Inside Marcy's Mind
Having hosted the Aging aint for Sissie's podcast for two years, I wanted to expand what I could discuss. This podcast will touch on the fun of aging and whatever has crossed my mind! Please join me as I walk through life! #retirement #travel #fun #aginggracefully Link in my bio! Listen now!
#insidemarcysmind
#aginggracefully
#retired
#retirementpreperation
#aging
#retirementplanning
www.insidemarcysmind.com
Inside Marcy's Mind
Pumpkin Mugs and Closet Joy: Marcy's Guide to Seasonal Transformation and Lifestyle Harmony
Ever wonder how to transform your wardrobe and life simultaneously? Join me, Marcy, as I sip from my beloved pumpkin mug and share heartwarming stories about adjusting to the changing seasons, including how our cats, Patrick and the gang, are coping with Craig's constant travels. You'll also hear about my latest adventures enjoying Chicago's late summer weather, including a hilarious discovery at Ghirardelli's that led to an unexpected but delicious hot fudge sundae.
This week, I'm excited to let you in on my thoughts about fantasy football and a magical partial lunar eclipse that lit up Chicago's night skies. My attempts to capture the celestial beauty with a faulty camera brought some laughs and also led me to reflect on the quirks we all have—gadgets might get replaced, but the people we love are irreplaceable. A major highlight was my seven-hour closet clean-out marathon, which gave me some back pain but also a great deal of satisfaction. Downsizing my wardrobe due to retirement, regular gym visits, and a significant weight loss has been a transformative experience, one that you won't want to miss.
Join me as I continue this journey of maintaining weight loss and organizing a functional wardrobe. I'll share tips on working out, eating better, and even using Ozempic to aid in weight management. My closet overhaul focused on practicality and accessibility, inspired by the concept of a capsule wardrobe. As a Capricorn, reducing clutter is key to my happiness and efficiency, and I encourage you to embrace this mindset too. Discover how the right wardrobe pieces, such as tennis shoes for wide feet, can elevate your daily life. Let’s create spaces that bring joy and support our evolving lifestyles together!
Hello and welcome to Inside Marcy's Mind. My name is Marcy Backus and I am your host. Well, welcome to the end of summer, the beginning of fall. I am here drinking out of a pumpkin mug and that may bother you. It may not, I don't know. We're midway through a little more than midway through September, believe it or not, september 18th is when I'm recording this.
Speaker 1:It's Wednesday morning at 630 am. I woke up at 330 this morning, so I've been up for three hours. Oh yeah, this is my life lately. I don't know. I just go with it. Now I don't even try to fight it anymore, because fighting it is futile, as they say. I just get up when I get up, and I tried to stay in bed for a little while, finally got up, fed the cats Craig's out of town this week, so it's just me. So it's a little easier just to get up and roam around and do what I do. My back was hurting a little bit this morning. Well, we'll talk about what I did yesterday in a little bit. So, anyhow, welcome to Inside Marci's Mind, where obviously I talk about anything that's inside my mind.
Speaker 1:This is episode 19 of my podcast, my second podcast. My first one was for two years and that has been laid to rest. I'm interviewing someone today. You'll hear on next week's episode, so I'm excited about that. I haven't done a lot of interviews on this podcast yet.
Speaker 1:If you have a subject, you have something you'd love to be interviewed about. It's so easy, like if you're doing something great I want to tell people. So you know. Email me at inside Marcy's mind at gmailcom. Go on my website inside Marcy's mindcom Basically anything inside Marcy's mind you'll find me. Youtube I'm there. My podcasts are there. No video, I just I don't know. You know I do video. I got to get gussied up and I don't really want to get gussied up. I'm in my pajamas right now. Don't even have a bra on. You know it's kind of nice to sit here and do this with incognito, but maybe I do need to start doing. But he don't know, we'll still work on that.
Speaker 1:Anyways, we've got a lot to talk about what happened this week with me. There's always something fun and exciting, and then we're going to talk about closet cleanouts. Um, that's why my back hurts. Anyway, hang in there. Grab something to drink. You you're driving, pay attention to the road. Get a diet coke. Get an iced tea, get your coffee, whatever it is, sit back, relax and we'll have a fun time, okay.
