I didn't actually wear red today. Though you'd think I'd know by now, I always forget, until I'm at church, what the color is for Palm Sunday. Instead, I went with one last shot of purple-ish.
The top and cardigan you will recognize. The skirt was a thrift find a couple of years ago. Crocs "Alice" shoes (a bit matchy, but dang, it was wet this morning) courtesy of Ebay. I'm not setting myself any kind of challenge this week, because Holy Week IS a challenge, but it's fun to have pulled off a 100% thrifted look.
I'm breaking my no-buy resolution/penance today – or relaxing it, at any rate, since it IS Sunday. A daughter is feeling down and in need of some retail therapy, and I need to look for a bedspread for the upstairs guest bed, since I stole the white matelasse coverlet that was on that bed for our own bed. So we're going to Goodwill in a little while. And really, whom are we kidding? I'll certainly cast my eye over tops, skirts, shorts, dresses, and shoes while I'm there, just to see if there's anything that corresponds with my running list of things-I-don't-absolutely-need-but-could-honestly-use.
My list:
shorts:
blue, gray, pink, sage green, possibly mushroom or oatmeal
tops:
white, pink, sage green (and possibly purple, because I know I'm going to have to replace items that are just about worn out, so if I do see something good, I'll get it), possibly also oatmeal or mushroom.
skirts:
I'd love to find some florals in blues, pinks, and/or sage greens, if possible.
dresses:
something all-season, in a color other than navy or gray, depending on what they have.
NOT going to look at cardigans. I HAVE cardigans. I probably need to cull some cardigans. I do not need to buy more. NOTE TO SELF.
I also think I have enough pants, though if my weight keeps climbing, I'm going to need a whole new pants wardrobe in a larger size. NOTE TO SELF.
Meanwhile . . .
Here's some simple inspiration for a wardrobe shopping list.
I haven't done this full course or had my color type diagnosed, but by trial and error I've come up with a basic list of colors that I know work for me:
Blues:
Pretty much any blue (including teal blues) that isn't too electrically bright. Sky blue, duck-egg blue, dusty or chambray blue, royal blue, and any navy (which I think is my best dark neutral). Blues that pick up my rather changeable gray-blue-green eye color: all good.
Pinks:
Rose pink, blush pink, any pink that isn't either too electrically bright (no hot pink, at least next to my face) or too orange. My skin tone is something like a cool pink, with blue rather than yellow undertones. My natural lip color is a blue-pink, almost purple (but not, I hope, cyanotic!). So pinks that reflect my skin tone and lips: good
Greens:
Are tricky. Can't wear kelly green. Can't wear lime green. Can't wear green with a lot of yellow, but even some bluish greens look bad. I can wear teal (is it a green? a blue? I'm never sure). I've discovered that I can wear gray-greens, like this blazer:
I love my sage-green skinny jeans and skirt – sage green pairs well with all the colors I know suit me, so it's a good component, especially for bottoms. I haven't quite worked up the nerve for a gray-green shirt, or found one I like enough to take a chance on, but that's on my list. Considering my eye color, again, helps me consider what greens might work for me.
Purples:
Any shade that tilts either blue or pink is best (periwinkle, lavender), though I can wear all purples pretty successfully. Paler, grayer shades are generally better than really dark ones, though.
Neutrals:
Any color can be a neutral if you wear it like one. Also, navy is a neutral, and it's what I wear instead of black. BUT of the generally-accepted neutrals, I know I can wear:
* off-white/browns like oatmeal or mushroom or taupe, anything sort of softly greige
* grays: light, medium, charcoal
*bright white (or white that matches the whites of my eyes, which I think are bright white, not off-white)
*champagne – I can't think what else to call this color, but the color of my mother-of-the-bride dress, last worn on our anniversary. I generally don't wear yellows well, but this is . . . sort of brownish, cool, not really yellow, more like a glass of sauvignon blanc. Or like every car produced in the early aughts. We had a 2003 Honda this color until my son got first T-boned in it, then rear-ended in it, summer before last. The tow-truck guy who came to haul it away to the junkyard found the front license plate of the second lady who had hit him lodged underneath the back bumper. It had been driven hard, to the tune of two hundred twenty thousand miles, and the O-rings were going, so I guess it was just as well that we collected our thirty-seven cents from the insurance company and let it go. My mother-in-law, meanwhile, still has her 2001 Toyota Camry, also this color, with something like forty thousand miles on it.
