Here's one of my volunteer mulberry trees, which I let grow all season, once I realized what they were. The one at the back of my Mary garden is fairly huge by now. I am hoping, hoping, hoping that at least some of these are female trees and will give me actual berries --- not sure how many years they have to grow before they bear, which is something else to remember to research.
Yesterday we had a lovely long walk along the South Fork River in the late sunshine: a perfect October day. I remembered to bring my phone (though not to take any photos, since I was busy wrangling an overeager Dora), with my new step-counter app. I'd already walked about 2500 steps that morning, just around the neighborhood on our pre-church round, but wound up walking a total of something like 13,000 steps, inclusive of that walk, which is about 3.5 miles.
I'd like to be walking a total of 5 miles a day, though most days I'm managing 2-3 --- not bad, and about all I have time for in terms of actual walks, but I'm trying to move myself to a higher level of daily activity. I've also been logging calories consumed, which is revelatory. Many days I struggle to eat enough calories, though there are days when I have to watch it, especially if the day includes beer. Probably too many of our days include beer, at least by American standards, though we don't drink that much at a time. It's just the kind of thing we both find ourselves fudging when we go to the doctor. By European standards we're just normal, if not kind of abstemious, but by American standards we ought to be in liver failure (we're not, and I don't think we're remotely in danger of such, but boy, do we both find ourselves rounding those numbers down when we fill out paperwork . . .).
Anyway, what with the purposeful daily activity and watching my calories, I'm down a few pounds since the start of the month, which is nice. I don't really need to lose much weight, but my body has traditionally been more comfortable in the 130s than the 150s, and I'd like to get closer to that range. In my 20s and 30s, and even into my 40s a little bit, my normal weight was 125, which I really don't need to see again, but 135 sure is nice if I can get it. My husband has lost upwards of 20 pounds in the last three months, simply by calorie counting --- among other things, he realized that if he snacked on an entire bag of nuts, which disappear down the gullet so easily, he was consuming something like two days' caloric allotment, so now we live on 30-calorie wasa crisps instead. He's started lifting again, too, something he couldn't do for a while because of chronic inflammation. The other day he had to go out and hit the Good Neighbor shop for some new, smaller jeans, because the old dad jeans were falling off him (what Dave Barry used to call "Dockers . . . for the bigger-butted man").
I don't know that I'm going to drop 20 pounds as readily as my husband has, but 10 would be nice. Just moving the scale down instead of up is nice, to be honest. I don't really want to lose that much weight, because I don't want to have to buy all new clothes, but again, a little less belly fat, a little slimmer line: all that would be nice. And just being active, and able to continue being active. Again, nice.
Speaking of which, I have to go walk the dog, who is complaining from her crate.
Wearing today:
It's going to be in the high 70s today, and already the temps are rising. Wearing my gray Sierra, thrifted marble-pattern bamboo leggings (which I like better with Sierra, really, than with just about anything else), thrifted alpaca cardigan, and --- in a bold move, because this morning my feet will probably be cold --- EVA Birks.
I guess if I really don't want my feet to be that exposed, I could wear my Madeiras, but so far: eh. Not changing.
In this dry, bright weather, my hair is really straight, especially after (let's see . . . 12345) FIVE days since my last wash. It still feels plenty clean, which is good --- if I could get through the winter on one hair wash a week, I'd be happy. But not much curl. I'm opting to wear it down for now, because even when it doesn't have a lot of natural oomph, the layers fall nicely. I have liked this cut a lot, my standard for at least a year now: V-shaped perimeter, blended long layers. I ask for that at cheapo Great Clips, and I get a decent, long-lasting, versatile haircut that looks like something even when I don't do anything.
Anyway, after a lot of wear for my Maggie dress this past week, I thought I'd give her a rest today.
Still thinking that I could truly, realistically do an all-wool 2023. Or at least a wool-every-day 2023, which is different: not that every item on my body every day would be wool, but that every day I'd be wearing at least one wool item. Other than the bamboo dress I wore a week ago Friday, I have worn wool dresses daily without even thinking about it. They are what I reach for. If I diversified my wardrobe just a little more --- 2 winter dresses, maybe another 1-2 for spring and summer, but that would feel really decadent after almost a whole year in which I bought ONE dress --- it would be easy.