Speaker 1:So what's been going on with me? Well, first off, craig's gone this week. It's going to start the craig being gone during the week time and he'll be home next week and then, I think, the following week he'll be gone every week. So that has been an adjustment for the cats, never an adjustment for me. Craig, during most of our marriage, traveled, so that I am used to, but the cats, on the other hand, have only known Craig to be around. We've had the cats three years now and during those three years Craig gets up at 5 am, well, probably 5.20. He lets his alarm go off twice and then he feeds the cats. Great, that's worked out. Great. For the three years that we've had the cats, craig's not here, you know. No, I'm not getting up at 5 am. Well, this morning I was up, but yesterday, you know, by 5.45, patrick was rawr. He's got like the deepest big cat meow and sits on a chair and just stares at me. So we're going to have to do a little adjusting to this Craig being gone during the week. The cats are going to have to figure this one out, but then I throw them off because this morning I fed them at 430 because I was up at 330. So it just seems like the Backus house is going to be a little nuts for a while.
Speaker 1:It's been an interesting week, really good week. The weather here in Chicago is phenomenal. We are having a late summer, excuse me and I'm enjoying every minute of it. Trying to suck it all up, craig and I went out for dinner and, of course, sat on a patio, because at the end of September they swoop all the patios up, they disappear, they're gone, like on the last day of september, first day of october they will be gone. It's the weirdest thing, but um, so I'm trying to enjoy out time to outside time and again. You all know that's been my theme this summer get outside and be outside as much as possible, and I think I've been doing that.
Speaker 1:I had an interesting um encounter the other day. So I just found out that at the end of my street, the end of Michigan Avenue well, it's not the end, but right where the river is is a Ghirardelli's ice cream chocolate shop. Had no idea that it was there. I found out on Instagram. Anyhow, I had been craving a hot fudge sundae. So I don't know.
Speaker 1:A couple nights ago Craig goes. He wanted to go to the Art Institute and see Georgia O'Keeffe display and I didn't want to walk all the way to the Art Institute. It's a long walk. I prefer to take the bus, but he was going. So it's pretty funny because when you live in the city and you walk everywhere, sometimes we'll go somewhere together and then he drops me off like if we were in a car. I don't know, it just amuses me. So we're walking down Michigan Avenue and I peel off at Ghirardelli's and he keeps going.
Speaker 1:I had the best hot fudge sundae at Ghirardelli's, but I'm telling you $16 for a small sundae in a plastic cup. They don't even put them in the glass mugs that they used to put them in. You get it in a plastic cup. So that was. It was good, but it was a little disappointing. I mean $16. Come on, whatever. Anyways, I enjoyed it. You sit, river views. If you ever come visit me here in Chicago, I'll take you to Ghirardelli on the river because it's worth the views and it's not worth the 16 bucks, but I'll buy you a Sunday anyway. So that was one of the things, but the reason I'm kind of telling you about this is I had my first uncomfortable encounter on my way home. We've lived in the city two and a half years.
Speaker 1:I walk everywhere Well, not everywhere, I won't walk to the Art Institute, but anyhow I walk a lot and I've been fine in the city. You see homeless people all the time and I'm going to tell you I have no fear of being shot or stabbed in the city of Chicago. Whatever you hear on the news. Yes, things happen. Things happen in all cities, but that's not my fear. And my fear is in any city that we've been to Philadelphia, new York, la is more mentally unstable people because you never know what they're going to do.
Speaker 1:When I'm down waiting for the train, I always am with my back against the wall because I don't want someone to push me into the train tracks. I mean, you see it on the news all the time. You know people get thrown into the road, people get sucker punched. You know those are the things I'm more fearful of than necessarily violence of the gun or knife kind. So I'm walking home and all of a sudden this homeless guy shirtless. So I'm walking home and all of a sudden this homeless guy shirtless it's not on his face, not a pretty picture right Gloms on to me as I'm walking, and I'm on a popular sidewalk, I'm walking down Wabash, I mean there's people and I'm, as people are walking towards me, I'm looking like help me, because this guy has attached himself to me, he is talking to me and I don't really care about that. You know, I look forward, I don't make eye contact but I'm afraid I'm going to get pushed down or pushed into traffic. To be honest, that's my two fears.
