Early morning, up for the 8 a.m. Mass. I think I'll wait to wash my hair until later, so I don't have to fuss with the diffuser while my husband is sleeping. I could actually go another day, anyway . . .
On today:
*Dog-walking
*Packing for the beach
*Essay-writing
*Pub night
Paying attention to friends' low-buy-year limits for clothing, I thought I'd go back and assess my purchasing for 2024.
I'd given myself two rules:
1. No dresses. Well, we know how that's gone, don't we?
2. Nothing new. This one I've kept easily.
I didn't give myself any other limits than those. And it's felt as though I've bought a lot of clothes this year. But have I?
I went back to Poshmark, where I've done almost all my buying, and counted up, leaving out shoes, which are their own category (and in that case, I was really filling some wardrobe gaps and accounting for foot problems). I'm also leaving out the black dress and cardigan I bought for choir and funerals, because that's kind of a uniform, not something I wear on any regular basis.
How much have I bought in 2024?
Up to now, ten items.
I have bought:
3 tops (all linen)
2 skirts
2 pairs of leggings
1 cardigan
1 pair of trousers
1 dress just to buy a dress (breaking my rule)
And yeah, some pairs of shoes: 6, I think, all told, in the course of the year. But then I was really catching up on shoes, to have what I need to make the outfits I want with both weather and walkability in mind.
Now I'm adding two more cardigans, both of which will go with the things I want them to go with:
1. A 100% cashmere cream-colored bolero-shrug type of cardigan, with pretty crystal beading. This will go with literally all my dresses, but especially my two Leila dresses, to warm them up for fall and winter in a dressier way. It's a similar shape to the blue rayon cardigan I have owned since the mid-aughts and still wear often, but in an obviously warmer natural fiber. I had been looking for precisely that shape, and lo, there it was.
2. A 100% merino Eileen Fisher long brown cardigan --- almost a sweater-coat. It's a soft, muted, mushroom brown that should go with my whole closet and provide a really warm layer. I had been looking at blazers, but I really need to wear the one I own more often. Realistically, meanwhile, what I get up and put on every day in the cold weather is a cardigan. I have not had one in this kind of color, which again will go with my Leila dresses (we'll see how I like the shapes together, but I think it'll work), my floral pinafore, all my wool dresses, my skirts, my pink linen trousers, which I'd love to wear into the winter as well . . .
So this is all right, I think. While I've been feeling that I was buying with abandon, it's gone in little spurts, and purchases have been pretty considered. I hadn't given myself a number limit, just the above two rules. I have friends who have had low-buy limits --- ten is fairly common. I had felt that surely I'd far surpassed that, since I wasn't keeping count, but (again, aside from shoes and a couple of targeted purchases that aren't really part of my regular wardrobe) I really have not.
Wearing today:
*Secondhand Eileen Fisher pink merino tank, bought January 2023, last worn August 17
*Secondhand Garnet Hill green lantern maxi skirt, bought June 2024, last worn August 13
*Secondhand Brooks Brothers pink merino cardigan, bought November 2023, last worn July 31
*Secondhand Birk Mayaris, bought in April, default summer shoes
This is a favorite outfit, and I'm glad to put it on again. Off to Mass.
LATER:
Welp, no Mass. That's what I get for not reading the calendar for the week. Spent some time before the Blessed Sacrament, said some prayers, made a spiritual communion, and came home. Coulda slept in, but since I was up, this was all a good thing to do.
Looking over my essays and notes for next week, anticipating that I'm probably going to get called in the car tomorrow on the way to the beach to talk about the calendar. Trying to decide whether I feel like taking the bull by the horns and instigating that conversation today, or whether I'm just going to file what I've written and say, Run this or write something else yourself.
I have a very congenial working relationship with my colleague, who is also a longtime friend, but I think we've been friends long enough, and worked together often and long enough, to have no illusions about what the other person is going to do in a given situation, or our own capacity to change that reality. That's the way it goes. The end.
High today of 95F, by the way. Bleah. I think this is the peak, though. For the next five days-ish, temperatures are going to sink through the low 90s into the high 80s, then suddenly dip down to the high 70s and low 80s. We're also supposed to have a thunderstorm today? Hard to imagine, but so the forecast says. Meanwhile, again, the mornings and evenings remain cooler than they were a month ago, so that's something.
