Trees in fog along the roadside near Valle Crucis, NC, taken through the front windshield as we drove yesterday afternoon. The day down here looks very much like this at the moment, though it's set to be warmer, with a high of 60F. Looks like we have three days of rain ahead of us with decreasing temperatures as we roll out of January and into February.
Here's the Monday update for my year's reading so far:
Novels
Offshore, Penelope Fitzgerald
Aiding and Abetting, Muriel Spark
Hard Times, Charles Dickens
Nicholas Nickleby, Charles Dickens
Aiding and Abetting, Muriel Spark
Hard Times, Charles Dickens
Nicholas Nickleby, Charles Dickens
I need a new novel to begin. At the risk of being on a real Dickens roll (as I was on a Trollope roll a couple of years ago), I think I might read Our Mutual Friend.
Short Stories
Still in George Singleton, by which I mean I haven't finished the book but haven't picked it up again in the last week.
Nonfiction
The Reaper Essays, Mark Jarman & Robert McDowell
ongoing:
Understanding Poetry, 4th Ed., Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren
The Making of Poetry, Adam Nicolson
Poetry
Various. Reading back and forth between Janet Lewis and Ruth Pitter, but also need to immerse myself in a new round of poems for the Sun.
Bible & Devotional Reading
Numbers, Psalms in the 50s, Mark's Gospel, Imitation of Christ, Book 3.
Other things I need to do today:
*Ship my first Poshmark sale (the blue linen skirt that didn't fit me)!
*Maybe reconsider the prices on other items I've posted for sale
*Add more outbox items for sale on Poshmark.
*Read the Able Muse slushpile, which I neglected all last week
*Write/revise something of my own.
Not necessarily in this order, but that's the agenda. Also walking the dog.
My new dress (!!!!!) is supposed to come today, so I'm re-wearing Sierra right now for the third day running, just because I figure I'm going to be changing once Willow arrives (which I HOPE will not be late tonight!).
It's been a minute since I last wore this thrifted Athleta cardigan, so I thought I'd take it for a spin today, while the weather's mild. For literal years I've labored under the delusion that this cardigan was cotton --- in fact it's mostly modal. But it's soft and comfortable in many weathers, and I still like it. It is starting to pill a good bit, but I don't think that that's too noticeable, just enough to make it probably not a good candidate for resale or donation. Since I like it, I might as well wear it until it really does fall apart.
My other outfit components: old cotton leggings in navy, plus thrifted Birkenstock Madeiras. I do love these shoes. They run well over a hundred dollars new, and I got them for something like $40 on Ebay two summers ago. They were in good, though not pristine, condition when I got them, and they're more distressed now than they were then, but I still love them. They're comfortable, great for walking, and fun-looking in a nerdy way.
Here's one of my little personal style rules, though it probably didn't originate with me:
When wearing leggings with a dress and "low shoes," i.e. not boots, the hemline of your leggings should allow some space between the top of your shoe and the bottom of the leggings. In other words, don't wear leggings that end right at your foot.
I think I saw some counsel to this effect regarding wearing sneakers with skinny jeans: don't wear your jeans unrolled right to the top of your sneakers. But I think it applies to leggings as well. Why? Because --- and I can't explain all the reasoning, really, like why this is effective --- leaving some visible ankle between your leggings and your shoes creates a more elongated effect, whereas having your leggings cut off right above your shoes, at the bottom of your ankles, makes you look like you don't have ankles. It's a stumpy look whose overall effect is to make you look shorter-legged than you are (whether you do or don't have short legs). Really tall, thin, long-legged women can get away with this more than those of us who are shorter and not so thin, but honestly, some ankle space between leggings and shoes is a more graceful look for any body type. So say I, at any rate, who am of the shorter and less-willowy persuasion.
