Poetry shelfie, just because.
It's Sunday, it's the last big feast of the Christmas season (unless you count Candlemas, which I do), and today the husband turns 63, a good and august age to attain. He has chosen steaks for his dinner tonight, so that's what we're doing. My large gift to him won't arrive until tomorrow, so tonight he gets to open more Woolly boxer shorts, which will delight him, honestly.
We were a little dubious about getting out for Mass this morning, since everything is frozen hard. The overnight low was 14 or 15F, and currently it's warmed up to a balmy 24F. But the Artgirl took the car out yesterday and parked it at the end of the driveway, which was going to be the most difficult part of the whole drive to navigate, as it's a sheet of ice. Everything after that should be basically okay.
So off we go, in just a little while.
Wearing today (per yesterday's outfit plan):
*Wool& Fiona dress (M) in Teal, bought November 2022, last worn in the week before the new year. Wears in 2025: 1
*Devold base-layer tee, bought summer 2024 in Norway, first year of wear.
*Secondhand Ann Taylor cashmere/rabbit-hair blazer cardigan, bought October 2024, first season of wear
*Very old wool scarf originally owned by my grandmother, dyed indigo by me, no idea what season of wear this is, but we're talking decades
*Snag merino tights, originally Sand Dollar, bought spring 2022, redyed Jacquard Sapphire by me in 2023, third season of wear
*Secondhand Keens Baby Bern boots, bought December 2024, first season of wear
I'm glad I made myself an outfit plan for the week, simply because otherwise, in this cold weather, I'd get into a rut, and I really don't want to do that. As comforting as I find certain items, I do still have a whole closet of clothes I love, and I don't want to forget about them all. It's good to be nudged to wear my teal Fiona, a consistent favorite dress in the 2+ years I've owned it. I added the base-layer tee to the planned outfit because of the cold, and with my coat over the top, I should be plenty warm outdoors.
It's also nice that for the most part (base-layer tee excepted), this outfit is made up of items I have owned for multiple years and/or bought secondhand to begin with. No, no, I haven't stopped buying things, of course --- but I am trying to be purposeful about wearing what I have over multiple seasons and years, and of enjoying things I've owned a long time just as much as I enjoy novelty. This is, I believe, a possible habit to cultivate --- and like so many things, it really is a matter of habit. We all have inclinations, but nobody's brain lacks the plasticity to change its inclinations, at least a little bit.
The new year seems like a good time --- not for resolutions so much as the desire to take on new habits, one at a time, in a small and sustainable way. My new habits include emptying the dishwasher in the morning if it's been run the night before, and making the effort to tell other people in the house to put their dirty dishes in it, rather than leaving them in the sink for me to fume about. They include hanging the clothes to dry whenever possible --- as much to avoid using the dryer as a linen closet for days and days as anything else. AND they include being mindful (but not in a woowoo way) about wearing my clothes, and moving them along out of my closet if I really don't want to wear them (but also not being hasty about that . . . there are things in my outbox that I haven't put up for sale yet, because I'm giving myself time to see whether or not I miss them).
Day 2 hair very straight and limp, thanks to the cold, so a default ponytail with a nice soft little teal scrunchie. I hope it doesn't look too lame.
And now I had better brush my teeth and take the dog out.
AFTERNOON UPDATE:
Ate leftovers for lunch, chiefly chicken thighs from last night.
Sent the Artgirl out to buy cheesecake and wine (so very nice to have ALL my children be 21 or older, so very handy in so very many situations).
*Worked on a poem.
Still comfy in my Mass outfit. I am VERY happy that I took the plunge and bought these boots. They are neither barefoot shoes nor Birkenstocks, yet they feel just fine on my feet. No knee or hip pain. No bunion pain. All leather. So pretty. $45 secondhand. I admit that wearing them is an exercise in smugness.
It's warmed up a good bit out there. This morning, driving in to Belmont, we hit a number of icy patches on the country roads, fortunately with no ill effects. I think the laundry I hung yesterday afternoon to freeze overnight is now thoroughly dry, so in a minute I'll go out and collect it off the line. I fold it as I take it down, so then that's done, and all I have to do is put it away in the right places.
When I group activities this way, in little fluid pieces that flow right into each other, then things get done, like all the way done, as in to completion, not with a door left open or a vacuum cleaner still sitting in the middle of the room or . . . you know . . . fill in the blank. Things are done, so that then when I need a towel, there it is in the right place. When I need to change the sheets, the clean sheets are in the drawer, waiting to be taken out. Carrying one little set of chores through to completion makes the contingent sets of chores doable. That's how that works.
So I guess I'm going to get up now and strike a decisive blow for order in the universe.
LATER STILL:
I did that. Then I was bored and thought I'd dress down a little, which turned out to mean simply taking off my blazer cardigan, which elevates any outfit.
I really love this dress. And I like how it layers over the Devold men's base-layer tee I bought in Norway last summer (and promptly cut the neckline out of the minute I had access to sharp scissors). Resolving to get more wear out of that tee this year, since I did buy it new.
Also, I don't think I've taken a picture of the coat my mother gave me for Christmas: a navy blue Land's End down parka with a (faux-)fur-trimmed hood.
I've been finishing off pretty much every outfit since Christmas with this coat. It's warm, it's pretty, it's just what I've been needing. I do have an older long puffer parker coat --- older as in I bought it 20 years ago this coming fall, which means I'll probably never get rid of it. It's teal, it's a little longer than this parka, and it's a nice coat which I've mended and kept wearing all these years.
In fact, while I'm at it, here it is:
I bought this coat in a Burlington Coat Factory in late October 2005. My dad had died in July of that year, and my mother had conceived a desire to go to New York in the fall. So the Texasgirl, then 11, and I said we'd go with her. I didn't have any clothes, and certainly not a good coat to wear in New York, so I went to the outlet and found this coat for about $20. I mean, seriously, come next fall we'll be talking not cost-per-wear, but the fact that this coat will have come to cost me less than $1 per year of wear.
So, again, I can't get rid of it. I mean, aside from the fact that I like it. The one problem with it at this point is that the zipper is very unreliable. I just tried to zip it up, in fact, and couldn't. It does have snaps, but when you're walking out in the cold, sometimes you do want your coat zipped, not just snapped. Still, it's dressy, and for going out on a cold night, it's a lovely option that works well with a maxi-length dress.
And then I have my brown suede Gap pea coat, which I haven't worn in a while but do like to wear and also will never get rid of. There are just some things . . .
Phone rang, now I'm back. Anyway, as I was saying, there are just some things you hang onto, that are worth hanging onto, because you'd never be able to replace them in kind for anything like what you paid for them, and even if you don't wear them all the time, they serve their purpose. I was just thinking how fun a suede peacoat would be with jeans . . . since I have now bought jeans. That's like a whole new horizon of things to do with clothes I already have.
Thinking about the fiction classes I'm going to be teaching the first week of February at Thomas More College in New Hampshire, but also thinking about what I'm going to wear. This kind of thing is a different travel-capsule concept from the normal road trip --- well, it's like a conference travel-capsule concept, where I have to look professional and together, to stand up in front of people. So that's in development, as are the actual classes and things . . .