So any shopping list I make for myself can include these colors, though I'd generally prioritize my best colors, blue and pink, and organize everything else around that core.
What we bought:
The daughter scored a green sequined dress (perfect for college parties next year, when I trust that there might BE college parties), a pair of really good jeans, some white shorts (I said something about tampon ads when she held them up, because she needed a good laugh), some blue shorts, and a mauve satin blouse that looks amazing with her beautiful brown eyes and pink skin.
I scored the following:
Liz Claiborne flowered skirt. Here's a closeup of the print:
I'd been looking for pink floral and am happy to have found it. The gray-green leaf detail means it will work with this t-shirt, among other things:
The t-shirt also looks good with these duck-egg-blue capri pants (I said I didn't need pants, but that was before I saw these duck-egg-blue capris, which I grant you look really shapeless on the hanger here):
The same t-shirt also looks good with these pink shorts:
Both the capris and the shorts look good with this indigo tie-dyed J.Jill t-shirt (which in real life is a lot bluer than it looks here):
In fact, every item so far goes with numerous things already in my wardrobe. Once Easter is here and I can let go the purple for the next six months, I'll be challenging myself to see how many outfits I can make with the items I bought today AND what's already in the closet.
Finally, these shoes:
I've kept telling myself that really, truly, I was going to get some reasonable heels and wear them.
I think these will be fun to have. They'll look good with my maxi dresses, which really need something other than flats to elevate them (literally). They'll look good with skinny jeans and flares. I could even conceivably wear them to make a dressier outfit with shorts. They strike the right note (for me) between casual and making-an-effort. Best of all, the heels seem not to be disintegrating (sorry, thrifted Danskos, you lose), and they only cost me six bucks.
As I integrate these pieces into my existing wardrobe, I WILL also be doing some additional culling. Already the outbox is fairly full. I'll be evaluating what I have: what I want to keep, and what I really don't, after much reflection, need to hang onto.
The good news is that there are things I will not need to hang onto that are still in excellent shape. I will probably be offering some of those items for resale via Instagram and this blog. Stay tuned!
(Not very penitential, all this buying, I grant you. But somebody needed some serious cheering up, and desperate times/desperate measures, which I will also grant you is a lame excuse, but there it is).
Beautiful sunset, though.
Also, I did not find the bedspread I was looking for. We soldier on.
MONDAY
Making dandelion wine this year, for the first time in about eleven years. Here's the current mixture, fermenting away in a covered bowl on the kitchen counter:
Here's the last vintage, from 2010, which I discovered at the back of the liquor cupboard and decided several weeks ago to chill and taste. It's probably a bit over-aged, and I can't remember what recipe I used that time, but it is really not bad at all, and it does look pretty in the glass:
We still have a good bit left, to enjoy in little tastings. The glass you see here is a port or cordial glass, very small. The new batch will ferment for another ten days in the bowl, then I'll strain it into bottles, which I'll top with pricked balloons so that I can track continued fermentation. After about six months, I can seal the bottles and let them age for two years, to be enjoyed (I hope!) in 2023.
If you're interested, I'm using this recipe (minus raisins this go-round because I didn't have any), and hope to make a lot this year, since I have a lot of dandelions. I'd like to experiment with making dandelion mead as well, using honey for at least part of the sugar.
Today's outfit, all thrifted except my shoes, EVA Birkenstocks bought new three years ago:
Refreshed my Day 3 hair with water in a spray bottle, hence the wet spots on my shirt. It's supposed to be 63F today – and the sun is shining, so it might actually feel like it – but is cold right now, so I added the big cardigan.
I really like these cropped jeans from yesterday's thrift haul. The duck-egg blue is one of my favorite blues to wear, and it plays nicely with the pinky-purple of my shirt and cardigan, with the navy Birks providing a bit of a frame. I foresee getting a LOT of wear out of these jeans through at least three seasons. I like the fit, which I guess is sort of boyfriend-ish: not too skinny, but definitely not wide or flared. I could wish the rise were a little higher, but it's a decent mid-rise, so not bad.
Without the cardigan:
I don't have time to play with it too much now, but it would be interesting to cycle through my various cardigans and jackets, so see how alternative third pieces change the look. Busy day, though: emails to answer, choir practice to prep for, confession line to stand in.
TUESDAY
Dressed for choir at the diocesan Chrism Mass.
We were going to be tucked away in a choir loft at the back, so I didn't have to wear all black. They did show us on the livestream video, however . . .