Speaker 1:So, finally, and of course, every corner, we come up to the signal's green. So we just keep walking. Well, finally, two blocks in, there were two guys ahead of me, but they didn't know what was going on behind them, everybody that's walking towards me. I'm looking at him like help me. But do they know? You know that I don't want this guy talking to me, but people are. You know, I don't blame him. Anyhow, we get to the corner and I walk right between the two guys that were in front of me and they look at me and I said, look, I just need to shake this guy and the guy did. Once I was between the two gentlemen, he went to the side and then, of course, one of the gentlemen just starts talking to me as we're walking along, thinking I'm a tourist, telling me about the city. But anyway, nonetheless, I got away from him. But that was that was in all this time. That was my first encounter that made me uncomfortable. I wasn't scared, I was uncomfortable. So that was something that happened this week.
Speaker 1:Oh, you know, what I've been working on this week is something for Alec. I got a jump drive and I'm downloading all the photos onto it and giving it to him so he doesn't have to, so he can look at pictures when he was a kid we craig got me. Alec was one and a half when craig got me my first digital photo um camera. So they're pretty much their whole lives is on digital. So I'm putting it all in a jump drive and when we go to denver a week from now we're going to go to to Denver and spend some time with Sharon and Alec for the weekend I'm going to give it to him and if he wants to look at pictures when he's a kid or whatever, he doesn't have to wait for me to die to look at them. So that's something. If you haven't done that for your kids, I suggest it highly. Jump drives are super cheap now they come in really high. You can do a thumb drive cheap. Now they come in really high. You can do a thumb drive, you can do a hard drive. They're cheap and they come in high. Um, you know megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, all those kind of things. So that's something I've been working on. If you've been thinking about doing some things, you could even do a digital album for a few of like events in their lives, if you want. If you're a scrapbooker, good on you. I did that for a few years and then that went by the wayside. So, um, highly highly, do that, okay.
Speaker 1:Fantasy football I'm in a fantasy football league. So is craig. Our church in california has four leagues. I'm in league, four craig's in league one each league league individually. I was number one last week and then, of course, two of my main players get hurt and don't play my big point guys this week. But I did some quick, fast minute adjusting. The number one draft pick, josh Allen for quarterback, is my quarterback, my first draft pick. I was the first picker in the draft Got me 13 points. The week before I think he got me 50, something you never know. Anyways, I still won my get my game against my opponent, but now I'm number two because I didn't get as many points as I should have. So I'll keep you up that.
Speaker 1:My fantasy football team is called the Honey Badgers. My friend, diana ex-supervisor, now friend Couldn't be friends when she was my supervisor, but now we're friends Help me pick the name and I love it. So we are the Honey Badgers. I have won my league twice and I have won all four leagues in scoring twice as well as well. So we'll see what this year brings. I lost last year. I think I was in the first round of playoffs and then I lost. So we'll see what this year brings.
Speaker 1:It's fun. I enjoy it. If you've never done fantasy football, highly, highly suggest it. If you've got a group of people. Lunar eclipse last night Amazing, it was't be better. Right out my windows here in Chicago I saw the huge harvest moon and then it moved across the buildings and it was out in the sky and I saw the lunar eclipse. It was a partial lunar eclipse up in that upper left-hand corner.
Speaker 1:You try to take pictures of these things and it just doesn't work. You know, I don't know why Craig bought me a camera at Christmas because I wanted to go and do some photography. But the sad thing is is he didn't think about my hands and it's. My hands are a mess, as you all know, and I could do 90% of everything. It's too heavy for me, I can't hold it and anyway it's too big, it's too heavy and I feel bad. But I probably should have broke it out last night and gotten better pictures of the moon.
Speaker 1:But I tried with my phone. Oh, my phone. I don't know about any of you. I have an iPhone 13. I'm waiting for the new phone to ship on the 20th to go get one. I'm waiting for the new phone to ship on the 20th to go get one.
