SUNDAY/MAY 16/DAY 16
Here's my updated 30x30 wardrobe list, based on revisions I made last week. This time I'm just numbering the items 1-30, not separating them into categories, and noting that I have four wild-card slots at the end. Originally I'd had five. Now I'm pondering specific items to replace those wild-card slots.
I've worn my rose-pink joggers, for example, more than once as a wild card, which should tell me something, namely that I needed some more warm things for the time of year.
Also, I'm wearing my pink floral linen Easter dress, another wild card, for Sunday Mass – maybe I was needing not only more warmth, but also more PINK. Adding in my plain rose-pink v-neck tee as well, a little experimentally. It was a toss-up between that v-neck tee (dumb impulse Walmart buy, but it's nice-quality cotton and I love the color) and a thrifted silky longer twist-hem tee, which I've worn a lot with skinny jeans, but I thought I might get more wear out of the plain v-neck tee with other items in my 30x30.
I will be sure to wear the silky tee with my sage-green shorts, though, once the 30x30 ends. I need to start pondering a beach-trip capsule . . . like my spring travel capsule, with some definite overlap, but a little expanded, since I don't have to pack in a tiny bag to fly.
I wore my plain denim boot-cut jeans last night, too, so decided to add those in.
I'm also highlighting in blue those items I have not yet worn, going into the second half of the May challenge. I'll check them off as I do wear them. Anything not so noted has been worn at some point during this challenge, even if it started out as a wild-card choice.
1. Navy knit sheath dress
2. Navy fit-and-flare dress
3. Washed navy/indigo swing t-shirt dress √ 5.17
4. Blue/light indigo J.Jill shapeless midi dress
5. Bleach-dyed blue v-neck dress √ 5. 20
6. Blue/multi gauze maxi skirt
7. sage green twill skirt
8. Sage green shorts
9. sage-green drawstring pants
10. Rose-brown jumpsuit
11. navy paper-bag waist French terry relaxed pants
12. Slate-blue twill shorts √ 5.18
13. sleeveless white pintuck
14. white half-tee
15. collarless medium denim
16. light chambray button shirt
17. army green tee √ 5.21
18. navy-white patterned Liz Claiborne tank
19. pink lace-hem tank
20. navy scoop-neck embroidered tee
21. J.Jill blue tie-dye swing tee
22. Blue duster-length cardigan
23. Green boyfriend cardigan
24. Blue flowered kimono √ 5.18
25. Jean jacket
26. Light-blue shrug cardigan
27. Wild card >>pink linen Easter dress 5.16
28. Wild card >>rose-pink joggers
29. Wild card >>Izod boot-cut jeans
30. Wild card >> rose-pink v-neck tee (?) √ 5.18
Interesting to me that most of what I'm proposing to add in those wild-card slots is pink. That would make the overall 30x30 capsule more balanced: blue-green-pink. Over time, I'd like to trend my whole wardrobe that way, with gray as my main neutral, and maybe a white category that would encompass darker/grayer/greiger off-whites like oatmeal or mushroom, which look good on me. And then I could color-coordinate my closet instead of hanging shirts together, skirts together, etc, because that sounds like a really sane and balanced way to spend my time.
For Mass today, as I said, I'm wearing another wild-card item not previously included in my 30x30 list: my pink linen Easter dress, 1990s vintage and bought on Ebay. I chose it today mostly because, again, it's just not that warm or sunny, and the above-the-knee dress, the highlighted #5 on my updated 30x30 list, which I had contemplated wearing, just seemed as though it was going to be too much cold bare leg.
So a maxi dress it is today, with my #26 blue shrug (just moved out of "wild-card" status to the committed list, because I've worn it multiple times), a tan narrow belt, and my Crocs "Sexi" thongs, as a change from platform wedges. I just bought this dress for Easter and I do want to wear it, so as I have room, I might well just add it to the 30x30 list.
I think – though I haven't been keeping careful count – that even with some wild-card additions in the last two weeks, I haven't come close to wearing 30 items, and won't exceed that by the end of the month. In fact, it's a challenge to wear the 26 specific items I have definitely settled on to wear.
Anyway, it's kind of nice to make a change from a blue-based outfit, even though this outfit (surprise surprise) does still incorporate blue. I continue to feel very Marian.
It's also nice to have one more pattern. My 30x30 has been very solids-heavy, mostly because that's how my overall wardrobe is.
