Author: Lisa -Southern Patches

Hello everyone, my name is Lisa I am a southern girl born and raised in East Tennessee. I love discovering new places and things to do. I have a lot of favorites, shopping, traveling, knitting and photography are all at the top of my list. I am married with my fur babies my only children. This blog is actually named after my beloved basset hound Patches. She passed away a few years ago but will always have a huge part of my heart. Come with me and we will explore some wonderful places and discover some really fun things. Are you ready?

Five Tips for Shopping Your Closet

Happy Thursday friends. Do you ever find yourself picking the same clothes to wear day after day after day? This means that lots of nice clothes are left in your closet or pushed behind things you never wear. Often I am in a hurry and I just go into my closet and pick whatever is hanging right in front of me. It’s easy. You may be one of those people who actually plan their clothes for the entire week. I have heard of you but I always thought you were an urban myth. I will let you in on a little secret and you may or may not be this way. But when I am not as happy with my body as I would like to be I tend to choose whatever I have handy. I don’t bother to go into my closet and try to put things together. This is really not a good way to be if you are wanting to create confidence in how you look. And you know that pulling something out that you haven’t worn in awhile can be so refreshing and make you feel so…… pretty. Come on you know it does and it always gives me a little pick me up.

I have actually found clothes in my closet with the tags still on them because I purchased them and stuck them in my closet only to be lost among some of the other clothes I have. A case in point, I needed a new pair of black pants. If you know me you are probably thinking there is no way she could need another pair of black pants. Black pants are mostly what I wear in the winter ha ha. But they are so versatile and you can pair them with anything!!! So before I shopped for the aforementioned black pants I dove into my closet and started pulling things out. I decided this would be a great time to cull out some of the things I never wear. Turns out I gathered up two bags of skirts and pants to take to be donated. In the process I also found not one not two but three pairs of black pants I had forgotten I had. Yes one still had the tags on them. I know I know, I have a problem and it’s not necessarily shopping but organizing and using what I do have. I try to do this at least once or twice a year but that may not have happened last year.

So I decided a while back that I was going to clean out my closet and my way of thinking and planning things to wear. This way when I need something to wear I will be able to go to my closet first and shop it before heading to the stores or online shopping. It takes some time to do this so don’t think it will happen overnight. I am committed to do this at least once a year. Even if your closet is well maintained it doesn’t hurt to sort through and do an inventory every now and then to keep it that way. Here are five tips I have found to be very helpful.

You must clean out your closet. This means taking everything out of your closet and put it on your bed or wherever you have to, so that you can get a good look at everything. You need to be able to touch every piece, try it on and make a decision about it. You can’t do this unless you are able to see it. If something doesn’t fit, look right on you or is damaged get rid of it!!!!
Divide and conquer. Just for the getting started process make three piles of clothing. Things you know you are going to keep, things you know you are going to get rid of and things you are undecided about. For example, why do I have that size six skirt from ten years ago still hanging in my closet? Well because I will be that size again someday of course. But let’s be realistic if it happens you will probably not want it anyway. I’ve noticed as I have gotten older even when I lose weight my body doesn’t always shift back like it was. So that skirt from ten years ago may not look like I want it to anyway.
Get rid of the give away pile. Once I have the three piles situated I bag the items that I know that I won’t wear again and put them outside the door or take them to my car. These will be donated. If you are the type of person who likes to sell your clothing then go for it but just for now get them out of sight and out of your way. I put the pile of clothing that I am undecided about to the side and concentrate on what is left.
Group your clothing. Whether it be by items or by color. I like to separate pants, skirts, shirts, dresses and sweaters. I have another area for jackets because a jacket or coat is not something that you always need, not where I live anyway. If you are like me you may even keep them in a different coat or hallway closet. I don’t want them taking up room in my day to day clothing.
Shop your clothes. Once you have your clothes in your closet the way that you want them and grouped together by items or colors then you are ready to shop. If you see someone wearing something you like go to your closet and look it over, chances are you have something very similar. If you see something in a magazine or on TV and think wow that looks great together then go to your closet and shop. The most important thing is you know exactly what you have, where it is and whether you need to shop for it outside your closet.

A little something extra. There are several great closet apps you can put on your phone that make organizing and keeping your closet organized so much easier. Go to the App Store, they’re free!!!

Smart Closet

Outfit Planner

Style Book

Closet Love.

Happy Shopping, and always remember:

Love your day your way!!!