The import of all this is that if women are feeling that they don't, somehow, like the look of their dress/leggings ensemble, that's one possible reason why it feels off. My personal rule is either to wear footed tights with low shoes, OR to wear leggings that are either cropped or folded up a notch or two, so that my ankles show. This isn't great for really cold weather --- that's why, in really cold weather, I'm wearing tights or boots or both, so that my ankles are covered and I'm warmer. But in transitional weather, when it's too cool for bare legs, but warm enough not to need total coverage, this is a go-to for me. I think it's even better with open-toed sandals than with closed-toed shoes, but I'd make this move with flats, for example. I would not wear leggings all the way down over my ankles with a pair of flats, but would make sure I had some ankle showing, to give my leg more shape and definition, which my aging legs can certainly do with.
So this is simple and pretty tonal, but I'm comfortable and don't feel especially frumpy. Mind you, feelings are not an accurate measure of reality. I might look frumpy to someone else. But if I don't feel frumpy, then I'm going to act like a confident person, not a self-conscious one. What other people think of my style choices matters a lot less than how those choices make me feel, because what I feel is what I project. I might wind up actually communicating to other people that I look better than they might otherwise have thought, because I feel good.
*****ETA: I ran into a friend yesterday who looked really good, and I told her so. She has been losing some weight and moving out of the "morbidly obese" category, which is good for her health. Thus far, the difference doesn't necessarily show in terms of "Wow, X looks thinner." But it DOES show in terms of "X is feeling better about herself than she has felt in a long time." She was happy and laughing and glowing, and that elevated everything about her. Her actual outfit was a t-shirt with a sweepy long denim skirt, nothing fancy, but it looked good because she looked like she was feeling good. So I think this is not all in my head.
*****ETA: I ran into a friend yesterday who looked really good, and I told her so. She has been losing some weight and moving out of the "morbidly obese" category, which is good for her health. Thus far, the difference doesn't necessarily show in terms of "Wow, X looks thinner." But it DOES show in terms of "X is feeling better about herself than she has felt in a long time." She was happy and laughing and glowing, and that elevated everything about her. Her actual outfit was a t-shirt with a sweepy long denim skirt, nothing fancy, but it looked good because she looked like she was feeling good. So I think this is not all in my head.
Of course, when I told her I thought she looked really pretty, she was anxious to know that this meant that she looked thinner. I said, well, that I knew she'd lost the weight, because she had told me. And yes, I thought it probably made a difference, that yes, the effort she was making to eat well and exercise was already paying off. She needed to hear that, and it was true. BUT I said that what really showed was less definable, that it was just more that she was pretty and glowing and projected confidence --- that it wasn't the weight, like oh, that weight made you ugly and now you have less of it, so you're less ugly. That's the way her own thought processes work. But she did really look pretty, in a scenario where pretty doesn't mean noticeably thinner and therefore better than before. It was something a lot harder to pin down and explain, but it was definitely there. *********
Also, my husband really wanted to buy me something while we were out yesterday. While he was examining knives in the Mast General Store (not for me, just for general interest), the lady in the shoe room said to me, "Do you want to know where the earrings are?" She directed me next door, to a local-crafts shop that's kind of paired with the Mast Store, but sells all handmade goods from the area, mostly pottery and jewelry. So I came away with these lovelies, which I'm currently wearing and pray I don't lose:
Well, Dora is singing the song of loneliness in her crate, so I guess I'd better brush my teeth and go ramble with her.
LATER: I did find a good Ebay deal on some Birk hiking boots in my size. They retail for $220 new, and I am paying . . . a LOT less than that. These are gently used, which I hope means "broken in some." Anyway, I read some reviews of these boots and decided to go for it. My great hope is that they will be to me what my old Vasque boots have been for so long, minus the foot pain in recent years. I have been considering for a long time (like two years) buying non-leather boots that were more expensive than this pair I've just bought, and talking myself out of it.
So now I'm excited to have some good leather hiking boots again that are kinder to my feet in their current condition. Hiking season will be upon us soon --- I was thinking about that yesterday as we were out driving around. It was just as well that it was raining, because I didn't really have anything good to wear on my feet, other than my Tari boots, which I was wearing. Now, I wear my Taris almost daily (a purchase I am VERY glad I made) in all kinds of weather, but I didn't want to go squelching through wet trail conditions in them. These are my dress-up boots as well as my everyday-dog-walk boots, after all.
