God, I hate shopping. I totally understand why the people on “What Not to Wear” never make much progress on the first day. It’s just too overwhelming. So here’s where I am so far. I have a chocolate brown camisole with a sheer chocolate brown short-sleeved turtleneck top. I am going to wear that with either jeans or a pair of oatmeal pants I have. Or I might buy a new pair of pants or a skirt. Depends. That’s for the casual evening.

I bought a pair of black velvet pants for the jazz cocktail party, but I have no shirt for that. I have a couple of things here that might work, so I’m going to try those on before I venture out again.

It was really, really hard to find something appropriate. There were work clothes or club clothes or black tie clothes, but nothing in between. They just do not make nice clothes for women in their mid thirties for evening. I’m sure there’s not a huge market for it, so that’s why they don’t exist.

As soon as I have the whole outfit together, I promise pictures.