Another random kitchen still-life: knife grinder, mulling spices, cheese dish, little bowl made by the Artgirl, jars in which I intend to make more yogurt but haven't done it yet --- and COFFEE, the elixir of consciousness.
Waiting now for Ikea to deliver our bed frame --- they've put me on high alert, so TEXT ME ALREADY, O Deliveryperson. The husband has gone to take a sauna (he's tracked one down, in a spa on Main Street) but doesn't have to leave for work until 2, so the hope is that they'll dump this flat-pack thing on the porch and then he'll come back and put it together, and then we will have a whole bed, complete, entire, and perfect. This, at least, is the dream.
Otherwise . . . I should write at least one more sentence of this book review today. I should read poetry submissions for the magazine, because I didn't do that at all last week (when this reading period closes, I'm quitting, but I am at least trying to try to hold up my end for now). I should write another essay for the Substack. Should is obviously doing a lot of work in this paragraph: more work than I might realistically accomplish today, in fact.
Wearing:
*Wool& Fiona dress (M) in Teal, bought November 2022
*Very old thrifted purple cotton Eddie Bauer cardigan, which will be appearing a lot in this season
*Secondhand Allbirds green tencel-merino leggings
*Secondhand Keens Mary Jane shoes, which I am awfully glad I didn't sell after all
Yeah, these shoes. I was wrong about them. They do fit. They're fantastic. I actually wound up putting them on yesterday, because my Xero Cassies have a little leather heel bit that was starting to rub a blister on my actual heel. I'll get some moleskin or some bandaids, and those shoes will break in and be fine, but they definitely need more of a break-in period than my all-hemp red Cassies did. These Keens, in the meantime, have stretched and started to mold to my feet already. They're not quite as comfortable to walk in as either Birkenstocks or all my Xero shoes other than that one pair of Cassies, but they're pretty close. I could see them as a contender for a travel shoe, that's for sure. And they're just cute. The color is so versatile and serviceable --- here I like the way they pick up the sagey green of my leggings without repeating it, but also provide a darker contrast to my dress hem.
And I'm wearing the purple cardigan because it's Lent.
Just-washed hair, already mostly dry. My LUS gel, which I love, is almost gone, but I'm making myself use up the Treluxe Reflex Serum, which I'd bought at roughly the same time, before I buy any new hair product. And I like the Reflex Serum, a good deal better than I thought I liked it. It provides a much lighter hold than the LUS gel, and the smell's a bit much, but smoothed and scrunched onto barely-damp hair, it gives some nice definition without being crunchy. I don't feel quite the same need to comb my hair and break apart the hard, gelled clumps that I do with a harder-hold product. I don't think I'd buy both products again, because they do more or less the same thing, but the theme of my life at the moment seems to be the continual epiphany that I like something better than I thought I did.
And of course I always feel good in this dress. Today's high is nearly 60F, so I don't need lots of layers --- just a nice transitional-weight dress that makes me feel light and bright and springlike.
I'm enjoying having enough hair for an updo again. But it's a lovely feeling to have it freshly washed and loose. At this length, it's very much wash-and-wear --- other than smoothing on and scrunching in a little gel, I'm not doing anything to it. I wash it --- today I smoothed on a tiny bit of light leave-in conditioner --- and let it air dry, which seems to go quickly when I don't have a lot of heavy product in my hair (no thick conditioner, no styling cream, etc). It's not influencer-perfect hair, but then I never set out to be an influencer. It's just hair, but I think it looks fine.
I like this length a lot, actually. It's long enough to be a little more versatile, but short enough to be not a pain to deal with. I think I'll probably get it cut in a chin-length bob again for the summer, albeit with far fewer/longer layers, and let it grow out for six months or so after that. That seems like a process I can live with. Part of me misses my long hair, but this is so much easier to maintain, and it looks good without my having to do much to it. I think letting it cycle between chin-length and shoulder-length is the way to go for the future.
Anyway. Enough of that. A squirrel has just chased the house finches and chickadees away from the seed feeder, darn it to heck. I'd put that thing in a Brunswick stew faster than you can say BB gun --- if I had a BB gun and any hand-eye coordination to speak of. But I don't, so I guess the squirrels are safe. Now would be a nice time for a good hawk sighting, though.
Or a bed delivery. I really can't get on with my day until this bed arrives.
LUNCHTIME UPDATE:
Yes.