Speaker 1:My phone has been acting up. It's been acting a fool. I tell you, I have had Apple products since my first computer in 1990 that Craig bought me was an Apple and that's all I've ever had. And I've had all the phones, I've had all the iPods, I've had all the things and this is the first time I've had a phone act a fool. I've reset it, I've done everything. I don't know. It's just not happy. So it is going to get traded in for a new model. That's what happens around here. You act a fool, you get traded in. Well, except for Craig, he can act a fool and I keep him. What else has happened? Oh, okay, so yesterday because this is going to lead into our main subject for the day Yesterday I did a closet clean out. Now, this was a seven hour closet clean out and we'll talk about it in the next portion of this episode, but that is why my back is hurting today. Oh, am I paying for that. But boy am I happy. So sit back, relax, whatever you're doing, refill that coffee, diet coke, iced tea, whatever you got, and let's get into it. Well, let's talk about so.
Speaker 1:In my life, a lot has changed in the last few years. So the first thing that changed is I retired. I'm no longer working. I go to the gym five times a week. That is something new and I have lost 50 pounds. So all of that means well. And I also downsized from a giant house where my closet was the size of my kitchen. Here I was bigger. It's bigger than my kitchen here. So I've downsized immensely to a very small closet. Plus, uh, I have a Ikea closet in our bedroom. So I have that, um, very small closet half the half of it's mine, half of it's Craig's. And all those other things losing weight, not working, all as wardrobe issues good issues to have. Losing weight is great.
Speaker 1:My biggest fear about losing weight is I've lost weight before. Now I've kept it off the longest. This time I've kept it off over seven months. My goal and I am going to be honest I've never worked out five days a week consistently ever in my life, ever. And now I'm I'll say four to five days, because sometimes something comes up, but four to five days consistently for a year now. So that is a habit. That is something that's not going to change. My eating is better. I'm not going to say it's perfect, but it is better. I did use Ozempic to help me lose weight. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. It's not like I'm just oh fabulous, marcy just lost weight, but I made all the changes that you need to make in order for it to work and to keep working. I'm on maintenance now, but there's the fear, the reason I tell you all this. There's the fear of gaining the weight back. There's. I've always gained it back. For 25 years I've probably lost hundreds of pounds and always gained it back the minute I'd hit my goal, the next day, literally, the scale would start going up.
Speaker 1:So what to do with a huge wardrobe even though I downsized it of clothes that 90% don't fit me. Well, I don't want to get rid of them, so I've been packing them up and putting them in our storage. So yesterday, not the armoire well, a little bit of the armoire but my closet I decided to pull everything out, the shelves, the whole thing, every shoe, every stitch of clothes. I completely cleaned out the closet Shoe, every stitch of clothing. I completely cleaned out the closet, dusted, vacuumed all of it out. And let me tell you, when you get it all out and it's on your bed, there's that moment of freak out, like what did I just do? Because now decisions need to be made. So again, I told you it took me seven hours.
Speaker 1:So one of the main things, first things is I have really wide feet and shoes and they got wider during COVID when I didn't wear shoes all the time around the house. Shoes are just not that comfortable and I won't wear them if they're not comfortable, because now I walk everywhere. It's not like I just hop in the car and just have to walk into somewhere, I walk everywhere. So, with that in mind, I went through my shoes cut throat seven tall trash bags full of shoes. Now this is after downsizing people already. These are fall and summer shoes. I went through both of them in the car. Now which is another thing when you live in a high rise you have to get them to the car in the parking garage, so it's not as easy as being in a house, let me tell you. So at the end of everything, I got that out, but I went through the shoes cut throat I have in my Ikea closet.
Speaker 1:In our bedroom I have what are called the shoe popsicles. You know the little shoe holders that hold 16 pairs of shoes. So I used to have my dress shoes there. Well, I'd never wear dress shoes. So that was one of the first things I changed Pulled out the dress shoes because real estate is important in your closet. So this is key real estate, those shoe popsicles. You slide them out. I put my everyday most worn shoes on those shoe popsicles that roll out and then roll back into the closet.
