An Eastern Bluebird, oil pastel by my dad, which hangs over our bed. I've been seeing bluebirds while out walking with Dora along the greenway, in the last few weeks. You don't really know what they are until they fly away, and the sun strikes them, flashes of sudden blue illuminating and making extraordinary what you thought were just nondescript little birds.
Another week with lots on, in terms of work. I'm just about finished with the poetry manuscript I was sent to copy-edit late last week, but still have lots of fiction left to read and comment on. Still sifting my hermit poems before sending in my own poetry manuscript. My husband proposes to grill steaks for Valentine's Day, so we'll have a nice night in --- I need to hunt down some good chocolate for him. Thursday night: last pub night before Lent.
Insanely, the weather is warm again. I'm not sure how that's even possible, to bounce back from 29F last night to the mid-60s today, but apparently that's what's happening. Not, mind you, that I am complaining. I love it. I want all the springtime. But it is weird to go from freezing, which it is right now, to almost 70 degrees, which apparently will happen sometime today.
Reading in 2023
Novels
Offshore, Penelope Fitzgerald
Aiding and Abetting, Muriel Spark
Hard Times, Charles Dickens
Nicholas Nickleby, Charles Dickens
Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens
currently reading Dombey and Son, also Dickens
Novels are really dominating my reading. Technically I'm still reading The Making of Poetry, but haven't picked it up in ages. Technically reading Understanding Poetry, but read maybe a page or so last week. Technically still reading George Singleton's short stories, and talked about them the other night with the son who gave me the book, but ditto.
I am still pegging away at my Bible-in-a-year. Leviticus was short; Numbers is interminable. Almost to Psalm 70. In the thick of Mark's Gospel. Still in Book 3 of The Imitation of Christ. I've missed a day here and there, and am, I think, two days behind, but as long as I keep moving forward, picking up where I left off, I'll get where I'm going by Advent, which was my plan to begin with.
Reading poems, of course, in all their variety. I really need to pick Janet Lewis back up. I shelved her on my dressertop, which is always a mistake. When I tidy things away, I forget about them.
As Lent looms, I begin to experience my yearly sense of plunging into a tunnel. I don't know why I always feel this way, because it's never actually that painful. Still, on the front end, it feels like descending into a subterranean passage, where I'll walk for six weeks without seeing light. We have little austerities and fasts planned, enough to pinch without outright hurting. I need to cultivate some writing discipline, because Lent has historically been a productive season for me that way. I'm a little tired of sonnets, but nothing else works as well, to bang out daily. Maybe I should just challenge myself to write forty lines a day, although forty lines is a lot. And what kind of lines? Eight bob-and-wheel stanzas would make forty, and that's not that hard, but would I get tired of bob-and-wheel stanzas? I suspect I might.
Of course I'll wear purple. That's not my real discipline, because you can't make much of an actual Lenten penance to other people, but it is a thing I do to mark the season. I've decided not to do a dress challenge, but simply to continue my yearly practice as I always do: something purple every day. Of course it helps to have an actual purple dress. Last year I had a purple bamboo swing dress and a Pact cotton sheath dress, neither of which looked all that great on me --- but I did kind of miss having a whole purple dress in Advent.
Now I have:
*my Willow dress in wisteria
*my thrifted plum merino blazer cardigan
*my old thrifted cotton plum cardigan
*my REALLY old purple polarfleece (secondhand buy, one of my few remaining synthetics, still useful though I don't wear it often)
*purple leggings
*various purple scarves
*purple Xero Oswego shoes
These comprise enough of a basic capsule to work with, in combination with everything else. I have all the possible seasonal weathers covered, too, from freezing cold to spring warmth. All my dresses will work with purple accessories. See why it's not really a penance? It's way too easy. But it's still a daily reminder for me of the season, a daily trigger for walking in the way of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. And I'll get plenty tired of it by the end of the season.
One reason why I don't want to do a dress challenge in my new Willow dress is that if I did that, I wouldn't want to wear it again after Easter. It's too nice and too expensive a dress for me to burn out on. Meanwhile, I keep going back and forth about the possibility of buying yet another dress for Easter. I dunno. It's very tempting. I love having a new spring dress for Easter, though I don't buy one every year. A lot depends, I guess, on how much I get paid this spring, and when. I don't want to dig into our household funds for my clothes. AND I really want some prescription sunglasses/transition glasses, which I've priced at just over a hundred dollars. This is not bad for the kind of glasses I want --- it's actually a fantastic price. But much will depend on how many hundreds of dollars I wind up with, to spend on things like this.