Weekends

Happy Monday friends how are you? How was your weekend? Mine was really good. I picked my niece Hailey up early Saturday morning and she spent the day with me. She is ten going on twenty five. She is a very feisty young lady and reminds me a lot of me when I was that age. Poor kid. HA!!! But I don’t think I was ever that cool.

This is what the sky looked like when I left the house to pick up Hailey. My mom and dad always said Red Sails in the morning sailors take warning. I think the real quote is Red Skies in the morning sailor take warning. But for some reason they always said sails. I guess a reference to ships. This usually means that bad weather in the form of storms and wind is coming. I knew that some really bad wind and storms were expected for later in the evening. I was hoping they would hold off until after I got Hailey back home.

I met Hailey and her mom in Madisonville at 7:45 Saturday morning. Her mom was on her way to work and that was the only time to meet up with her. We went and grabbed some breakfast and then I had to do my weekly grocery shopping. We had such a fun day together. We did some crafts, Hailey wanted to make something for her mom for Valentine’s Day. I got on Pinterest and got some ideas. We did a paper full of hearts that we painted and Hailey framed hers. She will give it to her mom in a couple of weeks so she can have it to decorate for Valentine’s Day.

This is the picture we found on Pinterest. It is not exactly like the one we did but similar. I love hearts, anything that is hearts. I guess that is why I love Valentine’s Day so much.

Hailey also wanted to learn to knit. She was a pro!! She picked it up really fast. I remember when I was ten years old my grandmother taught me how to crochet. Using one needle was intimidating and I didn’t learn to knit until I was an adult. We made a video of Hailey knitting so she if she messed up, or forgot how, she could watch the video. I taught her the garter stitch which is knitting every row but I think she will be able to handle something a little more challenging soon. I gave her a large set of #11 needles and some really thick yarn to work with. She is making a scarf. Be still my heart.

She had finished this much before she went home. I think that is ahhhhmazing!!!!!

So we had a great day. We baked cookies and watched the Kid’s Bakeoff Championship on TV and gave our opinions about who should be kicked off. We took some walks and just hung out. All the while the sky was looking darker and darker.

After I dropped Hailey off the storm that had been brewing all day hit. I was about fifteen minutes from home and I thought I was going to have to pull over and wait it out. I kept driving because I wanted to get home to the babies. They hate thunder and Mark was working late. I didn’t want them to be alone. I was really scared. There were no tornado warnings but there was a thunderstorm warning issued for the area. I will admit I was intermittently praying and using some really bad language. Tree limbs were everywhere and the rain was coming in sheets. Straight line winds took on a new meaning to me. Luckily there was nothing blocking my road and I was able to make it home. I still had power when I got home which was a miracle all its own.

The rest of the weekend was pretty quiet with laundry and finishing my own knitting project. I will show you that later because it is a gift and going out to someone this week.

The weather was picture perfect on Sunday with a high temperature of about 70 degrees and lots of sunshine. Me and the babies enjoyed a couple of long walks and just hanging out at home. I have to say spending the day with a ten year old can be pretty tiring.

On a different note, It seems like every January I take inventory of my surroundings and try to determine how to make my life more tranquil and calm by not having too many “things” around me. This year I tried to combine this thinking with decluttering my closet. You may remember that I started that last year with not a lot of luck. This time I have really been working on it. I have a new post coming in a couple of days about shopping your own closet. It has really helped me a lot.

I finished Sunday evening with my usual laundry detail and getting ready for the upcoming week. I am finishing a book for book club which is coming up this week. We had two months combined because of the holidays so two books to read, one I loved the other, meh. I will share them soon. So, how was your weekend?

Always remember

Love Your Day Your Way!!!

Weekends And A Discovery

Good Monday morning friends. I am writing this from my car dealership in Knoxville where I am getting my oil changed and my tires rotated. Who gets their oil changed at 7:00 AM on a Monday morning? Me that’s who. It’s quiet and I’m usually the first one here. I love it!!!

My maintenance required light and tire rotation has been coming on for a little bit. I knew I was due an oil change and tire rotation but just kept putting it off until after Christmas.

So here I am at the Nissan dealership at 7:15 AM to get this taken care of. Mark and I have a trip to Nashville this week for a routine checkup for Mark at Vanderbilt. That is about a four hour drive each way for us. I wanted to get the maintenance taken care of before we went. You know I am a procrastinator, nuff said. I had to leave my house at 6:15 to get here when they opened. I scheduled online before I left the house.