New thrifted skirt, old thrifted purple top, Doc Martens. I also wore my thrifted green corduroy blazer, pictured above, since it was 37F when I left the house this morning, but I was in a hurry and didn't get a picture.
WEDNESDAY
Here comes the rain again, falling on my head like a memory . . .
So much for the nice spring weather, though in truth it's not that cold yet. Tomorrow's supposed to have a high of 48F, so back out with the warm clothes. Today I wasn't going anywhere, so didn't attempt much of an outfit, just the all-too-familiar purple skinny jeans and one of the two tees I got at Goodwill on Sunday.
It's not that cold, but it's not that warm, either. I wound up wearing my thrifted gray Athleta cardigan, which hasn't seen much action in a while.
I have a hard time with greens, but this shade of grayed, mossy green works surprisingly well with my coloring. Makes my eyes really green!
I think the secret here is that the shirt picks up a tone that's actually part of my eye color. Whether my eyes look more blue or more green, the color is always muted and grayed. It makes sense that the colors I wear well, if I'm choosing something based on my eye color, are going to tend in that direction as well. As Nat Tucker reiterates in her various style videos, you're going to look best in the colors that are already part of you: your eye color, your skin color, your natural hair color. It's so common-sense, but this was something of a eureka for me. If I wonder whether a color is going to work for me or not, all I have to do is to look at myself. Is that color part of me? Does that color complement or harmonize with the colors that are part of me?
I theorize that the reason I can wear purples, for example, as well as I do is that purple and green are complements on the color wheel – which is what my whole outfit today is about. If my eye color includes green, then purples will bring that out, while also looking nice with my cool pinkish skin. Blues, especially grayer blues, look good on me partly because my eye color also includes blue, but also because blue complements pink, which is my skin's undertone. So if you know yourself, and you know at least a little bit about color theory and the color wheel, then you are empowered to make color choices that will play up what you have, instead of creating a deficit that you then have to remediate with makeup. That's been a significant and liberating takeaway for me from Nat's mini-course and her videos.
THE HOLY TRIDUUM
HOLY THURSDAY
Not a lot of super holy thoughts right now. Just looking at food that needs to be made into dinner, to be consumed before we leave for 7:30 Mass tonight.
And GRATEFUL WE ARE to have a Mass to go to this year. Last year we had our memorial Eucharistic Last-Supper-ish Passover supper, but nowhere to go after that. I made a sort of little altar of repose on the bookshelf in the dining room, and we took turns sitting in there in the dark and the candlelight to pray. It was potent and beautiful, and I might make such an altar again today, but I am glad that there is Mass.
What I'm wearing today, because it's cold. I will confess: I cannot WAIT not to wear purple, starting at the Easter Vigil on Saturday. Can. Not. Wait. Actually I'm going to wear red for Good Friday, but Saturday, during the day, it'll be back to purple, one last push for the ol' trivial penance.
I'm wearing my old J.Jill maxi dress, knotted, with a white sweater handed down from my daughter (who I'm sure found it at Goodwill or got it from her sister, who would probably also have found it at Goodwill). I keep putting this sweater in the outbox and taking it out again. It's kind of bulky and never quite as flattering as I imagine it's going to be, though I did pin the hem on the inside today to draw it in more at the waist and make it blousy rather than boxy. But I don't have another white sweater, I like the heathered mix of white and mushroom, and I can always use a pullover, of which, again, I don't really have many. So here it is, getting another wear, with the dress and my indispensable camel boots.
Another angle:
I don't adore it, but I'm warm and comfortable and presentable for dinner and Mass, so that I don't have to think about my clothes anymore today.
Meanwhile, here is the unimproved face of somebody who has a lot to do today, so of COURSE lay awake for hours last night:
Postscript: Got hot cooking and changed out of the white sweater into my thrifted 9West denim button-up shirt. Pulled the front of my hair back in a claw clip, too:
GOOD FRIDAY
A quiet day, with fasting and the Good Friday liturgy at the Abbey at three in the afternoon. It feels incongruous with the day to talk about clothes, but: it was cold, and I wore my soft slanty-hemmed gray thrifted sweater from several years ago, thrifted red jeans from last fall, thrifted scarf which I like and don't wear nearly enough, and Doc Martens. It was nice to have a change of liturgical colors.
A small batch of dandelion mead, started today because the yard was full of dandelion blooms begging not to go to waste, and fermenting like crazy:
