Our town through the windshield yesterday evening. It was about 6 p.m.; look how high the sun still was. When we go out to walk the dog after 9 p.m. lately, there's still light in the sky. Sumer is icumen in.
Today: the usual stuff. There's laundry in the dryer I need to get out and fold. I need to change our sheets. I should probably deal with bedrooms upstairs, which I have not done since the kids left on Monday. The Fire Son is cruising through at some point in the next few days, on his way from Tallahassee, where he has been doing tornado cleanup, to Montana for the summer, and I need to be sure his bed (which is also the Viking's bed) is clean and ready to sleep in.
I also would like to get some potting soil and plants for the planter I picked up off the curb the other day. I have had my eye out for good things on the curb, let me tell you. What I've been thinking lately, since the trampoline spends so much time in the middle of my office floor, is how nice it would be to have a large round coffee table in here. What I guess I should really be looking for is a table TOP that I could lay over the trampoline, then take off when I want to jump on the trampoline. That would be a solution, except for the propensity of any coffee table in this house to get piled up with stuff. Maybe a slightly bigger, slightly taller table that the trampoline could fit underneath, and be slid out from when I want it? What makes me think this is the way all the chairs in this room, including my swivel desk chair, wind up gathering around the trampoline, as if it were in fact a table. We haven't set our coffee on it yet, but I can see this coming.
And I have choir practice tonight in Charlotte. Need to make sure we get dinner done early.
Still reading ED. Reading Laurus.
Looks like rain out there. The forecast says thunderstorms. High of 76F, but probably quite wet. The garden is growing and growing, and I'm grateful for the good start it's getting, but my goodness, some sunny days would be nice.
Once again scanning my style album for this year to see what I haven't worn lately. You know the mantra: Wear the closet. I see that it's been a long time since I last wore my Marine Blue Maggie dress --- April 25, in fact, was the last time, I believe. So that's a frontrunner, such an easy dress to toss on and wear, with or without any other layers or accessories. It's also been a while since I wore my Pacific Brooklyn --- Tuesday, April 30.
This isn't bad, incidentally. These long rotations mean less wear and tear on any individual dress, which on the whole I think is a good thing. The signs of wear I've detected lately in various dresses --- holes sprung along pocket seams, instances of pilling --- make me feel that I want to treat them more gently than perhaps I did in the beginning, when I was convinced that they were indestructible. Linen feels a good bit tougher to me than these wool knits, and again, that's not a bad thing at all. I have variety in my closet, but also enough clothes to rotate and not wear any one thing out too fast.
I sing this song continually, it seems, but it is true. Having spent the money on these clothes, I want them to last. Lasting doesn't mean not getting worn at all --- really, it's good to wear everything regularly, not least so that I can check for signs of damage, and to try and prevent moth damage, since moths like things that sit there in the dark. It's better to wear and air the woollens than not to wear them. But again, no one piece of clothing is really designed --- contra all the dress challenges --- to be worn that hard over a long time. It's nice, over the last three years, to have built up a closet that works for me and takes the pressure off individual items. And it's also nice to have set a no-buy rule for myself, which makes me realize just how little I really need anything new. Yeah, things catch my eye all the time, but come on. I have a closet of clothing that I like, that fits me, that suits all the occasions of my life.
This has been my daily pep talk to myself. Now to go pull out a dress and wear it.
Wearing:
*Wool& Maggie (M/Long) in Marine Blue, bought May 2022
*Very old thrifted Talbots cotton cardigan, originally dark brown, redyed with Rit Wine dye --- last year? the year before? can't remember now.
*Secondhand Birk Mayaris, bought April 2024
Maggie it is. She was at the bottom of the shelf stack, so out she came, and on with her. This is now one of my older dresses, the third Wool& dress I acquired, almost exactly two years ago. And to be that old, she has held up very well. Part of this is that I have not worn her as heavily as some of the others, though she's certainly been worn with regularity in the time I've had her. So far, though, no holes and no pilling. She's in better shape than either of the dresses I bought in November of the same year --- Audrey and Fiona --- both of which saw quite heavy, frequent wear all through 2023, and received probably less gentle care (especially Fiona), with more frequent washings and some tumble drying, than I might have shown them. I am being a little more careful now, but also these dresses don't get as dirty as fast since I'm not wearing any one dress that frequently.
I really kind of hate spot-cleaning --- if I'm going to get one big area of the dress wet, then why not the whole dress, is what I generally think --- but am trying to be more assiduous about that, rather than doing whole washes, and limiting myself to hand-washing rather than the machine. None of that is hard, especially as I already have a solid daily routine for hand-washing and air-drying underwear. But I am committing myself to taking care in these ways, so that my clothes will last longer and not wear out, and especially not need so much mending, since I'm not actually a great mender. I do mend holes, and I do keep wearing clothes I've mended, but I know they're damaged and mended, and I have to try not to mind that, or to feel that that makes them less nice. But then it's good to have some clothes that have already picked up dings --- those are the clothes I tend to wear in rougher, messier situations. I still take as much care as I can not to mess them up, but the fact that they're already not pristine helps me not to be too anxious about keeping them that way. Then I have clothes that still are pristine to wear for nice. So it all works out.
Wearing my red cardigan in anticipation of Pentecost, since I probably will not be wearing it on the day. Also, all the woollens are still in the deep-freeze, which leaves me with a small selection of cottons and linens to work with. It's nice to be pushed to wear this cardigan, which I quite like but often overlook. Soon it'll be too hot, but today is still cool, especially in the house, and I'm glad to have the extra layer.
Day 3 hair still feels good and is still lively enough, i.e., not flat or limp or stringy, to wear in a half-updo. I might make it to Sunday morning before I really need to wash it again, especially as, having done the whole bond-repair business on Wednesday, I can just shampoo, add gel/mousse, diffuse, and go on Sunday.
And now on with the day.