In this writing break, I'm doing some hand-washing and starting to put my packing together a little. My Wisteria Willow dress has been on the drying rack, because I hand-washed it the other night when I took it off after wearing it all day, and . . .
You probably can't see what this is a photo of. Fortunately it's very faint. But somehow I've managed to incur a light but large bleach spot on this dress.
This is why I hesitate to buy any more new dresses --- as in new, never-before-worn, costing upwards of a hundred dollars. I forget to wear aprons. I am not always careful, even when I think I am being careful. And my life is a real life, with mess and a dog and housecleaning and all of it. I'm just not sure how well these knit dresses, especially, are standing up to it. Not that linen wouldn't also be damaged, but this fabric is a lot less sturdy. I've dyed Wool& dresses before, but I'm not sure I'd want to dye this one. I don't need to shrink it any more, for one thing, but for another, I've seen the long-term impact on the fibers of the dresses I've dyed. Linen might also be damaged by dyeing, but I dunno. A woven fabric just seems a lot tougher somehow.
There are also what look like some grease spots, which I can get out with Grandma's Secret. I wish I'd known they were there before I washed the dress --- although the good news is that not having tumble-dried it, I didn't set the stains without knowing about them. In the past I've done that so many times, and once the item comes out of the dryer with the stain, you have the stain forever. One more good thing about hand-washing . . .
Anyway, sigh. This is why I can't have nice things. Of course I'll continue to wear the dress, which I don't wear to church or for date nights anyway. Short as it is, it's really a play dress, or else a shirt to wear under a skirt. I have already worn it to hike, and I can see its tipping over into that category even more. But I'd better look over my others pretty carefully.
Here, pretty much, is my travel capsule for the beach:
Missing: my Birkenstocks, because I'm wearing them, plus whatever I'm going to put on to wear in the car tomorrow. Possibly that'll be my other Brooklyn dress, even though it's quite out of accord with all the blues and greens here. This is all all-Wool& capsule, because wool does travel and wear so well, generally speaking. I have my doubts about whether Wool& dresses will be the backbone of my wardrobe in the future, but I have them now, and I wear them happily while I do have them.
Addendum: I mean, this travel capsule isn't packed yet and could totally change.
LUNCHTIME:
Just out here eating a little leftover Middle-Eastern beef bowl with garlic-mint-yogurt sauce, as one does while writing essays.
LATE AFTERNOON:
Back from a longish, very hot walk with Dora, who wanted to go on the greenway trail and is now passed out flat on her side on the daybed.
I've written and uploaded three essays and hope they'll do for next week, and I've done some desultory housework, not involving any cleaning products, fortunately for my clothes.
I can report that while it is 93F outside at this moment, I'm truly not any hotter in a merino tank than I would be in any other article of clothing, in any other fiber.
Don't get me wrong. I'm hot, as in sweaty. But my clothes are not any heavier or warmer than, say, analogous pieces in polyester would be.
I do think I'll take a rinse in the tub and change clothes before we go out tonight, just to feel a little fresher. I'll leave my hair up, since it is so hot, and wash it in the morning before we leave.
Here's to the basic updo, off my neck and out of my way.
I've been reading Tom Jones, but I'm kind of bored and ready for the fun to start. Miles to go before I sleep . . .
LATER STILL:
I hope this man comes home soon, because I am dressed and READY. Bathed, clean, changed, and READY.
*Secondhand April Cornell purple silk vintage dress, bought August 2024, last worn last Wednesday.
*Secondhand Chicos linen shirt, bought early 2023, redyed this color by me last summer, last worn August 12
*Same Birks I've been wearing.
Acclimating myself to wearing silk with courage, and to wearing purple when it isn't Advent or Lent. I'm just letting this dress be big and floaty, because it's too hot to have fabric touching my skin. It does feel so soft and good, and I feel swanny and elegant, but not really overdressed for the pub, or wherever we're going. I could dress all the way up --- this dress is nothing if not versatile --- but not tonight.
Going to take the dog out for a last little break, then feed and crate her.
(This is enough pictures of me for one day, don't you think?)