Coreopsis growing amid the thyme and the fronds of obedient plant, which blooms late in the summer. Just part of the general garden chaos --- but so welcome a sight, these little suns in the green.
I went out late last night, after we'd walked the dog, and sprayed neem oil on some vulnerable plants. My bee balm is always prone to powdery mildew, so this year I'm trying to stop that before it starts. And I went ahead and misted the grapevine, the gooseberries, and anything else the Japanese beetles might have in their sights. I haven't seen any Japanese beetles yet, but better to be proactive, say I, since I lost so many things to them last year.
It's hard to believe we're this far through Easter already: my favorite season, with the headiness of the early Church in all the readings matching the headiness of sunshine and growing things outside. I always wonder how the sense of a sacramental creation plays out in the Southern Hemisphere --- a summer Christmas I could cope with, but an autumnal Easter? It seems so backwards, though I'd be curious to live a year in, say, New Zealand, just to see what it's like. Last night, for our single rosary decade before bed, we prayed the Glorious Mystery of the Ascension, which led me to meditate on how much I love these forty days, and how much I love that moment in the Gospel narrative, the Men of Galilee looking dumbfoundedly at the sky while the angels say, What the heck, Men of Galilee? Then the ten days of waiting for what happens next. So much of the liturgical year, it occurs to me, involves waiting for something or other to happen --- and the fact that we know what's going to happen, because liturgical time is cyclical, doesn't spoil the surprise. There must be something in us that just really likes waiting and anticipation, which is good since we spend so much time doing that very thing.
In other news, the husband is still asleep, so I can't go rifle through my closet for Mass clothes yet. Unusually for me, the obsessive pre-planner, I'm not sure what I feel like wearing today. A dress? A skirt? Wool? Linen? A combination thereof? What have I not worn that recently? My goal, as always, is to wear my whole closet, but on Sundays particularly I balance that goal with a desire to feel definitely confident in what I'm wearing --- which means that I'm less likely to experiment with disparate elements on Sundays than I am on other days. AND especially now that I have more options, I'm likelier to pick something that covers my knees, at least.
Eh, I might just pull out my NPL Cinnamon Rose Leila again, since it's been more than two weeks since the last wear. I have been looking for a soft blue or aqua cardigan to wear with this dress, with no luck yet --- I have worn my cobalt-blue cardigan with it, and gray, and beige, but what the color really seems to cry out for is something paler, a blue or green that will blend without a high degree of contrast. The color of my aqua alpaca cardigan is perfect, but the cardigan itself, in terms of shape, doesn't really look good with the dress.
As I say, I have not yet found the perfect natural-fiber cardigan for the dress. It really needs something cropped that doesn't swamp the fit-and-flare shape, and this, with my other specifications of color and fiber, might make what I'm looking for a total unicorn.
BUT it occurs to me that there is something in my Poshmark closet/outbox that I could pull out to wear --- a very, very old, as in I bought it in 2004 or 2005, rayon shrug cardigan in pale blue. It is NOT a natural-fiber piece, which is why I've been trying to sell it. But in a year it's gotten nary a nibble of interest, so I'm thinking I might as well keep and wear it. It is a nice piece for what it is, sheeny enough to make anything I wear it with instantly dressier. It's not especially what I want, but it is what I have, and it does tick two of the three boxes I've just mentioned: it's pale blue, which I think will look pretty with my sun-kissed pink dress, and it's a cropped cardigan, the perfect shape.
So . . . wearing my closet today could mean wearing my Poshmark closet, because many things in it seem to be going nowhere. This might be a good time to take stock of those things again and to reconsider keeping them, especially as I'm about to embark on a no-buy May. Shopping the Poshmark basket, where I keep all the things I'm potentially selling, could be a good way to scratch the dopamine itch in a month when really, I can do just as well without acquiring anything new-to-me. I have indulged myself a lot in April, with results I'm happy with, but the new month feels like a good time to rest in what I have (and maybe to try and sell some things).
Items I could especially reconsider:
*this aforementioned blue rayon shrug
*a pair of sage-green Gap shorts, which I put up for sale because I'd gone to wearing dresses exclusively. These actually have garnered a little interest, but I'm not willing to knock the price down any further, so we'll see. I might really wear them again, though, just to see how much I still like them.