Speaker 1:Instead of having one, two, three, four, five shelves of shoes in my closet, I use two of them, or other shoes, booties, shooties, things like that and the rest. I decided to fold my sweaters and my hoodies and and and and the type of things that I wear a lot in the winter. Here I wear leggings 90% of the time because I'm walking to the gym, so I wear my fleece line leggings. I wear a long sleeve shirt active wear type shirt, sweatshirt and a jacket. So I made three of those shelves foldable things, things that I can see, so it's no longer a mystery and that freed up some other space in my closet where I put all my long sweaters or coats. I have a long rack in my closet. A lot of us have that. I don't wear dresses no reason for me to put dresses there so I used it for my long sweaters, long coats. That all went there. The other one was coats and I organized that. I got rid of a lot and I was able to put my puffers in there. I had my puffers crammed in the front closet while you're walking out the door and it just it's a very small area that's left to me in there for coats and it never worked.
Speaker 1:So when you're looking at your closet and you're doing all this, you're looking at real estate. There's high value real estate. There's low value real estate. The low value real estate I redid. I put all of my like holiday tops, for fall, for Thanksgiving, for whatever. I put those in a basket and those went into the shelves. I have some shelves that are behind my hanging area because of how Craig and I redid this to a walk-in closet. We kept those shelves, so they're low value. I put my dress shoes in one of the shelves there. Things that I don't need to get to all the time went on those shelves. Redid the top shelves, organized those, just organized everything. And again it took me seven hours. So I really highly.
Speaker 1:I have never done the full closet clean out where you pull it all out, every stitch, everything. So once I got that part of the closet done, I also did the same to the armoire not to the extent because I'm not ready to get my fall tops in yet. It's still. It is still too warm here for that and that is something that's easy to swap out. But I bagged up all of my clothes. Anything that was too big went to the Goodwill Is going to the Goodwill or Salvation Army. I don't take things to the Goodwill after my items were disrespected when I brought them when we were moving. I'm sure you've heard that story so I won't bore you with it again. But I'll take them to the Salvation Army today. They're in my car ready to go. So again, I've always done closet cleanouts but I've never done a full pullout, and it was daunting, it was exhausting, yeah, but I've never been happier with my closet, a hundred percent, super happy.
Speaker 1:Everything that's in there is usable. Everything is in there that I love. I have my armoire. I have two drawers to go through. I have a drawer that has all the gloves and mittens and all that stuff, and, good God, I don't need that many. You don't, you know, get a good pair of gloves here. It's just some good scarves. Oh, that was one thing. Yeah, that was something that I talked with Lynn about this week.
Speaker 1:One of the things when you live in a cold weather climate is scarves are really important, not only to keep you warm, but they may be your only fashion accessory that people see, cause you're in a big old coat walking down the street and I have a ton of beautiful scarves that were just shoved away. So I organized them into something that I can get to, that I can look to on a daily basis pull out a scarf oh, what the heck that noise is. And I made my scarves all accessible. You know scarves is something you should never get rid of. Scarves are. I have scarves from way back when. I have scarves that I bought when we lived in Denmark. I have scarves, I have all kinds of scarves and I just love them, scarves that have been given to me. Scarves are a beautiful gift to give someone because they never get rid of them. I also have a lot of like poncho kind of things, like big, like big, giant, scarf-y things that you wrap around yourself and in the winter here those can also go over a coat or under a coat. So I organize those in a stack so that I can see them.
Speaker 1:I just made things very accessible because you know what, if your clothes are not accessible, you're not going to wear them a hundred percent. Not going to happen. So, with that being said, what? What are the essentials for a fall wardrobe? So top layers is the first thing. So that was one of the things I organized my top layers, my jean jackets, my long sweaters. I have a cream and a black blazer. Blazers are very important, especially right now. The suit is the women's suit is making a comeback. But I have different outer layers and that is super important.
Speaker 1:When you live in a climate even in California, I mean in the morning you may wear that outer layer. In the afternoon, even in California, I mean in the morning, you may wear that outer layer. In the afternoon, you may not Base layers. What is a base layer? Base layers are the tops you layer under cardigans and jackets. But they can also stand alone and that's really important, especially when you're in a warm weather climate that may be cold in the morning, warm in the afternoon.
Speaker 1:You don't want to wear like a sleeveless shirt underneath a jean jacket. If it's not going to be that warm in the afternoon, you want to think about that. But those are your pieces that you wear underneath. They can be simple t-shirts, white button-up shirts, woven shells, pullover sweaters. This year we're seeing shorter lengths. This year we're seeing shorter lengths. Do not enjoy a shorter length, that is, if you are over 40, even maybe 40, the shorter length is not I don't care what little bit more tight than a, a top that may be loose. We now have the wide leg jeans that are back in. I do have. I love my peg leg jeans, but I also like a wide leg jean, so you're going to be seeing those things. So that is that's what your base layer is. Okay, transition tops and sweaters. So these are things that you want to inject your personal style into your wardrobe.
