I decided to lead today with the colors and patterns I'm wearing, because I like them so much. It's a chilly day, with a low just below freezing for the first time this year, and I'm all woolled up for it.
The college progeny arrive tonight --- I have to go in to fetch them from the airport, which means dinner in the crockpot. I have an eye of round steak that I think will feed four, and that responds well to long slow cooking, so I think I'm going to pop it into the crockpot with some Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, and garlic powder, then a layer of Yukon gold potatoes, halved. The piece of meat isn't gigantic, but people can fill up on lovely buttery beefy potatoes and whatever green vegetable I do on the side (probably peas).
Last night we had salmon cakes (canned salmon with liquid, quinoa flour, a little mayo, a little mustard, a good dash of Worcestershire sauce, an equally good drizzle of lemon juice, finely diced cayenne and bell peppers and onion, and an egg, baked on a sheet pan for about half an hour, until brown), served with cauliflower rice baked with a whole log of goat cheese and an egg (my substitute for gourmet cheese grits), and green peas. The remaining salmon cakes can be lunch today, though they should also freeze well.
Kids' beds are made and their rooms more or less tidy. House is swept --- I never did vacuum yesterday, but I did sweep up dog hair and resolve to buy a dust mop, because my old one has broken. I think with a good microfiber dust mop I will be unstoppable. Anyway, things are in pretty good order, and I have a meal plan at least through the weekend. Come Monday I can send the Artgirl to the grocery store. She loves a good wander among the aisles, which is precisely how she would say it. I do look forward to seeing both their faces and hearing both their voices in my house for a whole week.
Wearing today:
*Wool& Audrey dress, bought November 2022, last worn November 15. Total wears this year to date: 27. This dress is the winner. I need to look back at the number of wears from last year --- I'm not sure the total is going to be a hundred yet, but we're getting there.
*Secondhand Connemara merino cardigan, bought in October, last worn November 19. Wears this year to date: 15 (already!).
*Snag merino tights in Crocodile (I think that's the name of this green). Bought last year, heading into a second season of wear.
*Secondhand Birkenstock Melrose boots, bought summer 2023, last worn November 21. My other default winter shoe, when the weather is fine and I want to give the Tari boots a rest.
It's funny, I don't like these boots with most of my longer dresses. I dislike the look of my Gray-Blue Smock dress with them, for example --- the hemline hits just at or slightly below the top of the boot, and there's something about the shape that displeases me. I love these boots with shorter dresses --- my new turquoise midi Smock, for example, as well as my Fiona and Brooklyn dresses. I like the look of the mid-calf boot with some leg above it.
BUT I like them with this true maxi dress, I guess maybe because any boot is going to look basically like this with a dress this length. I mostly prefer a contrasting shoe with my hemline, but there's something just kind of nice about how this dark graphite continues the slightly smudgier, less-dark charcoal tone of my dress. Seen really close-up, the dress and boots are quite obviously not a match:
From more of a distance, the difference is a lot less obvious. But anyway, as it turns out, sometimes I do like this kind of tonal coordination. It's nice to have the outfit move from light to dark as the eye moves down.
Anyway, this is just nice and low-key and comfortable (though I'm already kind of hot in the house --- I really need to go check and see how high the husband has turned the heat up, and turn it way down again).
Hair about 2/3 dry after this morning's wash, just so my head's not so cold when I go outside, as I am shortly to do with the restless dog.
A lovely Saturday to all!
LATE EVENING UPDATE:
Kids got in. Happy days are here. Dora is beside herself.
Dinner, as it turned out, was a Greek-flavored shepherd's pie: ground lamb with garlic, onion, lemon juice, Italian herbs, and rosemary, topped with feta mashed potatoes. Quite good, I must say. Side of sauteed green beans (salt, pepper, minced garlic), and herbed olive-oil flatbreads. And a lot of wine, because the husband stopped and bought a lot of wine. We had a nice time eating, talking, and laughing together (while Dora sang to us from her crate), and now the very tired progeny are upstairs showering and collapsing.
Going to take the dog out soon, then fall into bed. Mass tomorrow for Christ the King. Hard to believe we're staring down the end of the liturgical year and anticipating a new one. Sometime in the coming week I need to remember where I put the Advent votive-candle holders.
Oh, by the way, the day wound up a good bit warmer than I had thought. I've been through a green tencel big-shirt phase today, and am now wearing my thin-but-warm merino-blend (cotton and mohair, I think, are the other fibers) green Norway sweater:
I bought this Anthropologie sweater on Poshmark in the spring of 2023 to wear in Norway, which I have done two times now. It's a great travel pullover: lightweight, not too hot or heavy, but warm when you need warmth. It wound up being the right thing for a variable-temp day when I was doing a lot of housework.
The main thing I did was steam-clean the fridge --- I took everything out, pulled out all the shelves, steam-cleaned the empty inside, then cleaned each individual shelf. What I really need to do is take the glass panels out of each shelf and clean around the edges, because there are places I can't get no matter what I do if I don't take them all apart. I didn't do that, but it all did wind up pretty clean and sparkling, ready to be stuffed with Thanksgiving food. I just kind of have a thing about not putting holiday food on top of the regular grunge --- really, I should not have "regular grunge" to begin with, but there are so many hours in the ordinary day, and that's how that goes. I also have a thing about not putting Christmas decorations (or Easter ones, or really any holiday decorations) on surfaces that have not been cleaned and cleared, and this food business is one more iteration of that basic thing.
SO the fridge is clean, and the next thing is to acquire a turkey and stuff. But tomorrow I'm going to church and enjoying the presence of my children, and that will be all.