here are the looks I came up with:

After that I started putting them on the calendar.  I will be teaching 3 days per week.  I'm not sure which days yet, so I just put the outfits on Mon/Wed/Fri for now.  I was careful not to wear the same pieces or color combinations in a row.

Here is my plan:

I'm pretty happy with my plan overall.  Some of the clothes I will need to see how practical they are, since I haven't worn them in a while.  I may also end up needing to add a sweater/scarf toward the end of September.

The best part of pre-planning my wardrobe is that it frees my mind up to focus on what's really important - teaching my students.  Also, it helps in the morning, which is always a crazy time with two little kids.

Tomorrow I will start lesson planning!  I can't believe I'm teaching again after such a long break.  I'm looking forward to it.

What I've been wearing for church and teaching this fall

A while back, I discovered that if I only see people once a week (like at church), I only need 3 outfits that I can wear on repeat.  It's just enough variety that no one notices that you are wearing the same thing, and easy enough that you don't have to think about what to wear.  Also, since I started teaching on Monday mornings, it is super easy to wear the same outfit I wore to church the day before.  I don't see any of the same people, and the dress code is similar enough to make it work.  I didn't follow these principles exactly, but pretty close.  You will also see that I didn't plan outfits for anything else.  Pretty much the rest of the time I live in comfy clothes around the house, or t-shirt and jeans if I'm going somewhere.

My basic plan was to rotate my green dress, brown ankle-length skirt, and brown dress pants, adding in different shirts, sweaters, and scarves.  I didn't really plan much in advance, and I made more than 3 outfits using different shirts and accessories.

Here are the shirts, sweaters, and scarves I added in:

I only wore these accessories and shoes:

I wore the pearl earrings and watch with every outfit.  The earrings are both dressy and conservative, plus the baby doesn't pull on them (too much).  I added in the necklace instead of a scarf with the floral shirt, to fill in the negative space without taking away from the shirt.  I wore the flats with the skirt and dress, and I wore the boots with jeans and dress pants.  I *love* these pointy toe nude flats I bought recently.  The boots are older, and they only look good with pants, but they are comfortable and dressy enough.

This is what I wore:

Week 1:

I really like this one.  I'm considering adding more leopard print accessories to my wardrobe.

Week 2:

This was my favorite out of all the outfits.  I don't remember where I found this shirt, but it is the perfect floral print for me.  I can wear it in the fall with my orange sweater, but it looks just as good in the spring with my coral sweater.  And the cap sleeves are perfect for wearing it by itself.

Week 3:

 The third week, I just felt like wearing something a bit more casual to church than I can wear to teach, so I wore something different.  I broke my color palette rules with this red shirt, but it is still within the whole autumn color palette.  I liked the cut of the shirt so much, that I bought it anyway at an outlet mall a few years ago.  It looks good tucked in or left out.  But, I can't wear it to teach in without a sweater/blazer, because it is sleeveless.  Unfortunately, the brown skirt didn't work very well with the red shirt, because it is so slippery that the skirt kept falling down.

Week 4:

I repeated the green dress with a different sweater/scarf combo.  It's interesting how different it looks, even just with a different scarf length.

Week 5:

For church, I repeated my outfit from the previous Monday, except changing to jeans to be a bit more casual and prevent the skirt falling down problem.  Then I had to come up with something else for Monday.  I used to think dressing in all neutrals was too boring, but I'm liking it more now that I've found my neutrals.  This cream top is a great basic I found at an outlet mall a few years ago.  It looks great on its own, and the sleeves slip easily into blazer, too.

Week 6: I repeated the outfit from week 2.

Week 7: I repeated the outfit from week 1.

Week 8:

This is next weekend, so no outfit picture yet.  I'm hoping to almost repeat the red shirt outfit from weeks 3 and 5, but switching to the brown dress pants.  I may still wear the jeans to church, though.

So overall, it wasn't a perfect 3 outfits on repeat, but a pretty decent church/teaching 2-month capsule wardrobe.  Obviously, it would look a lot different if I taught more than once a week, but this was perfect for my life right now.