I'm not sure what these flowers are --- some daffodil variant, to judge by the fronds. They aren't snowdrops, though the blossoms look more like snowdrops than anything else. They've always been here, one little patch of them in the border along the driveway, and they come up at this time of year and then are gone. Here's a bunch of them in the little arty daughter's vase on the kitchen table, to light your Monday morning and mine.
Wearing today:
Fiona, last worn ten days ago, I believe. I think that instead of a "top outfits" for February, I'll just tally up which dress was my most-worn, and work down, with a representative outfit for each. I know I've worn them all --- and with great pleasure in the variety and all the possibilities each dress gives me for clothing myself, day to day.
Anyway, today. Fiona with old purple synthetic crop leggings, last worn on Saturday, I think. Although they are synthetics, I can usually get a few wears out of them before they need a wash, especially if I don't wear them days on end. A wear, then a day or so, at least, to air, then another wear: it works, and I don't have to run more loads of laundry or release more microplastics into the water supply, which truly is the argument against these leggings. I could really use some vodka spray on them in strategic places, and keep them going for longer, again with airings. It ain't ideal, but as long as I have them, I will wear them, and I will have them until they wear out. So I just find a way to deal.
Finally, thrifted Birkenstock Balis. It's already in the mid-50s out, warmer than yesterday at this time --- in fact, it's already as warm as it got yesterday. I'll probably want a jacket when I walk the dog, but on the whole I think the weather's going to be more pleasant today, with a springtimey high of 67F, if we get there. It was supposed to be that warm yesterday, then it wasn't.
Anyway, it's fun to wear Fiona, who brings her different shape to the mix.
As much as I love A-line and swing dresses, I also like to have a waist sometimes.
Finishing off my MFA reader's notes to send, planning to spend some time with the Able Muse slushpile (assuming there's anything to do), reading, picking away at bob-and-wheel stanzas.
Reading to date:
Novels
Offshore, Penelope Fitzgerald
Aiding and Abetting, Muriel Spark
PLUS
Hard Times
Nicholas Nickleby
Our Mutual Friend
Dombey and Son
Martin Chuzzlewit (currently reading),
all Mr. Dickens, of course.
Nonfiction
Understanding Poetry, Brooks and Warren (I did peg away in that some last week and over the weekend)
Poetry
Various, as always. Last week, among other things, I wrote on Raymond Holden, for example, a lovely poem called "Sugaring," which called to mind Robert Frost, for reasons: Holden was not only Frost's neighbor in Franconia, NH, from 1915 to 1920, but was the buyer who wound up with all Frost's land when the latter poet moved to Vermont in 1920. So when Holden is writing about snowy woods, they aren't just Frostian snowy woods --- they are literally Frost's own woods, like the exact same trees, the exact same ground.
Bible and Spiritual Reading
Deuteronomy (I think I'm about at the end of it), Psalms in the 70s, the end of Mark's Gospel and the beginning of Luke, plus the seemingly endless Book 3 of The Imitation of Christ. I'm somewhat behind in all this reading, but I do keep plugging forward, picking up where I left off and trying to meditate on it all as I go.
AND now it's dog-walk time.