After my post about shoes, I got to thinking about my wardrobe. I have many more choices in my clothing than I do in my shoes. In fact, I have so many roles each day, and each role requires a different type of clothing, that I find myself changing clothes multiple times. That can be a lot of fun – it’s just too bad that sometimes increases the laundry loads!

For instance, when I get up in the mornings my first chores are messy ones – especially dealing with the chicks we are raising. We currently have 26 chicks housed in a brooder in the back yard. And every morning they need to be fed and watered. So when I get up I put on my “work” pants – a pair of loosely fitting, thick denim jeans. Handing the chicks sometimes requires kneeling in the mud, so this is the only pair of jeans I use around them.

After caring for all the animals, the next thing I do is drive my husband to school. (We have only one car.) So I remove the work clothes and replace them with clothing I can be seen in public wearing. Usually a nice pair of jeans and a top, maybe with a sweater if the weather is cool. I do a little makeup for this, too. I drive him to school, and return home.

Depending on what I’m doing that day, I may change clothes again. If I’m grating soap for laundry detergent I don’t want that all over my nice jeans and tops. Same with if I’m baking bread or doing other semi-messy chores. Someday after I’ve been doing this stuff for years I’m sure I will be able to do it without spilling, but I am *definitely* not there yet! So those chores are often done in yoga pants and t-shirts or other easy-to-wash fabrics.

The chicks need to be handled multiple times per day, so after lunch it’s back into the work clothes and out to check on them. (Note – there is no way I could wash those pants after each wearing. That would be washing them three times per day! So yes, even if they got muddy in the morning I put them back on again.)

After that I usually pick my husband up from school – which means getting back into the in-public clothing. If I have errands to do that day, I usually schedule them around this time so I don’t have to change outfits back and forth any more than is necessary.

Then it’s often back into at-home clothing for the afternoon and evening. Then the work clothing for a last check on the chicks and to feed and water the other animals.

So at a minimum, that is three outfits and eight clothing changes per day. PJs-work-public-home-work-public-home-work-PJs. Sheesh, I had no idea it was that many changes!

Maybe there is a way to combine my public and home outfits. But with only two pairs of decent jeans I don’t want to run the chance of both being in the laundry at the same time. Hmmm, better think about this, I bet that is a lot of wasted time each day, even though each change only takes about 2 minutes. I’m thinking of the days when I have extra things to do, like when I need to get back into the working clothes mid-afternoon to do some chores. Or when I get back into public clothes in the evening to go out with my husband. That really starts to add up.

Wow, looks like I have to do some thinking about this.