FRIDAY + SATURDAY, ORDINARY TIME 16/NO-BUY 2022 DAYS 203-204/JULY 4/3 CHALLENGE


 

I missed posting yesterday, because I was busy hiking to Hawksbill Peak, in the Linnville Gorge Wilderness. It was a gorgeous day, though a little hot --- I really felt the heat coming up the steep, rocky trail. 

I was wearing my trusty Camellia dress, my best hiking apparel from last summer and fall (shown here pre-hike): 



I opted to hike in my Xero Colorado sandals, too, rather than boots, and am glad I gave them a whirl on a challenging trail. My feet felt light and stayed cool, while the minimalist soles gave me both good traction and a good sense of the ground I was going over, without making my feel feel too exposed or battered on the rocks. 

Here are some shots from the trail, mostly starring Dora, who was a trooper: 
















Here's my husband in his merino tee, which I gave him for either Christmas or his birthday last winter. This was his first hiking outing in merino, and he was very pleased with how the shirt performed. He did sweat a lot and was soaked when we came off the trail, but it dried quickly, without odor. I forget what brand this particular shirt is ---- Icebreaker, I think (UPDATE: Yes, Icebreaker. He's worn it a lot without having to wash it, but I did hand-wash it with some other things of mine today, so I checked). Anyway, he's quickly becoming a convert and is wearing a green Smartwool tee today. 




Dora at trail's end: 





Camellia of course performed like a champ. It was a fairly sultry day for the mountains, especially under the trees where the air was still, but I was as cool in merino as I would have been in anything else. The loose swing dress gave me plenty of air circulation as well as freedom of movement. I was wearing a pair of modal bike-short underwear underneath, plus a bamboo bra, all of which did get sweaty but dried, like wool, without odor. 

As we generally do after hiking, we drove up the Blue Ridge Parkway to Blowing Rock. With Dora asleep in her crate, in the car parked in a dark parking garage so that she stayed cool, we walked around town and had dinner and beer at the Ale House before coming home. 

Today I'm pretty tired and sore --- even though I walk at least three miles daily with Dora, and often five, I'm keenly aware that the miles I walk are horizontal miles, not vertical ones. I also had a headache all last night and feel kind of off today, which makes me glad that my free government Covid tests have come in the mail. I don't think I'm really sick, but I might take one anyway, just to be sure. Dora's still asleep, but my plan is to let her scatter-feed in the yard, rather than walking, since I imagine she's still tired, too. And I have work to do that I've put off for several days, but must get done before the end of the weekend. 

Wearing today, in my July 4/3 Challenge, a real departure from my normal mode: 



I don't normally wear a t-shirt and shorts. In fact, I've had all kinds of good reasons why I don't wear a t-shirt with these shorts. But I thought it would be good a) to have a non-default day, since I wore a swing dress yesterday, and b) to wear a merino tee, since there they are. 

This may not be the most successful outfit I've ever made, but I like it more than I was afraid I would. I like the colors, pink with green with blue on my feet. Although the tee is basic, as are the shorts, the scoop neck is graceful and feminine, and the feel is kind of flowy, which mitigates against the tailored stiffness of the shorts. I tucked my shirt in and wore a belt, so that I'd have a waist. 



I think it's okay. It's really, really different from my usual comfort zone of a short-but-flowy dress, and different from my usual mode with these shorts, which is to wear some kind of very funky, feminine top rather than a tee. Maybe a little basic. Maybe a little "nothing." But I'm so tired I don't really care. In any event, it'll be interesting to see how it all feels when my hair dries --- this might be a good outfit for hair that's loose and a little "extra." 

Tee and shorts both thrifted/secondhand. My husband's merino tee was also a secondhand find. 

Anyway, it was wonderful to be in the mountains yesterday, and it's good to be home and quiet today. 

LATER: 

Done my Sun essays. 

Hair still not dry, hours later (I washed it at 8:30 this morning, and it's still damp at almost 4 p.m.), but adding gel today does seem to have helped the frizz/possible breakage situation from the other day. I think that was just wet frizz, and I think it was a function of not adding gel --- like it's what my hair just does, if I don't use a styler. In the end the finished hair will probably look more or less the same, but I like how much the gel smooths things down, even if I do have to break the cast it creates. 







Still some flyaways, and my ends still really need a trim, but I'm a lot happier with this outcome overall. 

Nursing my mortification over a major formatting issue in the anthology that both my co-editor and I managed to miss in multiple proofreadings, and that was pointed out to our publisher (nicely, but still) by the poet whose poem it was. I really want to crawl under a rock right now, but I think I'll obsess over my hair instead. 

ALSO: 

While I'm thinking about anything, anything, but what I just described . . . I'll also obsess about what I'm wearing. It is an okay outfit, as stay-at-home-Saturday outfits go. Not QUITE a "nothing," though pretty close. Part of what drags it down is the straight line across the waist, where the shirt is tucked in, which was kind of inevitable. This shirt really won't do a French tuck, just in front. It doesn't blouse out enough for that And it didn't feel right left untucked. So: what I have going on is NOT the "Rule of Three" that makes an outfit work. I'm divided in half, not into 2/3 and 1/3. 

Theoretically, because I'm not really changing clothes or putting on more layers, I might fix it by adding a third layer on top: a long cardigan, for example, or even a jacket, anything to break up the midsection horizontal line. 

Something like this, for example, though I dunno about the actual cardigan: 



It's been in and out of the outbox, because while I want to love it, and the length and color are exactly what I was in the market for, it's just . . . 



Big. Like extra-large big. I know it's a duster-length cardigan, kind of a semi-coat, but still, it swallows me. It feels bathrobe-like. I don't know if I'm just imagining all that, but it is how I feel when I put it on. 

BUT this general idea would save this outfit. It would also add a light, so that I'd have light-dark-color-pattern all going on. And it does break up the midsection line which is making the ensemble really not a successful outfit. It would turn what's perilously close to being a "nothing" outfit into something. 

I really want to like this cardigan, because in so many ways it's great: perfect color, good length, something I really did not have until I acquired it. Since I have it, I'm loath to replace it, which may just be the sunk-cost fallacy talking. There's probably a sustainability fallacy at work, too, which says that once you have something, you MUST keep it and make it work because otherwise you're being wasteful and ruining the planet for everybody else.