This photo makes a change of pace from the bathroom mirror, at any rate. I love the keyhole neckline of this dress, and I think the paler blue goes more nicely with it than the teal I wore several weeks ago:
Same belt, as I notice now. As much as I like the duster idea, and as much as I like the teal shirtdress pictured here as a duster, I think I prefer a shrug or knotted cardigan with a longer dress. The flow of the outfit with the duster wasn't bad, but I prefer both the lower contrast of the light-blue shrug and the way that the shorter line seems to draw the eye up – at least I think so, though it's hard to tell from that picture. I also rather like moving my higher contrast – the dark shoe – to my feet, to create a frame for the outfit. There's light-dark-color-pattern happening: two relatively light colors, relatively balanced in their lightness, with pattern in the pink dress, but also a subtle contrast between the sheen of the cardigan (a rayon/nylon/spandex knit) and the natural matte finish of the linen dress. Add to that the dark shoe for the "dark" element of the formula, and the contrasting line the shoe creates on my foot. The narrow belt is tan, while the shoes are dark brown; because they don't match, they don't compete with each other. Both are pretty low-profile anyway. I'm not a fan of big look-at-me accessories, at least on me.
I'll try to grab a full shot in the bathroom mirror later, but said bathroom is occupied by other Mass-preparers at the moment.
Though traditionally the great solemnity of the Ascension is celebrated on the Thursday preceding this Sunday, which day marks the last of the forty days the Lord spent with His disciples after the resurrection, in many United States Catholic dioceses it's transferred to the following Sunday. In honor of this Ascensciontide, therefore, whether you marked it Thursday or are marking it today (or aren't marking it at all; liturgical time does go on whether you recognize it or not), here is Kathleen Norris's poem for the day.
And here's an after-church shot, before I put on my gardening clothes and go outside for a while:
Just a girl and her husband's clothes and shoes on a Sunday afternoon.
And some big wavy hair, too. I used rather too much Aussie volume gel when I washed my hair on Saturday, and when I spritzed with water to refresh it this morning, it gelled right back up again with a hard cast which I then had to scrunch and break apart. Good thing I like big hair.
Tomorrow: Doctor's apppointment (yearly physical) first thing. It'll be good to wear something easy-on/easy-off. Either a top and pants or skirt OR something like my little swingy tee-shirt dress, which I have not yet worn this go-round.
MONDAY/MAY 17/DAY 17
Back from my physical with blood drawn and my #3 swingy tee dress (thrifted) and #23 green boyfriend cardigan (thrifted) and Crocs sandals (old). Day 3 hair in a half-updo (same do as my Sunday hair two weeks ago – even the same tiny scrunchie).
I'd highlighted this dress to be sure I wore it, as I hadn't worn it in the first half of the May 30x30 challenge. That's funny to me, because it's a dress I've reached for often, in every season, in the 18 months or so that I've owned it. The only reason I haven't worn it more in this challenge is that I've been actively trying to wear other things.
But yeah, really, I love this little dress.
I can see how a belt might be a flattering addition, but I really can't be bothered today. I am also wearing my Miraculous Medal as usual – in these shots it must have fallen inside the neckline of my dress, but it's an important part of the outfit, not just for the usual devotional reasons, but because the line of the necklace helps balance the higher crew neckline of the dress in a way that's more flattering to my face.
Liking my bangs as they grow longer, too. Next time I will definitely not cut them short across my face, just ask to have them blended into more face-framing layers – keep them, but keep them long.
Also liking that I could dress this very basic look up with my fisherman-sandal wedges. I could make it more monochrome by substituting my duster-length blue cardigan for the green one. I could knot my chambray shirt over it, wear my collarless denim shirt loose over it as a jacket, or add my jean jacket. I could mix it up with a lighter casual shoe – I have aqua Converse, but also some gray Chinese Mary-Jane canvas shoes that could work with this dress as a pale "frame." So much I can do with just this one little dress – any capsule I might plan, summer or winter, would include it.
On the docket for the early part of the week:
*helping children with housing paperwork and deposits for college
*reading Senior Thesis papers (from my senior class of two, mind you)
*research for my last three essays – pushing to the end, so that I can read over the whole MS, with both partners' contributions, and make editorial comments. I need to write this week on Shane McRae, Mark Wagenaar, and Chelsea Wagenaar, and then I'm DONE with that part of the work.
*preparation for Wednesday night's Able-Muse-Press-sponsored poetry reading, which I am hosting
*preparation for at least one homeschool consultation session
Plus all the dinner making, laundry, gardening, dog care, etc etc etc. Sometimes I wonder why I feel overwhelmed, when I'm not really doing anything.
