At the Cross her station keeping: on a Bavarian oven tile on my kitchen wall.
New day, same things to do. Dog-walking, essays, reading, fiddling with short story and poetry revisions, prepping myself for a podcast interview tomorrow morning. Oh, and getting groceries, because we're scraping bottom here.
Mother's Day flowers (from Anna-Kate, actually), still going strong on my kitchen table:
I had to pull out some dead bits and change the water, but the sunflower and statis are still in good form.
Wearing today:
Easy to be blue in Maggie B. I might toss on my big linen shirt to walk, or I might not. It would also probably be wise of me to remember to wear a hat when I go out, but we'll see whether I do that. Thrifted Birk Balis, definitely winning as my shoe of the year. I'm not sure I was prepared to love them as much as I do.
I could make a better, sharper outfit by trading the Birks for my light-gray Xero Jessie sandals, which I wore with my other Maggie on Sunday. But instead I'm making the choice to say, eh, can't be bothered. That's sort of the whole vibe of this outfit, anyway.
I've had a lot of fun in the last year, dressing up this dress. She does that really well. It's one of her major talents. But she's also great for just . . . not dressing up.
Today's wear brings this Maggie to 3 wears in May, to tie with Audrey, Fiona, Sierra, and Willow. I know this, of course, because I have a spreadsheet. It's a geeky thing to do, and why do I spend the time, except that it's a good way to make sure that I actually wear the core clothes I have. All I have to do each day is glance at the spreadsheet and say, What haven't I worn? And then, do I actually feel like that today? I don't do any kind of strict rotation, because that would start to feel restrictive, not just strict.
This means that I've got the kind of built-in flexibility that lets me plan, for example, to wear my Camellia tomorrow, because I'll be Zooming for my conversation with Matt Wickman, for the Faith and Imagination podcast --- which comes from BYU, and Matt is LDS, so while of course I'm free not to observe LDS modesty standards, it's a good idea to wear a higher neckline. I'll be more comfortable, and so will he. A cardigan on my shoulders, and I'm good to go.
I know my own mind well enough to know that having a Monday dress, a Tuesday dress, and so on, wouldn't work for me --- I would then be all hung up about changing the Wednesday dress for a particular situation. That would be stupid of me, but it would be a struggle nonetheless. This is one reason why I'm not doing any more challenges for the foreseeable future --- because I do get hung up on things as binding, when they really aren't. In reality, if I decided to do a 30-day challenge, wearing the same dress for a calendar month, and then I decided to break the challenge and wear something different, lightning would not actually strike me dead. But in my mind, it would. I can wear blue for a month, because when don't I wear blue? But I'm looking forward to not doing that, even though in actual practice I won't be doing anything that different. My newfound radical freedom will still look like: oh, here's a blue dress.
Still wearing the low-key glasses. Still taking these pictures while I'm trying to wake up and feel the coffee enter my bloodstream.
In fact, before I walk the dog, maybe I'll go out and pick a round of herbs for today's tea and get that started.
UPDATE: Brewing tea now: mint, bee balm, a lot of lemon balm, a lot of lavender.
Dressed to walk, feeling beachy:
Got my light-dark-color-pattern business on now. Look out, greenway trail. Incoming.
MUCH LATER:
Have finally gotten around to photographing and putting up items in my Poshmark closet. Many things have lain folded for a long time, as is rather obvious in the photographs, but the color palette is really pretty, I have to say. Selling blouses, cardigans, shorts, a linen dress . . .
UPDATE: Linen dress is SOLD! But more items await . . . (granted, they're things I'm moving out for many of the same reasons anybody here is moving items out of their closet . . . )
LATE NIGHT:
Nightly walk total: 4.41 miles.
It was cool out, so I put on my new sweater as a light top layer:
This could honestly stand to be even more cropped than it is. I'm realizing all the time how short-waisted I am, a state of affairs that seems to increase the older I get. But the slim line is nice. It's not bulky over a swing dress, like volume layered on volume: it's not that. And the muted color scheme is so pretty. It also definitely wasn't too warm for after-nightfall temps in the mid-60sF.