The inner workings of my single-cup coffee pot, given to me for Christmas by the Texasgirl. Is it not a cunning little thing? I just love it.
Morning kitchen corner while waiting for the kettle to boil:
It's pretty chilly out right now: 29F at 8:45 in the morning, with a high only in the 40s (which I know sounds hot to people used to Celsius, but here in Farenheitland, it's not warm at all).
Today's agenda:
*Finish my two drafted essays for next week and begin a third.
*Answer some emails --- I got a lovely fan email this morning from someone who had read The Blackbird, and I need to respond before it slips off my radar.
*Work on memorizing Thomas Campion's "Now Winter Nights Enlarge." I have the first two quatrains fairly securely --- kind of. My brain never seems to hold onto things for long (can I still recite Milton's "On His Blindness," which I memorized last year? Not sure . . .).
*Work on music for Br. Chrysostom's Profession of Solemn Vows --- choir practice Monday night.
*Check the cleanliness of the upstairs bathroom before the husband comes home. I'm not sure I'll need to steam-clean again just yet (at any rate, I'm not sure I feel like doing all that), but I do need to give things a wipe and swish, at least.
*Go to the store for dog food and more clothespin-clips. Those dollar-store clips I got to put in stockings make me think that my best clothespin options for the big line outside are to be found in the office-supply aisle, rather than the laundry aisle. I don't want regular old clothespins, because they fall apart. But something like bulldog clips seems just the ticket.
Wearing today:
*Wool& Audrey dress (S) in Black Heather, bought November 2022, last worn December 12. My most-worn dress of 2024, with 30 wears total. Wears in 2025: 1
*Thrifted cashmere pullover, bought September 2023, turtleneck cut out, sleeves and hemline cropped by me brandishing sewing scissors. Second season of wear (for sweaters, I've resolved that I'm not going to count actual wears, just how many seasons I've owned and worn an item).
*Very old wool scarf inherited from my grandmother, redyed in 2023 with Rit Indigo dye.
*Snag black cashmere footless tights, bought summer 2024, first season of wear.
*Devold wool socks, bought in Norway, summer 2023, second season of wear
*Secondhand Birkenstock Melrose suede boots in Graphite, bought summer 2023, second season of wear
I'm feeling pretty toasty in all wool and cashmere --- in the winter my study gets chilly, as the closet isn't insulated, so it's nice to have these warm layers. I enjoy the play of indigo blue and turquoise in the top part of my outfit, with the muted note of graphite gray through the bottom. This also seems to me to hit the Rule of Thirds nicely: a 1/3 to 2/3 proportion, with my cropped sweater and my longer skirt.
Most of my worst outfits occur in January, when it's cold and I'm just piling on layers --- or I'm bored and experimenting, to hit-and-miss effect. This January I'm trying hard not to do that. Not that I won't experiment, but I'm kind of over settling for weird combinations. And at this point, I'm grateful to have enough in my closet that I don't really have to settle for weird combinations. It's taken a few years, but I have, now, ingredients for good, warm, layered winter outfits that aren't too dumpy or strange --- and by strange, I don't mean like eccentric bog witch. I just mean this looks stupid and no rational person would wear it strange.
I'm also making an effort with my hair. It sure helps to have long enough hair to make an effort with. Last year it was so short and awkwardly layered that even when I did wash it, results were variable. Now it's long enough to pull back and up, and I have a little repertoire of go-to, reliable fixes that help me look more put together even when I'm really not at all. Here, my Day 2 hair still has some life, but it's a lot less curly and voluminous than it was yesterday, straight from a wash.
My latest go-to do: a claw-clip ponytail.
I have several clips of this type:
They're compact in size, but the long teeth mean they hold a lot of hair. I wore the one pictured here yesterday, for a half-updo pulling back more hair than I can with my very small metal claw clips. I like them for ponytails, clipped sideways onto my hair like this:
You just gather your hair in one hand as you would to make any kind of ponytail, and holding the claw clip open in the other hand, you just slide it in, making sure that all the hair is held in the clip's teeth. This makes a ponytail that's a little jauntier, I guess, than a standard scrunchie ponytail --- the clip holds the hair up and out a little more. I used to like making ponytails with big barrettes, but barrettes, used often, can break hair. So I haven't used them at all in years, but I have missed the kind of ponytail they made. This is about as close to that style as I've been able to achieve without a barrette.
Anyway, it's easy and I like it.
Waiting to see how much things will warm up in the next half-hour or so before I take the dog out.
Hard to believe that Christmastide is coming to an end. It's rather good timing that the local church's observance of Epiphany, which will take place tomorrow, is only a day off the real date on Monday. I'll enjoy the Christmas tree for one more day, but on Monday I think I'll be ready to take it down and put most of the holiday things away. The Nativity scenes will stay out, and we'll keep our little porch tree lit, until Candlemas. But the holly and ivy and fa-la-la begin to wear thin, and the season turns a definitive corner: still the Incarnation, but not so much the birth itself.
I also need to remember to move my Magi. They've been stranded on the living-room windowsill since the start of Advent.
In other news . . .
I rather liked this reflection on no-buy rules, maybe because it echoes my own learned intuitions, based on years of failing at precisely this kind of resolution for a new year. I don't think she's saying not ever to challenge yourself this way. She's pointing out, instead, that it's a very, very difficult resolution to sustain and might not be a realistic approach to getting your spending and consumption under control.
I've had zero success with absolute rules, myself. What has worked better for me is to plan periods when I know I'm not going to shop for things (by things I mostly mean clothing here). I know I'm going to crash and burn in a no-buy year, but a no-buy Lent I can do. Hitting pause for a month or six weeks: attainable. I think that setting a number limit on things you buy in a certain category (new clothes, secondhand clothes, any clothes, any other kind of item you currently spend too much money on without discernment . . .) might be helpful in the same way. It's not a cold-turkey proposition that makes you feel deprived --- that feeling of deprivation, whether you actually are deprived or not, is what tanks any kind of habit change. You have to give yourself loopholes, because if you don't, you're going to create them anyway and then feel bad about yourself. Might as well skip the "feel bad" part and just grant grace on the front end, as part of your agreement with yourself.
What's helping me in the moment is a feeling that I really do have enough. I bought my new Iris Blue Sierra, and I feel quite sated. It's like getting to the end of the Christmas season and suddenly feeling that you've eaten enough. It feels actively good not to eat dessert. You know that at some point you will want to eat dessert again, but not today, thanks, and probably not tomorrow or the next day, either. You've done that. You've had enough. That's how I feel about clothes right now --- and it's not a bad feeling at all. I'm pretty content to play in my closet and feel that nothing is missing from it.
Obviously I am not very good at asceticism, a thought brought to you courtesy of Catherine of Siena. And now I should probably bundle up to take the dog out.