Photo taken while walking late last night, each streetlight making a tunnel mouth in the dark. Very slow "night sight" shutter speeds produce interesting effects, especially when you're not standing still.
And from yesterday morning's walk, the late-summer glory of a crape myrtle:
I woke up early-ish today, before 7, so am drinking my coffee in the quiet. The sun is gradually burning off the early-morning fog. Weather forecast is 92F with 100% humidity --- I had assumed that that meant rain, but no, it's looking like sun sun sun. I'm glad to have gotten in nearly 7 miles on Thursday and nearly 5 yesterday, because today I think I might sit around a lot. Maybe try to finish off the plan and homework for my "How to Read a Poem" course --- four weeks down, two to go. Then I need to make power-points for each class session, the last task before I'm ready to record the course for posterity.
Otherwise, the agenda is just to wash my hair, do some laundry, walk a little with the dog (but not get heat stroke or let her get heat stroke), and generally set my house in order. The Artgirl did a good bit of cleaning and vacuuming yesterday --- she says she likes cleaning --- for which I am beyond grateful. Starting to think I'm going to miss these people when they go.
It's nice to be a solid two weeks ahead with Sun essays, having written five this past week. They're short and increasingly un-taxing to do, but always interesting to research and put together, however quickly. I'd like to do two or three a week, depending on the calendar, for the next little while, but give myself plenty of flex room. The Artgirl and I want to go hiking next week, for example, before she leaves, so that's a flex right there: a day off to head up to Table Rock with Dora, and see if we can discern the taste of fall in the air.
I had to use up a pile of tomatoes last night before they went bad, so we had a kind of French baked fish dish that I made up on the spot: frozen cod, thawed and cut into chunks, mixed with tomato wedges, peppers, garlic, and slivers of red onion, drizzled with lemon juice and a little butter, then topped with parmesan to make a kind of thin crust and baked till the fish was done and the tomatoes had roasted. With that we had some green beans my husband had impulse-bought --- I finally got around to salvaging what was still good in the bag, snipping them up with scissors, blanching them, then sauteeing them with butter, salt, pepper, and more very thinly-sliced red onion, and with a little brown sugar (actually Swerve, which of all the sugar substitutes really tastes and acts like sugar) for a glaze. All that and roast potatoes, plus red wine, made for a really sacrificial Friday dinner, let me tell you. The suffering went on and on.
Not sure what I'll make for dinner tonight --- chicken, I guess. Probably with tomatoes and peppers, because there they are in ridiculous abundance.
Meanwhile, I'll probably give up some brain energy to thoughts about clothing, because I do that. Colors, shapes, fabrics, all the rest of it. I fantasy-shop at least in part because it's fun to imagine dresses and what I'd do with them --- if I actually had all the dresses I fantasy-buy and wear in my mind, I'd never get around to half of them, but it's fun to play with the idea of them. Also, summer fatigue is real, and the thought of a new dress is more tantalizing than it was just a few weeks ago, because it represents dopamine.
I've been able to stave off that particular craving for novelty by a few targeted purchases of things not covered by my purchasing pause: the Bandi pocket belt, for example, which transforms a lot of things, plus a couple of new Kosher Casuals crop tops, which count as underwear. I hadn't expected the crop tops to show up before the end of August, but they also arrived this past week, one in "jeans blue," which is a very nice medium vintage-blue kind of blue, and one in "aubergine," which looks close to Wool&'s marionberry, a darker, intense purple. The purple crop top will be a key element in my Advent and Lenten outfits, when I want to include purple --- it will fill in the necklines of my Brooklyn and Audrey dresses, and maybe others as well in the colder weather, when I want a little more coverage for the sake of keeping warm. These are, again, quite thin and light, but they help you be less bare when you want to be less bare. In the summer they provide coverage without the weight and bulk of a whole other layer under your dress.