Speaker 1:So one of the things I did when I moved, and if you're downsizing your wardrobe or you want to downsize it, I chose two colors, one pattern and my base color. So you've got your base colors of black. You know gray maybe yours, it's not mine. Mine is black, white and Navy. Those are my base colors. My um, fun colors are hot pink or pinks of any kind, and blues, blue greens of any kind not greens, but blues, blue greens, teals. These are the colors that when I wear them, people always say I love that color on you. So think about things you've worn where people say I love that color. It may be a brown, it may be whatever it is. Think about that and make those. I did two colors and this does a lot of things for you.
Speaker 1:Number one it keeps you from shopping and buying a lot of things just because it's nice looking or the right price. If it's not in my color pattern, I do not buy it anymore. The other thing I pick stripes. I love stripes, so stripes is my pattern. So, but again, I will only buy stripes in like navy blue, black and white stripes. Navy blue and white stripes, hot pink and white stripes, teal blue, that type of thing stripes. I don't buy stripes in any other color, but that is my pattern.
Speaker 1:Transition top may be a vest-y sweater with no sleeves. Think about lightweight sweaters. And I'm going to be honest with you even living here in Chicago on the coldest winter days, I do not wear big bulky sweaters. Big bulky sweaters do not feel good under a jacket, so I do more thin layering. So you look at all these beautiful chunky sweaters and they look beautiful, but they aren beautiful, but they aren't. They aren't good for me current denim. So you want to make sure you have some current denim in your wardrobe. Denim is the foundation of most of our outfits. And again, thinking about your lifestyle, my lifestyle has immensely changed.
Speaker 1:Jeans and leggings. I have some nice pants for church or going out to a nice dinner or a luncheon, but mainly, mainly, I'm in leggings. Second jeans, third, trousers. So keep that in mind. You know two thirds and then splitting a third. I can't even think of what a split of a third is between the others for me. So look at your wardrobe that way. Dark washes are coming back, but light washes are still out there. I've never been a light wash girl. I have a few light wash jeans, but I prefer the dark makes you look thinner. I guess that's why non-denim pants and skirts. So I um, I'm not a dress girl, but I'm a skirt girl. I'm a flowy pant kind of girl. I have a black um peg skirt and knee length and floor length and what else. Oh, I bought this beautiful neutral color skirt at H and M. It's, uh, just buttery material. So think about that. Let's see where we at on time, I'm getting close to the end here. Versatile dress so get yourself a versatile dress. It may be a black tube dress, anything that you can put.
Speaker 1:Jackets, boots with Shoes again, transition shoes I like a mule. I have wide feet Trying to have backs to my shoes do not work good. And flat shoes I step out of. Get yourself a good pair of sneakers and a good pair of boots. These are things. And a neutral handbag. I don't wear a handbag, I wear a crossbody. Here in the city I got rid of 99.9% of my handbags when I moved here. I have a small selection of handbags, a couple that my friends have given me, but I'm not a big handbag girl. It's not my thing, especially in the city. I like my cross body or a backpack, so I stick to those. I have a couple of small purses that I'll use for going out to dinner or to church on Sunday, although church on Sunday I wear my crossbody a lot too. So these are the things that you need for a good fall wardrobe fall transition wardrobe.
Speaker 1:Tennis shoes are super important. Tennis shoes are really hard for me, again with the wide feet, but I hope this gives you a little. My goal is to always inspire you to do something, so I hope this inspires you to get into your closet, tear it apart, put it back together and have only the pieces that you care about in there. Get rid of all that noise, because noise is annoying, especially for a Capricorn. We don't like that added noise. So, having a closet that I can step into, make wise choices, choices that look good on me. I've been tired of putting on clothes that are too big, so this is what I've done. Hope it inspires you. No, did you know I ran over time this week and I respect your time too much to keep going. So have a great week. Go out there and do something positive you.
