The Great Sweatpants Betrayal and Thoughts on Appearance

There’s a high probability that I was wearing sweatpants in this shot.

I have a confession. When Savannah & I film videos for YouTube, I will often put on a nice-ish shirt but leave my sweats on. I don’t know why I still do this with the amount of times I’ve been burned. I’ll ask Savannah, “You’re sure that my purple sweatpants aren’t going to be seen in this clip?” “No, Casey. I’m only filming from the waist up. You won’t be able to see them.” LIES. She just showed me the first part of the video that’s going up tomorrow and what makes its YouTube debut? My purple sweatpants. What am I wearing on top? A light blue plaid shirt. Another video- similar situation. She was filming me cooking something. I had on a dark blue flannel and black sweat pants with white paint stains on them. Again, there was reassurance that you’d never see them. Could you see them? Yes.

This brings me to a problem we have around here. If you are new follower or new consumer of our content, you wouldn’t know that we used to really be into clothes, hair, and fashion. My mom loves to tell the story of how as a two year old I cried because my socks and my dress didn’t match perfectly and in kindergarten I insisted on getting a new outfit to wear to a birthday party. The first time I went to Savannah’s apartment, she wouldn’t let me in her bedroom because it was messy. I went in her room and I swear I’ve never seen so many clothes in my entire life. We’re both recovering shopaholics. So how did it all change?

Looking at this picture brings back so many memories. This was taken 3/22/20- the first time we wore masks into a store. This was way before most people were masking and people looked at us like we were nuts. We were heading into Home Depot.

We both on our own started to become aware of the problems with clothing manufacturing. I spent a year not buying a single new item of clothing. Together we spent several years only buying clothing made in America. This honestly took the joy out of clothes. Then, the pandemic happened and everything went to hell in a hand basket. Pre-pandy, we wouldn’t usually leave the house without make up on and our hair done. But something about the pandemic and wearing a mask changed everything. Even as we all shed our masks, we were in the habit of simply not caring. Then we moved off grid and that really sealed the deal.

This is what out set up was when first moved. The tent in between the camper and the large white tent was our bathroom. This space is where our garden is now.

Our first year here we lived with most of our clothing in boxes and we had minimal infrastructure. Trying to look nice just wasn’t an option or a priority. But as we’ve gotten more settled and our lives are less in shambles we’ve started to care more about our appearance. This brings me to our problem. It all seems so silly when we are out working on building projects or getting our hands dirty in the garden, neither of us could care less about how we look. We also know that ultimately it doesn’t matter. Elyse Myers of TikTok fame used to always say that the least interesting thing about her was the way she looked. I also recently saw a video of a lady talking about how we as women will often reassure each other that we are beautiful. There is a lot of our comforting one another about our looks. But she said very bluntly that you might be ugly and that’s okay. Your worth isn’t tied to how you look. We should instead be reassuring each other that our worth isn’t tied to our looks.

Then there is another school of thought that the way you dress, will change how you feel about yourself for the day. If you’re like me and you spend your day around the house in sweats, you might be less productive or feel more down than if you actually put on an outfit. I inherently know this is true, but it’s really hard when no one is going to see you. Except people do see us- thousands of people see us. I wish I could say that I don’t think that people online care about the way that you look, but I know many do. When I used to be a nurse, I noticed a difference in the way my patients treated me when I had make up on vs. when I didn’t. This is just anecdotal evidence but it was interesting.

One thing that is really annoying is when people we know in real life see us with our hair & make up done, they carry on as if we’re dressed for prom or something. Even though they almost always see us that way. We don’t go to lunch dates in sweats & flannel shirts and wild hair. This is all another conversation I need to have on another day about making friends while being a content creator- it ain’t easy, I’ll tell you. People follow your online life and think that’s all that you are. When we first moved we tried not telling people what we did for a living but it’s really hard for that not to come up.

Hazel is also an editor of our YouTube content.

Savannah’s been working all day on editing a video and to be honest, I’ve done diddly squat. When we work independently of one another I try to match what’s she doing. So when she’s editing on the computer all day, I try to write blog posts or do something else. Other than making our lunch, this post is the most productive I’ve been. Since I fell, my energy has been wiped. I looked into it and apparently when your body is trying to heal itself, you can be more tired than usual. But even being tired I should be able to do more computer work. I’ve just not been able to focus and have had a hard time with focusing the last several weeks. In general, Savnnah is better about keeping focused than me. This homestead is lucky to have her.

Johnny Rose is still stinky. Apparently there was error in our treatment plan. We are still working on fixing that problem!

Thanks for reading :) and have a lovely evening!