The blithe sunshine has fled --- though of course it's still springtime. This is just how the springtime behaves in North Carolina. We don't get late blizzards (or any kind of blizzards at all), just days of cold and rain interspersed with the glory days. And you never know which one it's going to be until it's here.
Today's agenda:
*Get coffee with my friend Lisa at Fausto on our courthouse square --- I stood her up last time because I'd spent the previous night throwing up, then slept late and completely forgot the coffee date until she texted me from the shop. Glory be to God for gracious friends.
*Finish a book endorsement due today.
*Social-media promo for the Substack --- I've done all my essays for next week, to leave the weekend free for other things, but the PR goes ever on and on.
*Grocery order, which means menu-planning for Holy Week and Easter. It's at this time of year that I especially miss having kids at home, to do things I don't like to do, such as baking cakes. The Artgirl used to make a lovely chocolate-strawberry cake for Easter, and the Texasgirl was always good at cakes as well. I will probably just do strawberries and cream, with some nice chocolates, for the two of us, with lamb in some form as the Easter menu centerpiece. Must turn my mind to that . . .
But now I'm going to eat my breakfast, drink another cup of coffee (to power me to the coffee shop to drink more coffee), bathe and dress. Stay tuned for further developments.
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Wearing today:
Simple outfit, gittin' 'er done.
*Wool& Maggie dress (M/Long) in Marine Blue, bought May 2022
*the thrifted 25-cent Eddie Bauer cotton cardigan, again
*Secondhand Allbirds tencel-merino leggings in slate blue, bought January 2024
*Secondhand Birkenstock Rosemeads, bought March 2023
Shopping my closet, making the most of wardrobe-element repeats, wearing my clothes over the long haul: that is the theme of this outfit. Also, "blue and purple work together, again." I often wear navy leggings with this navy dress, but today I thought the subtle tonal gradation, from bright navy to a more muted gray-blue, would be nice. With my Gore-Tex lightweight jacket thrown on to walk to the coffee shop, this turned out to be a good outfit for the weather, which is not cold but is also not terribly warm. Fortunately it didn't rain, coming or going, so my suede shoes were all right. I have waterproofed them, and they're beat-up enough that I'm more willing to risk them than I used to be, but still. I was glad it didn't pour down on me while I was out.
Dogwoods were blooming already in the courthouse square, though mine are still thinking about it. Here are my Jerusalem artichokes, though, coming right up where I planted them some weeks ago:
I'm so looking forward to tall sunflower-like blooms all summer. And there's space behind them in the bed for a sowing of Mexican sunflowers --- in front I could plant some zinnias or cosmos. Soon and very soon, I'll be able to do all these things! We're supposed to have rain all this weekend, but maybe I'll be able to do some more cleanup in the kitchen garden, which is a real mess right now. I need some more grow bags, and also a lot more soil . . . so very much to do, and the time is galloping apace. You spend weeks waiting for the weather to warm up enough to plant, and then bang, like that, you've missed the boat for spring crops. If I want bachelor's button flowers, for example, I really should get the seed NOW and sow it, while the soil is still pretty cold and we have some freezes ahead. Otherwise it'll be too late.
Today, though I have other stuff to do, and now that I'm back from a nice coffee outing, I should settle down and do it.
LATER:
The other day my husband and I were chatting, and I happened to gripe a little about how tired I am of purple, here toward the end of Lent.
He said, "Well, nothing could be as bad as that hundred-day thing you did."
He didn't mean "bad" in the sense of having disliked that challenge pesonally (I think he was pretty much feeling-neutral about it --- it wasn't his beer one way or the other). If he got tired of seeing me in the same dress, he certainly didn't say so. Actually, I think he liked seeing me in a dress, period, and that dress was cute. No, he meant it in the sense of that thing you did to yourself for no reason, because I would have given you a hundred dollars to buy a dress and not put yourself through that tedium: the same exact dress for a hundred days straight.
And he has a point. Lent is only 40 days, not a hundred. I haven't been wearing the same dress day in and day out. Why does this feel harder than that did? I really can't say, except that there is a difference between "challenge" and "penance." The difference may be simply semantic --- I use one word, not the other, and the word I'm using has baggage attached that the other word doesn't, even though the actual experience the word signifies is exactly the same as, if not easier than, the other experience.
Anyway. It's Friday, the end of another work week, and all I really want to do with my refried mind is think about pretty things. (What I really really want is not to have vowed not to buy any more dresses this year, because guess what keeps calling my name --- not even a particular dress, just the idea of a pretty new dress, like the idea of another potato chip).
Oh well. Sunday is Palm Sunday, and red is the liturgical color, so that's a break. I can decide whether to wear a red cardigan, red shoes, or a red skirt.