*a pair of Gloria Vanderbilt cobalt-blue wide-leg jeans. They're not as wide-leg as the current trend, but that's okay --- what care I, really, for current trends? The main issue is that they're still a tiny bit snug, which makes them less flattering than they might otherwise be. They could relax with wear, though, and I might consider cycling them back in as an option. I bought them because I loved the color, and the shape is actually nice. I have not thought that I wanted to wear trousers at all anymore, and especially not "hard-pants" trousers (i.e., a structured stiff fabric with zip-and-button closure), but since I have them, and in a year nobody has nibbled at them at all . . .
*a Gap (I think? Or Old Navy?) white rayon lace-yoke blouse. This is a really pretty top. I put it up for sale mostly because I wasn't wearing separates, but also because a) it's rayon, and b) the white is a bit bright for my coloring. I might offer this one to the Texasgirl, who's always up for a good clothing swap, and who does wear more vivid contrasts than I do. OR I might consider keeping it, though really I have enough tops as it is.
Well, anyway. Today's lucky dip is the pale-blue rayon shrug. I think that decides my outfit for the day. And now that the husband is up, I can go try out my proposed outfit.
Wearing:
*Secondhand Not Perfect Linen Leila dress (S/M) in Cinnamon Rose, bought December 2023
*Very old Jones New York rayon cardigan, bought 2004 or 2005
*Crocs sandals thrifted by the Texasgirl and passed along to me, April 2024
Yes, I like this cardigan with this dress. I think I might take it out of my Poshmark closet --- again, it's not like I'm depriving anyone. Nobody has shown the slightest interest in an early-2000s shrug cardigan, and meanwhile, it does look nice with many dresses, even if it's not exactly my natural-fiber ideal. Meanwhile, both the color and the shape work in exactly the way I was hoping.
And I guess I'm entering my Updo Girl Era.
This (I decree) is not a bad thing, contra all those haircut-makeover reels where one of the subject's complaints is that she always wears her hair up. Usually the outcome is a very layered haircut that she couldn't wear up if she tried . . . which means that then every day has to be a good hair day. I'm still growing out my current layers, and one of the chief reasons is that they don't look good in a ponytail. They stick out awkwardly. The ponytail, my old default best friend, looks messy, and not in a good way. I will probably keep some long blended layers in the end, no matter what length I wind up embracing (you can bet I won't embrace any length for long . . .), but not nearly as much layering as I have now. I might even go for a completely blunt cut, albeit with a tapered shape, not straight across, next time I go in . . . or eventually, I guess, since it'll be a while yet before I can cut out all these layers without losing more length than I want to.
Meanwhile, I like wearing my hair up. Even a very basic updo like this one (a ponytail with the ends tucked into the scrunchie) looks polished and adds a little elevation to an outfit. And it's a good go-to when clean hair, washed yesterday, doesn't look all that great in the morning. It wasn't bad, and I could have worn it down, but I think this looks more finished.
Anyway. Time to take the dog out before we leave.
EVENING UPDATE:
A good day in the garden while the husband did some exam prep. I planted the rest of my Mexican sunflower seeds, plus pink cosmos and the other packet of lupines (I need to go water my barl out front before I forget), and did a fair amount of weeding.
The Texasgirl called, sounding remarkably chipper after 14 hours on Turkish Airways yesterday, coming home from Greece. Good time had by all, and now I'm dying to go. Norway again this year (tickets are bought, so that's firm) . . . but next year I want to see Crete. And all the rest. Texasgirl is volunteering to go with us, which would be fun. Her husband's side of the family did a whole-family trip to Greece last year, staying in villas together, and if people on our side are up for it, that's an idea worth percolating. Since, you know, we seem to have become people who travel. And next year, God willing, the Viking and the Artgirl will be new college graduates, so some kind of major celebration seems warranted.
But for now, trying to get the summer homestead project up and running. I really want to eat home-grown grapes, blackberries, blueberries, gooseberries, melons, eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and all the rest. I've planted beet seeds as well, mostly for the greens, since they don't go to bolt in the summer and are good in salads. Here's a video demonstrating how to tell when your gooseberries are ripe. But as I'm reading, I see that I can cook early, green, tart gooseberries --- that this is what you use to make gooseberry fool, the classic English pudding, or a gooseberry pie. I might have to go pick a load before the birds and squirrels eat them, and make some jam, at least. The bush is really covered, and I hate to risk losing them to the local fauna. They probably do need to get a little bigger, but I'm going to be watching them closely.
The blueberries have a lot of blooms and newly forming berries . . . got to keep an eye on those, too.