A chilly morning of variable sun and cloud. Dora and I took a shorter walk, since we had such long ones the last two mornings, and I have lots of work to do today --- hoping to finish this copy-editing job by dinnertime if I possibly can.
So this will be a quickie*. I had made myself a rule yesterday that today I would wear this thrifted white lace-yoke blouse I've had for some years and not worn very much. I'd put it in the outbox and taken it back out again, because it is pretty, and I'm loath to get rid of it.
Here's what I came up with for an outfit, which I think isn't bad:
The white blouse over my Wool& Audrey dress with yesterday's alpaca cardigan, Snag charcoal-gray merino tights, and Tari boots.
I feel maybe a little like Beatrix Potter, but that's all right. "Eccentric Edwardian" is definitely within my aesthetic range. I prefer Audrey, among all my dresses, for tie-over looks, because the length of the skirt gives a good 1/3:2/3 proportion. I could also have left the top loose and belted it for waist definition --- knotting it was easier, but that would have been another workable option.
Aaaaannnnnddddd . . . I dunno. There are reasons why I haven't worn this blouse. The most obvious is that it's white and I'm the kind of person who spills and splatters things, or gets jumped on by a dog. White clothes don't hold up for me very well.
But then there's the question of which white --- assuming I want to wear white at all --- is the right white. Of all the colors I could potentially wear, white is the hardest to get right. Nat Tucker's rule is that you match the white of your eye. Some of us have bright-white eye whites, and some of us have more ivory eye-whites. My problem is that I honestly can't tell. This is why I could never be a color or style coach. I can't tell whether the white I'm wearing matches my eye white or not. Maybe if I could take out my eye and lay it on the clothing item in question I could see whether it matches or not, but to look from my shirt, in a photograph, to my eyes, is to lose sense of which white is which, and whether they're the same or not (maybe this is related to my total inability to see "warm" and "cool" in colors . . . ).
But here:
This is my standard morning-light color check. I'm making a conscious effort not to look dreary or depressed, which I don't feel in any case. What I mean is, I'm trying to take the best possible picture and not sabotage myself by my expression, my posture, all my body language. And while this isn't a bad photo at all, I think I look kind of pale. My eyes don't look that bright. Actually, this photo looks better on my laptop screen than it did on my phone, but still . . . is the white too bright? I sort of feel that it is. I feel that maybe my eye-whites are a little creamier, and this is a real icy bright wintry white, that would look good on somebody with higher-contrast coloring. Even with this aqua blue, which is a great color for me, the white is doing something less wonderful.
So maybe --- although I hadn't realized analyzed it until now --- this is why I don't wear this shirt this often. When I wear it, I don't feel 100%. I'm not going to do anything hasty, and I think I'll keep this outfit on all day, now that it is on, but I am going to consider looking for another shirt in a creamier white, perhaps in real life where I can compare colors. I might keep this one to take with me to hold against other shirts. The good thing about Goodwill, although it's dangerous for me to set foot in that place, is that there's always a big rack of white blouses, and always at least one really nice one in linen, which would be my desire.
But I'm not going to do that today. Today I'm not going to worry about any of that any more. Dora and I have had our walk in the fresh air. Here, in fact, am I in the fresh air with my blue scarf on, which does do good things for my skin tone:
It's really not a fair comparison, because the light's different, and I'd been walking, and anyway, I don't know that this is any better a photograph of me, but I do think my skin has a little more color here than in the morning-light-by-window shot.
Enough navel-gazing about all that for now. Time to leap into the day's work. I'd like a style rule for tomorrow, but I can't think of one right now, other than dress up a little, because it's my husband's birthday, and we're going to Black Mountain with the kids to have dinner in the German restaurant there. I have his birthday presents all acounted for, though not wrapped yet. Anyway, whatever I wear tomorrow will be something I can wear from day into evening, with or without some date-night tweaks, depending on how it starts out.
A good Wednesday to all.
LATER:
I have not finished the copy-editing job, but tomorrow is another day. Also, I looked up the German restaurant to see if we needed reservations, and they close at 8. My husband doesn't get out of class (35 minutes from here) until 5:30. SO . . . we're going to try a new little restaurant in town, which is actually better, since people are packing for four months in Europe, and we have to leave the house early to get them on the plane. We might just extent birthdaytide a few more days and go this weekend, when it's just the two of us again.
*Reader, it wasn't that quick.