TUESDAY/MAY 18/DAY 18
Same to-do list as above, though I am almost finished with my Shane McRae essay, and just have to add poems.
Today's high is supposed to be 75F, but it's cloudy and set to continue that way all day. I'd been thinking I'd wear another dress, but now I'm not so sure. Perusing the 30x30 list to consider what I haven't yet worn – I guess if I have a clothes goal for this week, it is to wear the unworn remainder of the list, which right now includes:
*bleached-dyed dress
*blue flowered kimono
*army-green tee
*pink v-neck tee
*slate-blue shorts
I tried the kimono on yesterday, in fact, with my tee dress. And – gosh, I love that kimono. The colors are wonderful. It was the same length as the dress, which made for a boxy effect – I need to wear it with either something shorter or something longer, to break up the line – but I'm glad I got it out of the dress-ups box.
If I haven't worn it, I think it's because I do feel odd swishing about the house in a kimono, and it seems a little dramatic for church. I might consider it for Pentecost, though, since I don't have anything else actually red, and there are red flowers in the kimono print. Really, though, I need a party to go to – but I think I will pack it as part of my beach capsule, a light layer to throw on over just about anything.
OK, today's outfit, encompassing 3/5 of the previously unworn items on my list (if I'm counting correctly from memory, which I might not be):
Newly thrifted slate-blue twill shorts (#12), fast-fashion/impulse-bought pink v-neck tee (#30) and THE KIMONO (#24), with my Birk Floridas.
I'd decided I'd just do something basic today and get myself habituated to wearing these new shorts. Pink seemed like a logical thing to go with them, though the army green tee (#17) which I also haven't worn yet would play nicely with the slate blue as well.And, yes, the look was basic:
Not that that's a bad thing, mind you. Somehow this feels better than the same shirt paired with my sage-green thrifted Gap twill shorts, a combination I tried several weeks ago. These shorts, while functional, have a little more feminine fit than the green ones: higher waist, a little more curve in the shape, a little shorter and showing more leg. Maybe it's just the angle, or the way I'm wearing my hair, or something, but I feel a lot less like a tiny pinhead on a big blocky body in this combination. Not sure I'd wear it for an occasion when I wanted to feel really extraordinarily pretty, but for everyday, it's fine. I don't feel bad in it, or unattractive. Just kind of neutral, though the colors are good. This pink is very kind to my skin tone.
But the kimono!
It's a cloudy day, warm but not super warm, and I'd been thinking I needed some kind of third layer, albeit a light one. I could have reached for a cardigan or button shirt, but I thought, "Hey, why not the kimono?"
I don't know whether I'd be brave enough to wear this ensemble to Walmart (though why I care what anybody in Walmart thinks about me – who knows?). It feels maybe a little attention-getting. But my husband commented on it (favorably). It is different and fun. I love the colors together. The multiple lines – v-neck tee, vertical line of the kimono, different hemlines of shorts and kimono – mitigate against a look that's too boxy. I get a little more leg coverage than the shorts alone provide. And it's an interesting way to use a third layer to elevate an otherwise very plain outfit.
Day 4 hair in a pull-through/rolled ponytail:
The outfit and my mood called for an updo rather than loose hair, but something a little less basic and functional than a plain ponytail. This kind of do is so easy, and just feminine enough for a masculine/neutral-feeling outfit without being too over-the-top. The neutral/masculine core outfit, with the feminine kimono, and the feminine-but-restrained hair, all seems like a decent balance of elements.
Even if from behind I just look like a lady in a big bathrobe.
I would really prefer a scoop-neck tee in this color to a v-neck, but anything is better than a high-neck crew. A vee isn't my best neckline, but it's okay.
Now to work.
WEDNESDAY/MAY 19/DAY 19
High of 81F today: perfection.
Today's agenda:
*prep to host Able Muse Press Zoom poetry reading tonight
*grind out at least some of my penultimate essay for the anthology
*order groceries – we've been making it about two weeks between grocery orders, even when my orders feel kind of sketchy and unplanned. This feels like good news.
Today's outfit:
#1 navy knit sheath dress (Walmart clearance last fall; $5 impulse buy)
#16 light chambray button shirt (thrifted)
I will probably replace the button shirt with the #22 cardigan for a more polished look for the reading tonight, but I chose the dress as a basic piece to wear all day and dress up or down.
