Nave window and organ pipes in the Basilica of Mary, Help of Christians, at Belmont Abbey College yesterday.
Today the sun's come out. It's 36F right now, with a projected high of 64: a pleasant day, warmish but not as warm as yesterday. The whole week looks like continuing in that vein: chilly nights, pleasant days with a lot of sunshine.
I've finished most of my major work for this semester, but still have Sun essays to knock out. My goal is to get ahead, finally, so that I don't have to worry about them while everyone is here for Christmas. But I also want to take some longer walks, because I've been cutting them shorter lately for the sake of work time. And I want to do some more weight exercises indoors --- again, I'd been neglecting this practice a bit, or at least minimizing it, because I felt so pressed to get other tasks done.
Currently: drinking coffee, waiting for some baked oatmeal to finish cooking. The husband is up but the houseguests are not, yet, so I'm enjoying the quiet. We've had a nice weekend, the first time we've really entertained non-family in a long time --- must do more of this. With the kids gone and bedrooms available, our house is ideal for a house party, so it's been good to have one.
TWO HOURS LATER:
The husband had to go out to the dentist to get his new crown checked, but the houseguests and I sat around the kitchen table together for a good long time, talking about poetry, education, and all manner of other things (including my Aran cardigan, which my friend S admired). It was like all the times we spent with friends in Germany, on trips in the 1990s and early 2000s, having long, leisurely, conversational breakfasts before anybody thought about getting up to go anywhere. But now S and D have gotten up and gone on their travels, and I have bathed, washed my hair, and gotten dressed.
First, an interesting reel from @neverhomemaker on Instagram, on the topic of "wearing" vs. "styling" clothes. I thought about this as I was getting dressed.
Here I am wearing a basic outfit:
*Wool& Willow (medium) in Wisteria
*Thrifted bamboo-cotton-blend leggings, I forget what brand, redyed this soft herbal green (a combination of Jacquard and Rit dyes)
*Xero Oswego barefoot shoes in grape, or whatever the official color name is: purple, basically
Now, this is fine. It's functional. I think it's cute enough: swing dress + leggings + kind-of-fun shoes. With its purple elements, it works for Advent.
But have I styled my clothes?
Well . . . I could ask: do I care if I style my clothes or not? One valid answer might be no. All I'm doing today is hang around, walk the dog, strip the guest bed, accomplish some writing. As far as I know, I'm not really going anywhere. And anyway, my soft little dress pleases me, and the combination with the muted green of my leggings, and the shape and color of my shoes: all kind of fun, as I say.
BUT I could play with this more. I'm going to need to put on another layer, anyway, for going outside this morning.
It's been a few days since I last wore my aqua alpaca cardigan (Peruvian Connection, thrifted). I always like this color against my soft periwinkle dress, and the weight is about right for today's weather.
So far I like the play of things, especially the colors. Everything goes with everything else, plausibly enough, but nothing is the same color. That's always a goal of mine, to coordinate but not to match.
But I could add yet another element . . .
This linen scarf (bought in a now-defunct Main Street shop at least five years ago) was hanging around after I'd worn it yesterday, so I put it on again. Against the periwinkle dress, it becomes positively pink --- color is so relative, depending on how you juxtapose things. I think I like it. Mostly I like that it's an additional layer that doesn't add weight or heat, since the day is warm. Again, the color looks fine with any other individual color in this outfit, so it "goes." I have a number of colors going on right now, but none of them is bright or loud. They seem to balance each other in intensity, with the exception of my shoe, which is darker and more intense a color than the others. But that just seems to ground the outfit --- I think!
If I wanted to look more polished, I could just change my shoes out for boots. But what I want to do is go walking, and to walk farther than I have been walking, because I have time. These shoes are perfect for that, on a typical Southern winter day when it's not cold. The trick for us so often is psychological: how to feel like winter when it doesn't feel like winter. That's a whole different skill set from how to keep warm. Funnily enough, this outfit will also be great for early spring, when it will be relatively cold, yet I will want to feel like springtime and sunshine.