I think I've made a decision about my birthday dress, and it's not what I've been talking about. That is, if I buy two at a time, one of them will be something I've been talking about, but the other won't be. Waiting to get paid so that I can actually make at least one of these purchases soon, because my birthday is coming up, and I'd love to have a new dress for the reading I'm giving that day (if not, it'll be Maggie with my green blazer, which I'll wear at some point that weekend in any case, but a new dress to start my new year would be fun . . . if I ever get paid, which is its own topic of conversation and the one complaint I have about my job, but oh well . . .).
In the meantime, the dog is waiting to be walked, with varying degrees of patience, depending on what minute it is.
UPDATE:
Very nice walk, and my feet did not get cold. I imagine I'll be losing the cardigan next time I go outside. Sleeveless in late October feels weird, but it is what it is. At least the leggings keep me from feeling too summery.
It's amazing how much better I like these leggings with this dress than with any of my others. I think the lower contrast just works for me. I do like the leggings, which are an organic bamboo/cotton blend, very soft, comfortable, and breathable, but wearing them with blues and burgundies, as I mostly have, just has never felt quite on point. With the gray, plus a pair of blue shoes: perfect.
I'm also considering just how long it's been since I last wore trousers. I've kept one pair of old denim jeans, plus one pair of nice blue twill wider-leg jeans (dressier non-denim jean-style pants, basically), but will I wear them? I'm just not sure I ever will. I did outbox several pairs of trousers this last go-round, including a pair of ponte-knit charcoal skinny jeans that I did kind of like --- but they're solidly polyester, and based on my comfort levels with synthetic leggings, lately, I thought they could go. I'd worn them for at least eight years, which seemed like good innings. The rise was lower than I liked, too, always a little niggling discomfort when I wore them, and I decided that I could do without that. It remains to be seen whether my last two pairs of trousers do any work for me at all in the coming year . . . more and more I tend to doubt it, but I'm not ready to let them go yet.
It has been great to condense my closet dramatically over the last few months. I wound up rescuing one item out of the outbox before I sent it all away: this duck-egg-blue cotton shirt. It needs ironing, which was one of the compelling arguments for outboxing it. If I haven't worn it in months, that's the #1 reason why. But it's a beautiful shirt, in a beautiful color, and when it is ironed, I do like wearing it. I thought I ought to give it another chance. If I haven't ironed it by this time next year, out it goes.
LATER:
I've been cleaning my closet, in fact. My hanging wardrobe has been winnowed down a LOT, and my shoes are tidy, but the top shelf had been the repository for a lot of junk. Today I cleaned it all out, then emptied the sweater drawer in my dresser and moved the sweaters to the closet, so that I can see better what I have. Also, my dresser is kind of falling apart, so if I don't have to open and close drawers every day, that's a win. I sorted the stuff that had been on the closet shelf, stored what was worth storing in my former sweater drawer, then pitched or recycled the rest.
Go me. Not a bad occupation for a Monday afternoon, not at all.
I might yet outbox that blue mother-of-the-bride dress. I had bought two on clearance, five years ago when I was the mother of the bride, and wore the other one. I've kept both of them, because you never know when you're going to need something glitzy (I mean, I'm still waiting, but you never know), and the dress you have is better than the dress you have to rush out and buy. But I think I'm truly not going to wear that blue one, ever.
Anyway, I'm pleased with how condensed and cohesive my wardrobe is at this point. I want to add to it, but judiciously (my favorite word), and with this palette firmly in mind.
UPDATE 2:
I've just realized that today is the 1-year anniversary of the 100th day of my 100-day dress challenge! I have nothing really profound to say about that, other that that wow, time flies. Also, I like what I'm wearing today a lot more than I liked what I was wearing a year ago. For that matter, I like my Camellia today better than I liked her a year ago, mostly because I've dyed her a different, darker shade of blue.
This whole process --- and it continues, daily, to be a process --- has been so clarifying over the last year. I feel that I have a far better and more accurate vision of both how I look and how I want to look. More and more, even when I'm just schlumping around at home, I like what I'm wearing and how I look in it. I'm comfortable, I'm not dressed up in some counter-intuitive way --- but I like how I look. This is really . . . something . . . let me tell you. All my life, I felt I had no control over whether I looked good or not. What it's done for me to gain some level of control and understanding: I really can't adequately express how powerful that has been, or how much more confident and on top of my game I feel, day after day, because of it.