I can't say enough about these little crop tops --- they make for variety when you're wearing the same round of dresses, however many dresses your particular round happens to include, and they grant a lot of confidence in situations when you would rather display less of yourself. They're inexpensive, but ethically made, as far as I can tell --- the company is small and based in Israel, which is where their clothes are produced. It's been nice to be able to focus on filling in little details in my wardrobe, those things like under-layers which so often are easy to neglect. As much as I feel I'd like a new dress, really it's these things that I need to focus on, because they make the dresses I already have that much more wearable and versatile.
As of today, I've worn every dress in my closet at least once in August. Fiona and Sierra I've worn twice, so they're the frontrunners --- this still surprises me, since they're hardly the dresses you'd think I would reach for in the late-summer heat, yet I've reached for them repeatedly. Willow was nice yesterday, too. I got a little warm under the arms walking the dog three miles at noon, but my dress never showed any sign of sweat, and I cooled off as quickly as I heated up. I am washing her today, because I managed to scratch my arm somehow while out walking and bled a little on the dress before I knew what was happening, but I put some Grandma's Secret on the spots last night, and they should come out just fine in a cold-water wash.
What shall I wear today? First I'm going to wash my hair . . . then we'll see.
Simple Audrey, just as she comes, for a day of basically lounging around.
It's fun to follow a short, light, swingy dress with something completely different.
This is one of the dresses I sized down in --- I own mediums in Camellia, Fiona, marine-blue Maggie, and Willow, while I wear smalls in my teal Maggie (still not quite sure which fit I prefer, though on the whole I like having just a smidge less fabric to contend with), my Sierra, and this Audrey. At the moment, it's been long enough since I last washed this dress that she has relaxed across my hips, which is where a small might be almost too small. In the bodice, I'm continually glad I didn't buy a medium, because the neckline would be too gapey, the armholes too long. I don't hang any of my dresses by the shoulders --- currently I'm using trouser hangers with clips to hang them folded over at the waist, to keep them from stretching. That's helped a lot with my worry that even this neckline will quickly start to feel too low.
On the whole, I prefer the slimmer fit, even though I have to wait for the fabric to relax across the hip/pocket area.
But really, what a great dress. I just love her. This is as black as my clothing gets (save for choir dress), but it's nice to have this dark neutral option. I like the long, clean line, which feels flattering even to my rather saggy body. I can wear a crop top under, and I often do, especially if I'm going out somewhere. But she's okay just as she comes. I'm wearing a "dusty rose" Boody longline bralette underneath, so if there's any armhole stretch, I don't reveal anything that way, and it just looks like I'm wearing a camisole, without the heat or weight of a whole cami.
I don't really know what today is going to hold, though the to-do list keeps growing in my head. But it's good to be dressed and ready.
LATER:
This morning Dora and I walked to the end of the park loop and back, less than a mile. It just feels really hot --- low 90s, but with a heat index of 109F. We sat outside for a little while, but now are back in. She's incarcerated in her crate, where I think she's sleeping --- she was acting like a toddler who needed a nap before I finally decided to give her something to eat in the crate and shut the door.
While she's been napping (I am NOT a "pet parent," but the analogies present themselves at every turn), I've been working on my How to Read a Poem course: finishing out class plans and homework packets and posting them on the course page. I still need to write quizzes and make power-point presentations for each week, but I think we're getting there! It's been good to have the quiet, open day to make progress on this class, so that I can begin to envision actually recording it.
Then I've done some indoor exercise: arms, stairstepping (on my actual stairs), and balance. I never do this for long, but every little bit makes some tiny difference, and a larger difference over time if you keep at it.
Now I think I'm going to call my mother.
EVEN LATER:
When your mother isn't home, and you're hanging out by yourself of a Saturday afternoon, and your work is done, and the laundry is in the dryer . . .
You get bored.
And when you get bored . . .
You get destructive.
Or creative, depending on how you want to look at it.
Remember the Woolx men's tee that I couldn't quite make myself get rid of? It's the most gorgeous blue, and the softest wool item I own, but somehow . . . though I have tried to wear it . . . it's never been quite right. It's had that high men's crew neck. It's had boxy sleeves that I had to roll up (and they wouldn't stay rolled). It was long and square, to I had to tie it to get it to fit. None of that was making me very happy. So I tried to persuade myself to outbox it, but I couldn't. Then I stashed it in my underwear and pajamas bin, thinking I'd sleep in it.