So I am sitting in the dealership waiting for my car. It’s not so bad I have coffee, snacks a huge TV, and about an hour of uninterrupted knitting. Heck I may just move in!!!!

Back to the weekend. You know from my previous blog post that I always pick a word for the year. I am not a big one for making New Year’s resolutions but I always pick a word for the year. My word for this year was discovery. I discovered something really important this weekend. It’s something I already knew but it really hit home over the weekend. It is SLEEP. My weekend was very strange because my sleeping was all jacked up.

It started Friday night when I couldn’t sleep. This threw me into feeling tired all day on Saturday. Mark and I went to the Assisted Living Village, where his mom is, for a visit and to take some supplies. I also took down all of her Christmas decorations and put up a Valentine wreath on her door. We got back home around 5:00. I had been reading a great book so I decided to lie down on the bed to read for a little bit. So delicious. You see where this is going right? I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until 9:00 PM!!!! I couldn’t believe it. My Saturday night was gone! I know I am not a social Diva with lots to do on Saturday night but I do love my Saturday nights doing whatever I want. I felt like it was wasted. Now if I had been really smart I would have just gone back to bed for the night. But no. I got up and started watching a couple of movies. I had some snacks. I finally went back to bed at 2:30 AM. I then overslept and didn’t get up until 7:30 AM on Sunday morning. People that is really late for me. I felt terrible. My body felt out of sync all day. I drank coffee and it didn’t help. The only thing that remotely brought me back to life was walking the babies outside in the crisp winter air. There is something to be said about getting outside and enjoying nature. Especially when you are in a FUNK!!!

Look at my Molly girl she is getting old you can see the white on her muzzle.

Scruffy always up for a walk and an adventure.

This is Molly and Scruffy together. It is really hard to get a pic of them together.

So I guess my first word and discovery for the year is to remind myself just how much sleep I need. Thank you very much. After the walk with the fur babies I started feeling a little more like myself. I made sure I went to bed early and drank plenty of fluids, that really seems to help no matter what, and I am sort of kind of feeling back to the old me. Good or bad or whatever.

How has your New Year been going? No matter what always remember.

Love your day your way!!!!

Happy New Year!!!

Happy Thursday and Happy New Year!!!! How is your new year going so far??? I was off from work yesterday for New Year’s Day and that was really nice. My sister always cooks a big dinner for anyone who wants to come and eat. I went over to eat with her and her husband and some of my nieces and nephews. We had lots of food and fun. I baked bread last night and took two loaves of it to work, I try to get it out of the house so I won’t eat all of it. My co-workers made pretty short work of it.

I am always a little sad on January 1st. It is my mama’s birthday. She passed away in 2003 so she has been gone for awhile but I always remember what fun we would have on her birthday. We would gather the sisters and any nieces and nephews who wanted to go, and we would go out to dinner and see a movie. She loved doing that. She was such a special mama, the best in the world as far as I am concerned. She was also my best friend and someone who always believed in me no matter what.

This is my mama when she was about 16 years old.

I don’t know if it’s because it is a new year and a new decade, but I have never been so glad to see a new one. I will say that 2019 was good. but a lot of things happened that were not great!!! The same with the entire decade. I am still here plugging along and for that of course I am grateful. But a lot of things happened not just in 2019 but during the last ten years as well. Mark had the kidney transplant in 2011 if you haven’t read that part of my blog you can catch up with it here and here. I feel like donating a kidney to my husband was a miracle for me and for him. To be able to do that for him was the best thing in the world to me. But during the last few years I have lost three of my siblings, a brother in law and my father in law. I also lost my beloved Patches. That is life I suppose but that’s a lot of loss. My precious Scruffy and Kitty Kitty came into our lives. I did do some amazing traveling in the last few years and that was fantastic. Going to places I have never been before is so exciting to me. That brings me to my word for the year.

Every year I try to pick a new word to focus on for the year. Last year my word was “Try”. I did try a lot of new things. At times I pushed myself beyond my comfort level. But this year my new word is “Discover”. I want to discover a lot of things this year. I’m going to try to keep a journal or list of things so that I can remember them all at the end of the year. Just thinking about discovering new things is very exciting and gets my heart racing. I think the loss of several of my loved ones in the past ten years has made me more aware of life. This is our life to live. Live it and make it the best you possibly can. So this year I will see what there is to “Discover”.

Happy New Year and always remember,

Love your day your way!!!