Drinking Stash Breakfast in Paris tea from an Artgirl mug this morning, because the coffee wasn't made and I didn't feel like dealing with it. The Able Muse Review reading period is open, to run through July 15, and I've started the morning by trying to read submissions, but being unable to log in at the Able Muse website, so am drinking more tea and waiting for some tech help.
In other words: It's still Christmas, but back to it.
Wearing:
*Wool& Brooklyn dress (S) in Beetroot
*Secondhand Woolx men's blue tee (S), modified by me, worn as base layer
*Secondhand Sparrow/Anthropologie green merino-angora-cotton pullover
*Secondhand bamboo-cotton leggings, dyed green by me
*Darn Tough Socks
*Xero Tari Boots
It's another chilly day, though bright and sunny. I might refresh my hair later, but right now I can't be bothered --- don't want to have to dry it before I go out walking. So here's a stumpy little scrunchie ponytail-bun, to keep it out of my way.
Feeling a little blah, but hoping that a walk in the sunshine soon will restore my missing dopamine.
Also coffee, which is now ready. Tea was nice, but I miss my caffeine jolt in the morning.
BY THE WAY:
I've closed out my Style 2023 album, and begun a new style album for 2024. I like seeing the arc from the first to the last days of each year --- it'll be interesting to compare New Year's Day with wherever the time washes me up on New Year's Eve 2024.
Had a short, sunshiny, but rather tired-feeling walk with Dora and am now about to select . . . something . . . from my newly compiled (but not yet organized) poetry shelf in the study:
Why am I tired? Could it be because I spent some hours schlepping books from shelf to shelf all over the house? But wow, I'm pleased to have my books in something like one place. I don't have enough shelf space in this room for everything I'd really like to have at hand, but this is a lot better. The shelves just look better, too, more filled and cohesive. I did move the entire 1973 World Book series to the sunroom shelf where the poetry used to live --- that in itself was a workout.
Actually I think I might peck at this big stack in the corner, just pulling any poetry out of it to shelve . . . THEN read something. THEN maybe write something. Who knows what might happen.
AFTERNOON UPDATE:
Well. Okay. I've read a tiny bit. I've drafted a blank-verse poem. I've uploaded the poems I have to write on for next week and thought about them a little. I have still not logged into the Able Muse site, BUT look what I have done instead:
I've transformed the back study into my study, and I haven't had to buy a thing to effect this transformation.
I grabbed the little console table out of the dining room, where it was basically taking up space. And I had my husband help me haul the old dilapidated green couch to the curb. That's it. AND I've moved some more books in and shifted things around, making the coffee table an auxiliary desktop space beside my desk-table.
I switched out the old patterned half-curtain in the window for a big piece of tulle that I'd had folded up with my tablecloths. I had bought it in a thrift store goodness knows how long ago for goodness what reason at the time. Obviously the real reason was so that I could pin it to the tension rod to make a sheer curtain for the window. Right now I have it swept aside so that I can look out --- I think I might move a bird feeder into the dogwood right outside so that I can watch birds all winter. Or, well, watch squirrels eat all the bird seed, which is what really would happen.
Eventually we'll replace this daybed with something that can make into a double bed. If somebody else decides to get married, that'll be the signal to purchase one of those Ikea stackable daybeds, and maybe move this whole twin-bed situation upstairs to the Viking's room. We could probably just get a queen-sized frame and put these two relatively new twin mattresses on it to make a big bed and call it a day.
But that's down the road. Right now, I have an office, and I could not be happier. Maybe I should do some actual work, just to inaugurate it.
EVENING:
Still wearing what I put on this morning, which has stood up to furniture-heaving, dusting, book-moving, etc.
You can see more clearly in this shot how different the greens I'm wearing are: the minty green of my pullover, the earthy, herby, olive-ish green of my leggings. I've also liked how the colors in my outfit are kind of slant rhymes for traditional Christmas colors. This is the week when Christmastide begins to feel it's overstayed its welcome, so finding understated, creative little ways to remind myself of the season helps me with my yearly Christmas-disaffective disorder.
Temperatures are still chilly, which is seasonally appropriate. We're supposed to get "rain and snow" on Saturday, which might be nice, though I don't think it'll be cold enough for anything to stick. We don't ever get that much snow here in the North Carolina Piedmont, but it would be nice to have one pretty one this winter. I'm noticing, as the cold sets in this evening, that once again bamboo leggings really aren't warm enough --- they're great for transitional seasons and, honestly, a lot of our winter when the weather is mild. But if it's even close to freezing, I'm cold in these leggings. I might put on some merino tights as an underlayer before I take the dog out --- otherwise it'll be a very short walk!
This is a good time of year, though, for really wearing my closet. I want to try to wear a skirt this week, probably with a merino dress as an underlayer, and one of my button shirts, with either a cardigan or a pullover sweater, depending on how cold it is tomorrow. I need to sit down and mend the toes in a couple of my pairs of wool tights, and also just look over their condition generally. My newer ones, bought in the summer for this fall and winter, are holding up all right, but the ones I bought in 2021 and 2022 (tights were an exception to my no-buy, not that I actually abided by any rule I set for myself) are looking very thin around the thighs and crotch. I knew this about Snag tights, especially going into a second round of buying. I still think that *for the price*, they're a pretty good deal for something with merino content. I don't think they're fabulous. I wish the quality were better. But they're okay, especially given how relatively cheap they are for merino items, and it's certainly worth mending holes in toes.
My secondhand Allbirds leggings, though they're not all merino --- they are really the bomb. I could envision buying another pair this winter, but we'll see. I might just wear that one pair over and over and over and over instead. They are actually warm, especially compared with bamboo. I mean, I'm not sorry I have any of my pairs of leggings. They're all soft and comfortable and have held up well to a lot of wear, especially given that they're secondhand. But I know what my favorites are . . .
The husband is upstairs staining the shelves that go in a bookcase he had made for him by a local woodworker, for his office at the college. The woodworker's nephew was supposed to finish these shelves, but after five months, my husband just went and got them to do himself. He has drop cloths and shelves (literally just the pieces of wood the books will repose upon) all over the Viking Son's room, and says he'll be done by Thursday, when said Viking Son is due home again.
I think I'll just make myself some tea and sit in my study. This feels like an excellent evening plan.