But that seemed like kind of a waste. I was just about to decide to let go of it --- to be firm with myself and say, now, really --- when I happened to catch a reel on Instagram that did not exactly change my life, but did change my shirt. I forget now what the account was called, and I'll probably never see it again, but it was just this woman cutting up a t-shirt.
I have cut up old cotton tees before, to open up the neckline and make them look more feminine, but a wool tee? Was I crazy?
Yes, apparently I was crazy, because as you can see from that photo of scissors, that's what I did. Now I can't sell this tee, but now I don't want to.
Behold the cropped tee.
I cut the neck out, just following along the seam of the neckband.
I could cut a deeper scoop, but this is already a lot more delicate and less masculine than it was.
I trimmed some length off the sleeves, holding them together so that they'd be even. Most importantly and transformatively, I cut . . . about eight? . . . inches off the hem, raising the waistline significantly.
Now I have a tee that I can pop on over a dress like this without having to tie it. I have a tee that will fit underneath a dress with far less bulk. I have a tee that goes with Audrey, but will also now go better with Camellia and Sierra. Potentially, I guess, I could wear it as a winter base layer under my Brooklyn, since that dress's sleeves are loose enough to accommodate these.
I think I'm in love. I already loved the color and the fabric, but now I love how it fits so much more than before.
And I'm wearing the neckband as a headband.
I could maybe wear the cut-off hem, since there's quite a lot of it, as a gaiter for my neck in the winter.
So, score. When life gives you a yen for novelty, do something new --- with something old.
I don't regret this at all. It's not what I planned to do today, but then I didn't know what I planned to do today. I just did it. One thing after another. I had better put the scissors away before I start cutting up everything in sight, but I'm not remotely sorry that I cut this shirt up.
PS: As hot as it is here today, I'm not appreciably hotter with this tee on than I was before.
OK, well, I did put the scissors away, but not until I had cropped another two t-shirts. Again, no regrets.
I bought this Icebreaker tee about the same time that I bought the Woolx one (also the Ibex tee that I sold a couple of weeks ago). I've always liked this shirt: graceful neckline, nice sleeves . . . but again, I really couldn't wear it over dresses without its being too long. And under dresses, even though it's so lightweight as to be practically see-through, it still created some bulk around the waist.
So now it's basically an empire-waist half-tee. I wanted to take the line up just a little, and I think it was a good move. I'll wear this a lot more this way than I was wearing it before.
But my favorite . . .
. . . is this old cotton tee. I had already cut the crew neck out of it years ago. I love the color and the little hippy-dippy graphic, but it was too boxy really to wear well over dresses. So again, I did a hemline-ectomy, and I like it much better.
In fact, I love all these tees with Audrey. I've always liked the way she lent herself to being a flowy long dark skirt, but it's been a struggle to find shirts that I really enjoyed wearing with her. NOW I've got them. These will be fun for pub night or anytime. They'll be great for transitioning into fall. I think they'll look better with a jean jacket or cardigan than I ever thought a knotted tee did. I will take an unfinished edge or a little roll at the hem over a big honking knot any day of the week.
It's a lot of fun to scratch your something-new itch with old things you had hanging around all along --- which take on new life and new possibilities when you do.
BEDTIME UPDATE:
Been out walking after the storm that blew through after dinner.
Skies, again, like nothing else.
Dora saw cats and rabbits and almost pulled me over trying to chase them, but I wrangled her along, and we had a nice time --- rather to my husband's amusement.
Now we're back home, and I'm happily contemplating my newly-cut-off tees and how much I'm going to enjoy them. The wool ones will make fantastic low-bulk under-layers this winter, over or under dresses, and under sweaters. It won't be all that cold all that often, but now I have a PLAN. And in the warmer weather, they make lightweight additions to basic dresses in a way that works better for me than before. I'll enjoy playing around with combinations to see what feels right.
So: end of a good day. Mass in the morning. Looking forward to a little reading in bed, then sleep.