Tan fake Birks (Walmart impulse buy last year; sense a theme here? One reason I order groceries is to stay out of the store so I won't even see things I shouldn't buy)
It's warm, and the shirt's a little boxy, so here is the dress on its own:
Plain, but hey. I really don't feel like a hausfrau.
With the cardigan, which I plan to wear later for the reading:
If I were hosting a reading and introducing poets in some actual live venue, where people would see my entire body and not just my head and shoulders, then I would put on nicer shoes. But shoes aside, this strikes me as a REALLY good outfit for just such an occasion, when you don't want or need to look professional as in corporate, because come on, poets. Not that there aren't poets in the corporate world, but when we're being poets together, corporate is not what being being, except in the sense of, you know, being together in a body. At the same time, you do want to look a little more polished and together. Importantly, you want to feel that way, so you can forget about yourself and just speak or read.
A belt might be good, since it provides another line to break up the monolithic effect of the body, especially head-on. But I'm not going to bother right now, and it's not going to make a difference on a Zoom call.
As of four o'clock this afternoon, I have:
*completed my penultimate essay
*washed my hair
*ordered, received, and put away my groceries
*folded and put away laundry.
*done some fairly significant novel revision
*prepared at least somewhat for the evening's reading
Think I'll go for a walk (I'm not dead yet!).
THURSDAY/MAY 20/DAY 20
Twenty days into the May 30x30 Challenge! Ten days to go!
I haven't been participating on Instagram, but I have been following the hashtag, just to stay inspired and on track. One thing I have noticed in my following is how many people are feeling burned out and bored right now by this style challenge.
I haven't really felt that way, though there are things in my closet I keep eyeing, that aren't in the challenge, and that I look forward to wearing when it's over. It does occur to me to wonder why I don't feel more bored or burned out than I do.
Some possible reasons:
*I like everything in my challenge capsule. Some items are things I hadn't worn enough, so being pushed to wear them has been good. But there are enough items that I knew I liked and looked good in and would have worn anyway that it hasn't felt like that much of a stretch.
*There's enough color variety. Granted, I tweaked a good bit between weeks, especially at the beginning. Now that I think of it, because I did eliminate one or two items and fill my wild-card spots, I probably have gone over 30 items – to the tune of maybe 32. So, some cheating. Sorry about that. I'll try to be stricter next year, if I'm still here and doing the challenge again.
BUT the fact remains that in keeping my palette really to the core palette of my wardrobe anyway – blue, green, pink – I have given myself almost endless options. With few exceptions, everything in my 30x30 goes with everything else. At the very least, every item in the capsule goes with multiple other items, so that I can make lots of outfits, more than I could possibly wear in 30 days. It's been a stretch to make myself wear all the items, because once I put one on, I start thinking of all the things I could do with it and want to keep going with it, as in the 1x5Revive challenge I did back in Lent. So, I have color variety, but variety within colors that go with each other, which gives me so much possibility that I can't really get bored.
*Uh, I did go shopping. Always the antidote to boredom, right? Thrifting is a bonding thing I do with my daughter – though I can also justify it by noting that I have honestly needed more shorts, for example. But really, it's just fun. My daughter and I like doing it. So I did, and of course when I did, I folded what I found into my 30x30.
*I didn't restrict myself in terms of shoes and accessories. All my 30x30 items are basic clothing elements, but I have total latitude both in how I wear them together, and in what shoes and belts I wear with them. Shoes especially make a difference.
Anyway, as of today, I have worn every item but one on my existing 30x30 list. Today I'm wearing my #5 bleach-dyed blue dress, thrifted three or four years ago and damaged at some point in its journey with me when I spilled bleach on it. It hung around unworn for about a year, ruined as I thought, but somehow I couldn't part with it. Then it occurred to me that I could just – I don't know, contextualize the damage by bleach-dyeing it all over. So I did, back in Advent, wearing it with boots, tights, a belt, and my #22 cardigan.
Here it is today, in various views, more stripped down for the late-spring weather:
When I first bought and wore this dress (it originally came from Target, incidentally, though I found it at Goodwill), I was about 20 pounds lighter than I am now. One of the things I love about the dress is how forgiving and reliably flattering it is. It's just a nice, simple little shape with an Empire waist that manages not to be too baby-doll. I really loved it when it was solid blue – it was easier to dress up that way, frankly, though I often wore it casually. But I like the watercolor effect of the bleach-dyeing. The original bleach stain, on the back at the waist, still shows up – for obvious reasons it's whiter than the rest of the dyeing – but it's a lot less noticeable than it would have been otherwise.