It'll be great to have one more pair of water-repellant leather boots (the Taris have turned out to be pretty good at this, better than I had anticipated, though I have oiled them a couple of times), as well as boots with a heavier, deeper tread for wet or icy conditions. It'll be nice to have some boots I can wear to spare my Taris a little in wet or otherwise bad weather. The Taris have taken on a fairly "distressed" look already, which I don't mind, but I don't want to trash them. They're what I wear to church most weeks, and out to dinner, and things like that. So a pair of really good utility boots for the trail and other outdoor pursuits and tasks will be welcome. I wore my Vasque boots so much over the years, until they started to become uncomfortable . . .
Anyway. I've had pretty good luck with used Birks via Ebay so far. My Birk Floridas are pretty ratty, but I knew that. They cost $10, so I was not expecting much. I have reglued the sole, and they'll be wearable through another summer for knocking around, so that's all good. And then there are these Madeiras, which I'm so happy to have. I think they might technically be men's shoes, but it's hard to say. Birks tend to be pretty unisex. I just love fisherman's sandals and couldn't resist a pair of Birk fisherman's sandals. I got these in the summer of 2021, and I have worn them a lot. They too look a bit distressed, but I can oil and polish them up, and in terms of construction, they have years and miles to go. They were absolutely one of the best $40 purchases I've ever made.
So I'm feeling pretty confident about these boots, that they'll be good value for money and that I will wear them over many years.
Officially time to retire the Vasques. I'll never get rid of them. I might have to get them bronzed. But I have had to come to terms with the fact that I cannot wear them for hiking anymore. Now they can repose in peace at the back of my closet. Maybe my youngest daughter, who is my only child with feet smaller than mine, can wear them with a lot of socks . . .
Having said all that, here on this penultimate day of January, I'm going to institute a clothing no-buy for February. This romp through the online stores has been great, and it's filled in a lot of gaps in some useful ways, but ENOUGH FUN. I was thinking that I'd do a Lenten no-buy, but I might as well just start one in February and re-evaluate when I get to March. At this point I've checked off every box I had intended to check off in terms of clothing, and we're dangerously close to the undertow of Just One More Thing. Like when I start thinking, "Oh, I'd love to have some Birk Mayaris," forgetting that I have bought what I intend to be my summer sandals, and that I have some perfectly functional Birkenstock sandals (Floridas, EVA Arizonas, both of which I wear all the time in the summer).
So this has been fun, but enough is enough.
LATER STILL:
It's turned into an incredibly nice day, sunny and mild. Dora and I have been outside at intervals --- we walked to the post office to mail my Poshmark sale (getting attacked by a rogue off-leash West Highland White terrier on the way, but making the acquaintance of his master, who was abjectly apologetic and didn't seem to consider that Dora could have made a meal of his dog), and just now, out in the backyard, where Dora was basking on her tether and making remarks to Steve over the fence, while I planted some lettuce and other early seeds with my fingers crossed. I do have one stalk of Brussels sprouts going . . . they're tiny, and I hope they mature to edible size before the weather heats up. Really you should plant them in the fall and harvest them in the winter, but they didn't DO very well in the fall. So I have planted some more seeds, just to see. I tend to have better luck with early-spring plantings, even when I just bang them right in the soil outside. but . . . time will tell, I guess.
Dress still has not come. I am being patient, yes I am.
Meanwhile, my husband's replacement Wool&Prince button-down shirt has shipped! I was a little afraid the label would have expired, because it took us so long to get our return in the mail, but hooray! This was his Christmas present, and I'm dying for him to be wearing it, almost as much as I'm dying to wear things of my own.
EVEN LATER:
We've had dinner. Still no dress. Tracking says it's "in transit to the next facility," yet they're still showing it as arriving by 9 p.m. today. O me of little faith, but I do not see how this is going to happen, and oh well. Too bad I don't have any other dresses to wear or anything while I wait.