I think I'll go eat a little more baked oatmeal, then try to get in a good couple of miles, at least, before the morning evaporates.
LUNCHTIME UPDATE:
Here's the Park Loop in winter sunshine.
Dora and I managed to walk for an hour, and covered more than half a mile: 2.76 miles, according to my step counter. Not bad, really, though I'd hoped to do 3 miles. What we discovered was that an additional section of the greenway trail has been blocked off for some kind of repairs, in a spot where you can't readily go around, so we retraced our steps back to our own street, then walked around the Park Loop and up the street parallel to our own, to make a really big block. Step counter says I've taken 6736 steps, which isn't bad for a morning. I haven't been keeping track in a long time, so I have no idea what I've been averaging, but I know that for the last several weeks it hasn't been anything like this.
Anyway, it's nice to have open time and to be able to take an hour near the middle of the day just to walk. I haven't felt free to do that in quite some time. I feel good --- nice burn in the legs and glutes tells me I've exercised. Later I'll heft some weights for a little bit, with particular attention to core work, but I'm feeling that I've begun the day well.
I got so warm walking that I've stripped off my "styling" layers and am back to my basic "I'm just wearing these clothes" outfit. And . . . so what? I still feel good. I enjoy this dress so very much, just as it comes --- really, having bought it in 2023, I could have done an Advent challenge in it. But . . . oh well. I shall not. I shall simply wear it a lot, with other things and on its own, and also wear other dresses accompanied by purple accents, and it'll all be fine.
On the other hand, I did trade my Xeros for my purple Birk Rosemeads, because they're so comfy for in the house.
And I think the shape and color are more interesting. As warm as it is, this totally works.
I'll be continuing to think about "wear" vs. "style" all week here, but for now, I'm happy to wear my clothes and have done with it.
EVENING UPDATE:
Waiting for my husband to come home, while our leftover roast beef from Saturday night's company dinner warms up.
Speaking of styling, and of putting things into and taking things out of the outbox (which now is mostly the Poshmark-resale box), here's a little something I tried this afternoon:
(Yeah, see, I do still take pictures of my whole self, even when I'm making strange faces).
I had bought this linen-cotton skirt . . . some months ago. I forget how long ago. But it was a Poshmark buy, and it cost ten dollars. It's really a pretty skirt: note the tucks at the bottom. For $10, especially, it's a pretty skirt.
And it didn't fit me. I could get it on and button it, but it was tight around the hips and just . . . didn't fit. So I folded it, put it in the outbox, and "reposhed" it (ie, just reposted the listing in my Poshmark closet).
So, months later, nobody has bought it. Not even a nibble. I have been considering that my dye-project skirt (also v.v.v. cheap secondhand) is kind of . . . too big. I wore it all day Thursday, and at the end of the day, I didn't love how it looked. And this situation prompted me to revisit the original linen skirt that hadn't fit.
And . . . it fits? I haven't lost weight, I don't think. Maybe I just pulled it up higher this time or something? Anyway --- I don't think I'd wear it with a short top, because it does exhibit my rounded belly in a way I wish it didn't, but with a tunic, it's kind of lovely. I put it on with what I was already wearing, then added boots, and I think I like it.
Maybe it's a weird look? I'm really not sure. But I like it all together. The problem, of course, is that I am entering my seventh decade, and somebody is bound to congratulate me because they think I'm expecting. I guess I should just not care, or else do some more core exercises and stop drinking beer. Among other things, the skirt would fit better.
To make a long story short, I switched out the other linen skirt, which I'll pass along, for this one, which I'll now hang onto. This is a nicer skirt by far. I love the tucks. I was sad when I thought it didn't work. Now I'm glad it sort of does.
Meanwhile, I've walked almost 3.5 miles today, which feels nice. AND I've hefted some weights, done some balancing exercises, and also some gentle things to strengthen my quads, because my knees have been hurting. AND I did a little novel-writing, too.