After yesterday's sunshine, the drear of winter is upon us again. After tomorrow, too, all the Christmas lights will come down (except, of course, the little Catholic Christmas tree on my front porch, which will stay lit until Candlemas), so we'll be left with the January gloom --- which always seems unfair, especially as there are still days of Christmas to plod through.
But plod through them we will, with as much cheer as we can muster and the cozy lamplight shining in the house. My own lamplit room feels very glowing, the creamy walls touched with gold.
One thing we're doing in January is take down all the old curtain hardware on these window frames and repaint the woodwork, which needs it. I didn't paint it years ago when I did the walls, and although I don't think the difference will be that obvious, I am looking forward to having this room as Linen-White-drenched as the dining room and kitchen are.
Today's agenda:
*walk the dog
*research and write an essay for Thursday
*Read more of Catherine of Siena --- I'm about halfway through. It is good, though again, Catherine herself, as a character in a hagiography, is a hard slog. I found her this way, incidentally, in reading her Dialogues. Perhaps it's indicative of some deficit in me, that I find her so off-putting. Certainly I am far more worldly than she . . . But she's compelling all the same. I'm also interested to start Undset's Sagas of the Saints, if for no other reason that she calls them Sagas. She was of course immersed in medieval Norse literature, and I'm curious to see how that translates into her telling of saint stories.
Wearing today (and feeling a little abject about it, because Catherine):
*Wool& Brooklyn dress (S/Long) in Beetroot, bought November 2023, last worn November 26. Total wears this year to date: 23
*Secondhand Aran Knits merino zip hoodie cardigan, bought November (?) 2023, worn daily around the house, but not so often worn as part of an actual outfit.
*Snag merino tights in Storm Cloud, bought spring 2022, third season of wear
*Secondhand Keens Baby Bern boots, bought December 2024, fourth or fifth wear, I think, in the roughly two weeks I've owned them.
Really, I marvel at how often I've worn this bright magenta dress in the past year. My most-worn dresses (both of them gray, as it happens) will have topped out at 30 wears, or close to it, but any number in the 20s, for a dress I've owned all year, is pretty good, I think. This dress is great on its own --- I was going to wear it with a skirt today but opted not to --- but it also layers well under a skirt (my green lantern maxi skirt especially) or my floral pinafore, another dress I need to plan to wear soon, having not worn it all Advent.
In fact, since it's New Year's Eve, let's look at dress numbers. Here are the dresses I've owned all this year (bought last year or before), with their numbers for the year:
Wool& dresses
Beetroot Brooklyn: 23
Pacific Brooklyn: 20 (surprised that I've actually worn the Beetroot Brooklyn more than this dress, though I might also have missed some days here and there, as I often took this dress traveling)
Teal Fiona: 23
Ocean Teal Willow: 23
Black Heather Audrey: 29
Aegean Teal Maggie: 22
I also wear my original Camellia 100-day challenge dress and my original Sierra 100-day reward dress regularly and interchangeably as nightgowns. So they have both had (especially in the case of Camellia) well upwards of 100 wears by now, just not in the daytime.
Not Perfect Linen dresses
Chocolate Brown Leila: 20
Cinnamon Rose Leila: 23
Dark Gray-Blue Smock: 27
Other
Erika&Co. vintage floral pinafore: 19
Those are the dresses I brought with me into 2024. I also owned a Marine-Blue Maggie and a Wisteria Willow, both of which I have sold, but which did figure into my wearing rota for much of the year.
I also acquired the following dresses:
April Cornell purple silk, bought in August: 6 (honestly more wears than I thought)
Not Perfect Linen Grape Wine Smock, bought in September: 10
Not Perfect Linen Caffe Mocha Mama, bought in September: 10
Not Perfect Linen Emerald Green Smock, bought in November: 4
Wool& Washed Navy Sierra, bought at the end of November (received December 2): 5
So . . . I guess I could divide all these numbers out by the number of months worn to see what my actual rate of wear is, but just listing the raw data and taking roughly into account how long I've had them, what I derive from these numbers is that I'm wearing my dresses at a fairly even rate. The chief exception is that April Cornell silk dress --- but come on, it's silk. I'm just not going to wear that every day.
Again, my Black Heather Audrey and Dark Gray-Blue NPL Smock dresses are the standouts here, but everything else has been worn just about equally. I own, currently, 14 dresses --- my new Iris Blue Sierra will make 15. That seems like about as many dresses as I need or can wear with any regularity, given that there will be some variation in patterns, with the silk dress getting the least wear (followed by the pinafore, which is a little limited in being patterned, and also I don't want to wear a pinafore all the time). The nice versatile neutral gray dresses will probably continue to get a little more. But it doesn't seem like too many dresses, given that I like variety.
What I will re-evaluate is the skirt situation. I've already culled out my purple Flax skirt for resale, and I might let go my red linen skirt as well. I love it, but it gets about two wears a year. I could really make do with my green lantern maxi and my blue floral rayon vintage maxi, and otherwise just wear my dresses.
I'll also continue to keep an eye on the shirt situation. I have more than I will ever regularly wear, but sometimes I do want to wear them and like the outfits I can make with them. So they're there as accessories, mainly, and I don't feel as urgent about culling them as I do my skirt collection.
I now have a lot of coats, especially since my mother gave me a Land's End down parka for Christmas. It's wonderful, and I've been wearing it continually. The one coat I really don't wear is an old thrifted gray wool-blend Old Navy peacoat --- it's very nice and in good condition, but it's not getting worn. I have been making a deliberate effort to wear my brown suede peacoat, also thrifted, and so beautiful I don't think I'll ever part with it. Something has to go, and I think it'll be the gray peacoat. I could also donate my old gray puffer jacket, which I haven't worn at all this year --- though it is good to have extra jackets lying around in case somebody needs one, so I might just hang onto it a while longer.
Anyway, that's the year-end rundown, and it's time to walk the dog. Any other New Year's Eve ruminations will simply have to wait.
Still setting a Christmas table, because friends, it is still Christmas.
Afterwards, we crated the dog and walked down to the pub for a drink. We didn't stay long --- it was noisy and crowded, and I found I really didn't want more than one mimosa, anyway. So we walked home again, with fireworks exploding over our heads, to find that Dora, in a panic, had broken out of her crate, taken refuge on our bed, and peed all over it.
Same dress, tights, and boots, but I swapped out my Aran zip hoodie cardigan for this merino cardigan/coat. And I wore this little wool purse the husband gave me for Christmas last year.