Last night was a workshop at Nordstrom to tie in with their Pre-Fall Sale. The workshop was conducted by Sherice, an assistant manager/stylist at the Paramus location. Here are some highlights from the presentation.

The theme for this workshop was tips to build your wardrobe to get multiple uses out of your purchases. She started with a sleep shirt and showed  you how could get multiple uses from it. This was a perfect spot to start for me because Intimate Apparel/Loungewear was the longest part of my career. This year it seems like many women will be taking it to the streets! Sherice took a raspberry and white cotton sleep shirt from Rails (on sale for $98.90) and dressed it for the street.  Add a sneaker (Ugg has a sneaker now with a textured and leather upper on sale for $79.90.), a belt and a handbag. Then as the weather gets cooler, add a cardigan, a legging (try Spanx Moto legging on sale $72.90), a short boot or a knee boot.                         

The next look to build on is a color block fit and flare sleeveless dress from Vince Camuto on sale for $78.90. Wear it as is now with either a sneaker or a dressier shoe. Transition this with a moto leather jacket and later add a long cardigan (Sherice showed us a gorgeous cashmere cardigan from Halogen on sale for $199.99) add some jewelry, a low boot or a knee boot.

We saw a Tahari jacket in gray with pink woven into the plaid portion of the jacket. This can be worn as a blazer substitute or, when closed and a scarf is added, it is outerwear. This is on sale for $179.90.

Other items of interest in the store were kimono styles in chiffon or silk. Again, intimate apparel robes leaving the house!

It was an interesting workshop. With the ideas presented you can shop your closet, other retailers and online to create the looks at price points and comfort levels that work for you. Enjoy.

Three years ago I wrote a blog “Don’t consider it retiring…consider it rewiring”.  It is a big deal going from a long, satisfying career to not having one any longer! Adjustments must be made. You need to rewire. I have been thinking about this lately and decided to do a quick evaluation on my own “rewiring”.

My retirement started off taking care of my parent’s needs.  Many of us experience this as their first phase of retirement because our parents are living so much longer now. After my Dad passed away, Mom moved into a great assisted living residence in a town next to mine. We all became very active in what was going on in Mom’s life. There was never any hesitation that this is what I was meant to do.

I consider myself  an “organizer”.  Anyone who knows me knows that I have been an organizer since grade school! I enjoy putting activities together for everyone and apparently I’m good at it since people still expect that I will be the one to organize what ever needs organizing.

It seemed perfectly natural to me start a “daughters” group at Mom’s residence. I called it a daughters group, but I had some sons involved too.  I started by chatting with 4 other daughters who I saw there on a regular basis. I thought it would be great for all of our parents if we were there to advocate for them. This residence was very well run, but there are always things that need tweaking. After getting to know each other a little bit we made a date with the administrator. We discussed things we wanted to see happen. As time went on our meetings became very meaningful. Other staff members were attending our meetings too. This included the chef and food services, head of nursing, activities directors, housekeeping managers. We were known by all as “the daughters”. The highest number the group reached was 20. This represented a huge monthly income to the residence so we were taken very seriously. We met on a regular basis with the administrator. We got lots done for our parents.  Along with this came new friendships with people who truly understood the journey we were all on. Through our time at Mom’s residence we got to know some very interesting people. We met people with very diverse backgrounds. Over the course of 3 1/2 years, we met business executives, business owners, musicians (to include one of the first female drummers who played on the Ed Sullivan Show), one of the Bozo the Clowns from the 50’s (my husband loved to chat with him!!), therapists, nurses, homemakers and Holocaust survivors. If you take the time to talk to people it is amazing to see how happy you make them and how happy it makes you! I hope that from all of this that I had a positive impact on the last chapters of someone’s life.

People say that from this journey with Mom I could write a book. Perhaps I will. The emphasis would be on the dynamic of AGING children taking on the responsibilities of parenting their parents.

Now that Mom has passed away I am shifting my purpose. We are now involved with start up of a 55+ group at our church and have joined the Historic Society in our county and plan on volunteering in some capacity there. Our traveling continues at an even more stepped up rate since we have more flexibility now.  We have taken up Bridge and are enjoying that too. And we are also enjoying our grandchildren who are a constant source of wonder and delight.

There continues to be lots on my plate which is just the way I like it. I think my “rewiring” is going very well. How is yours coming along??