ETA: Once again, there is NOTHING ON THIS EARTH like setting yourself a no-buy challenge to make you think obsessively, intrusively, all the time, about buying the things you've said you're not buying. At least, if you're me, there's nothing like it. I'm either buying stuff, or I'm thinking about buying stuff. There seems to be no other setting.
ALSO ETA: I hope it goes without saying, to anyone who has read this blog at all, that I'm NOT talking about fast-fashion purchases. I'm not really even talking about secondhand purchases, although I do periodically scan Poshmark for a Not Perfect Linen piece I can't live without (haven't found that piece yet). But my challenge this year is to wear wool every day: not necessarily Wool&, though I love these dresses and they're easy, but some wool item daily. So while I'm glad I have linen skirts, for example, and a linen shirt, I'm not really prioritizing fibers other than wool (which I would extend to include secondhand cashmere, alpaca, and other wools, not just merino). Anyway, when I talk about buying, I'm talking about a really thoughtful investment purchase from a sustainable company, OR a really thoughtful secondhand purchase of a wool item.
Meanwhile, I thought I'd be a bluebird today:
I'll throw on more layers to walk the dog, but here's the day's base outfit: my challenge Camellia, still going strong after many, many wears and a redye job + thrifted Icebreaker merino tee + old cotton navy leggings + Boody bamboo socks + my thrifted Birk hiking boots. If it really does warm up the way they say it will, I'll probably switch the boots for sandals and bare feet later on, but might as well keep on breaking in my boots every chance I get.
Hair up in a claw clip, which I hope holds. I really need some bigger claw clips.
Ponytails start to feel like a really blah default mode, and since I have enough hair to put all the way up, why not do that? (except that it likes to fall down, because even when I've lost a lot of hair, it's still heavy).
We'll see how this updo survives. I'm also wearing, as is barely visible in this photo, an Allbirds merino "triangle" bralette, which I ended up with by mistake (seller sent the wrong thing). We arrived at a solution, whereby I kept this burgundy bra I hadn't ordered, and she sent me, at a greatly reduced price, the pale pink different-style merino bralette I had ordered. I wasn't nuts about this one at first, and wouldn't have chosen it, but since I snipped slits in the inside layer and inserted bra pads, it's become just about my favorite undergarment. I alternate merino bralettes with my Boody bamboo ones (which I also love) --- at this point I don't own any truly synthetic undergarments. The feel of breathable natural fibers on my skin is one I wouldn't trade at this point.
ETA: I also like having more bras to rotate, so that they have time to be either washed (bamboo ones) or aired (merino) in between wearings. I have 3 bamboo bralettes, 2 merino ones, so my weekdays are covered, without my needing to do constant small washings. Generally I do a big washload on Mondays: sheets + any clothing and underwear from the weekend + kitchen laundry, which includes tablecloths, cloth napkins, and kitchen towels, since we mostly do not use paper or disposable products in the kitchen. Then I do a late-week load, which is usually much smaller, taking care of the week's underwear and anything of my husband's that needs washing, as well as kitchen laundry. He still wears some synthetics to the gym, and although he wants to leave them hanging on the bathroom door . . . reader, that is a non-starter. He won't wear them again, because they smell. I don't want them decorating the bathroom door, because they smell. So I take them down and wash them.
Anyway, it's nice to start the week in an outfit I love, all the way down to the inmost layer. I went to bed last night thinking, Yeah, I'll wear Camellia tomorrow. I just love the line and drape of this, my original Wool& dress. I love the versatility. I love how easy she is to style, especially in her revised color. This is the perfect dress to wear when the day is going to encompass both freezing temperatures and coats-off warmth.
I still feel like Mrs. Who from A Wrinkle in Time in these glasses. But maybe that's a good thing.
And now the dog would like to come out of her crate and greet the day, so I guess that's what we'll do.
POST-WALK:
Birk time! Work time . . .
ETA: Speaking of buying things in a no-buy, I impulse-bought a wool felt hat on Amazon yesterday, because I was cold. Then I realized that we were getting these 60+ temperatures this week --- and like a big girl in a no-buy month, I canceled my order in time for it not to ship.
It's a cute hat, a vintage-y looking wool felt cloche with a felted flower, in teal. I still have it on my radar. I'd like to have and wear more hats, especially in the winter. But I caught myself and didn't go through with a purchase I really, truly, DO NOT NEED right now.
(On the other hand, yeah, I might have bought some more bra pads, because the ones I have in one of my bralettes, pads recycled/rescued from an old, trashed bra, just aren't doing it. They fold over too much and won't lie smooth and do nothing for me. I need some real inserts with some substance --- underwear, including bra pads, is always an exception to my no-buy rules, so yay for the dopamine hit of a pack of bra pads, hitting my front porch soon).