I'm tired and slept late after last night's Zoom reading, which was a great success, though the first reader (the admirably unflappable Melissa Balmain) got Zoom-bombed by random dudes shrieking obscenities. THAT was certainly interesting. The rest of the reading proceeded without incident, but we were probably all more than usually rattled by the time we logged off.
Me reminiscing about it all. I was glad I had worn the easy blue sheath dress and long cardigan pictured yesterday – as things turned out, I was called upon to be cooler and more collected and polished than I had anticipated.
And so to work.
Goal for tomorrow (aside from finishing off my LAST ESSAY FOR THE ANTHOLOGY): wear the #17 army-green tee.
FRIDAY/MAY 21/DAY 21
Warm and sunny again today: high of 84F!
Today marks our last scheduled day of home education – ever. Children are finishing capstone essays for me, and have until the end of next week to turn them in, but this is it, the end of years and years of reading and narrating. I'm not even sure that this milestone feels bittersweet to me, because we're all just so tired. We're also a bit overwhelmed with all the incoming-freshmen paperwork, times two, of which there seems to be no end. But it is something, to have seen these two through all the years of their lives up to this point, when they are free to step into adulthood. I think that prospect is feeling a little daunting to them both, but their father and I have every faith in them. They're both competent, smart, thoughtful, grounded people, ready to claim their future, even if the past is tugging at them a little, saying, "Come back," and the now is weighing them down.
In the meantime, what to wear?
I've already noted that one unworn piece remains in my 30x30 (plus a couple of changes) wardrobe: my thrifted army-green Gap tee. Today's challenge is to pair that tee with something. With the increasingly warm weather, I've been feeling skirts and dresses, definitely not pants so much.
While I finish my coffee and ponder, let me introduce you to my current Instagram style favorite. I love her easy, linen-y, laid-back style. Even though her colors aren't all mine (see, "I don't wear black," everywhere on this blog), she makes me want all the wide-leg, high-waist linen pants and tunics, all the flow-y tiny-floral skirts . . . Her summer feel is what I'm after, and her style choices give me some vision for how I might dress my own normal human body, in a way that's lovely but always comfortable and unfussy.
OK, here's what I am wearing today:
#17 army-green tee (Gap, thrifted)
#6 blue-multi gauze maxi skirt (no idea what label, thrifted)
Blue EVA Birks (several years old – maybe as much as 4 now)
Day 3 hair in high ponytail with soft blue small scrunchie (not visible in photos).
My husband remarked that I looked "statuesque" in this skirt. I guess that depends on what your idea of a statue is, but anyway. The skirt rides pretty high on my body naturally – at this point my natural waist is more or less right under my boobs. The good news about that (and yes, there's always good news) is that a maxi skirt set high like this can make my legs look longer. I continue to wear it knotted, too, just to keep it from being too much swish and flutter.
I mean, okay, I didn't pull it ALL the way up! We're not doing an Empire waist like yesterday's dress.
This outfit hits the sweet spot that I really like my clothes to hit, regardless of the occasion, but especially for everyday wear: that I'm as comfortable as if I hadn't tried to look good, but also that I look good as if looking good didn't require any effort on my part. The best looks, it seems to me, aren't effortful. If thought goes into them behind the scenes, it shouldn't show on the surface. It should just look as though you had this right instinct and acted on it, because what else would you possibly have done?
I guess more good news is that it's possible to cultivate that kind of instinct a little, even if you weren't born with it. I certainly was not born with it and am working to cultivate it. The first step is to know and love yourself: to love your body, its shapes and colors, without criticizing it or seeing it through the lens of what you think it should be like; but also to love your soul, your personality, whatever it is, and not to feel that if only you were another kind of person altogether, then you'd be attractive and lovable.
The key to dressing yourself well, it seems to me, is to know yourself, and to feel that you are worth dressing well, as you are – both in the sense of as is, not some idealized thinner and more beautiful version of you, and in the sense of the person you actually are, not the bubblier/cuter/more extroverted you, or the slinkier/ sexier/more sophisticated you, or whatever, deep down, you believe you ought to be in order to be attractive.
I won't pretend to have mastered any of this, either the psychology or the actual getting-dressed business. But I feel significantly better on both fronts than I've ever done in my life, even though I'm older and heavier and all the things that ought to be make me feel less attractive than I was when I was sixteen, or twenty-six, or thirty-six, or forty-six. Funnily enough, I feel more attractive now than I know I felt at those ages, whether I am more attractive now or not.
And while feelings are not accurate measures of objective reality, in truth they can carry you a long way. You succeed on the momentum of your own sense of success. I'm sure there's a complex causal and circular relationship among various factors in my life, including little bits of significant success as a writer – feeling prettier and better dressed is bound up with a feeling of forward momentum in my creative and professional life (even being able to say that I have anything like a "professional life," when I'm still sitting right here at the kitchen table where I've always been . . . ). Whether that's a function of feeling that I deserve to dress and look better, because I do increasingly have this professional writer persona, or whether I just feel better at anything I put my hand to, or just what it is, I don't know. As I say, it's complex.
But it's probably not an accident that I've started this blog now, and don't feel that I have to apologize for thinking about style, or deny knowing anything about it. My old default mode would have been all about how funny and ironic it was that I, an obvious and complete and delusional loser, thought that I could talk about looking good. What an idiot! Somebody tell her! Sometimes I still think that. I'm sure that over the last couple of months since I began this blog I have had a few ha ha, get this, what is this terrible woman even on about moments. But I try not to have those. They're Desolations, and my aim is to put them away from me.
If this blog exists for me to talk about myself all the time, and indeed that's exactly what it does seem to exist for, I hope that anyone who reads it can learn some better self-talk, if she needs it. This is your permission to care about yourself, to enjoy dressing yourself, to affirm who you are in your physicality – which is not narcissistic and selfish, but is one way that you (if like me you are a Catholic or any kind of Christian) acknowledge the absolute goodness of your Author. To love and accept yourself is to praise God for making you, and to affirm His excellence in doing so.
SATURDAY/MAY 22/DAY 22
An easy day, all my essays done, one child finished with all homeschool work, another finishing.
Washed my hair: a good washday which included
*Emerge shampoo (mostly on roots and scalp, not ends)
*SheaMoisture Curl & Shine Conditioner, cut with a good bit of water, and squished into my hair with more water. Now that the weather has warmed up, and the humidity's risen with the temperatures, I can use more glycerin in my products. I also combed and detangled my hair at this stage, making sure the conditioner was giving it a lot of "slip," ie seaweed consistency.
*Rinsed very well, and went on adding water to my hair. Then, using Aussie Headstrong Volume gel, I bent over, flipped my hair upside down, brushed it out with a wet brush to remove any remaining tangles, ran more water through it, then applied gel according to this method. (Really would have been easier to do it sideways, as she does, but oh well). I put a smallish dollop of gel in my palm – larger than a pea, but not that much larger – emulsified it with more water, spread it on as if I were icing a cake, then squished it in. I repeated this four times, to go all around my head from left to right. Then I used a microfiber cloth to squeeze water out of the curl clumps and from my roots (just pressing the cloth down on the top of my head), straightened, and shook my hair back to keep it from sticking to the back of my head.
*Got dressed, went outside to read (Alice McDermott's After This), let my hair dry for a long time in the sun. Came back in once and spritzed it again with a spray bottle of water into which I'd mixed another squirt of gel – mostly to help the ends clump and form curls instead of fraying apart, and to smooth down frizz. Went out and sat in the sun some more, then came in and diffused my hair on cool for about 15 minutes, flipping my hair first one way, then the other. I mostly hovered the diffuser over my head, but also held it to my hair on top and underneath, and caught up the ends a little in the bowl of the diffuser. I didn't use the diffuser bowl to scrunch sections all the way to my head.
Anyway, all of this seems to have worked pretty well. Not a lot of products, just shampoo, conditioner, gel, water. Not a lot of effort, though I did need to make sure I had time to hang around with wet hair, and things to do while it dried. One reason why I save major hair-washing for Saturday morning, and/or move my washdays to days when I know I'm not going anywhere. Since I typically wash my hair only twice a week, this isn't a major burden. It helps that I work at home, but if I didn't, I'd probably opt to wash it the night before, twist it up to sleep so that it stayed damp, then mist it, add gel, and diffuse in the morning.
I never take good hair shots, but I won't lie: I'm happy with the outcome today.
I also don't use filters much at all, but some manipulation of the image does show up the waves better.
Some gratuitous black-and-white drama:
Today's outfit:
#10 jumpsuit
Blue EVA Birkenstocks
Nothing fancy.
I might re-wear this jumpsuit to Mass tomorrow, if I don't sweat in it too much today, or if I bother to wash it and hang it up. It's about the closest thing to red I have anymore for Pentecost. A belt, different shoes, a dressier cardigan, and I could be off to the races. We shall see . . .
A good weekend to all in the meantime.