Dresser-top still-life, with Sacred Heart and unmade bed. It's another bright day out there, but quite chilly --- the temperature at this moment is right at the freezing mark. I'm definitely in the mood for warm-and-cozy today.
The husband has driven off to visit his mother in Memphis for several days. Over the course of Christmas, my household has shrunk from 10 to 2 to 1 . . . which isn't bad, really. I plan to enjoy the next few days in quiet, with some work and some housecleaning. Maybe I'll tackle another of those upstairs closets . . . who can tell? New year, new organizational skills, new allotments of storage space in this old house.
My new Sierra dress is out for delivery --- hooray! My plan, once the mail comes, is to put it on. But I felt like getting dressed, not sclumping around in my (also a Sierra) nightgown until I hear the truck drive away, so here's what I have on for now:
*Secondhand Wool& Sierra dress (S) in Washed Navy, bought November 2024, last worn December 26. First wear in 2025.
*Thrifted Peruvian Connection alpaca cardigan, bought September 2022. First wear in 2025 (I guess this is really stating the obvious, and will be for a while . . .).
*Secondhand bamboo-cotton leggings, bought fall 2021. First wear in 2025 . . . of course.
*Devold wool socks, bought in Norway, summer 2023, second full season of wear, first wear this year.
*Secondhand Birkenstock Melrose suede boots in Graphite, bought summer 2023, second full season of wear, first wear in 2025.
None of this was on my outfit plan for this week, but it was what I felt like putting on. As you can see, I've experimented with my cardigan, tying it as well as wearing it loose. All the buttons are off, so it functions as basically an open-front cardigan anyway, or possibly a big shirt that I wear unbuttoned and can either tie at the waist or not. I like it tied, though the bulk at the waist kind of bothers me from certain angles. But it's soft and warm and lightweight, and the color is delicious --- and I hadn't worn it in a while.
This is the kind of combination --- short dress + leggings --- that would make me tempted to put on sneakers or hikers, and then feel that I didn't look very good. I thought about this as I was putting clothes on, which prompted me to reach for these boots instead. I haven't worn them in a few days, the weather is cold but dry, and they seemed like a better choice than the stumpy, less-put-together default I would have gone for.
I'm finding that I really love having a rota of comfortable boots. I do like my Mary Jane shoes as well, but most days in the winter, I want to wear boots. With these, I can wear my very warm, thick Devold socks, and nobody has to know they're there but me. To the external eye, I just have these nice sleek boots on, in a line that makes my legs look longer. I could have worn my Taris, which I wore yesterday, but I like this line with this dress today.
And presumably I can just take this dress off and put my new dress on, and the outfit will still work. I think this dull earthy green (the outcome of a dye job in 2023) will suit Iris Blue just as well as it suits this very grayed navy. I'm looking forward to playing with the new color, which seems like a darker version of what I loved about Wool&'s Wisteria.
I sold this Wisteria Willow with some reluctance because of the color (ETA: the color made me reluctant to sell it) --- otherwise I found it kind of a hard dress to wear, and although I loved the color against my face, I ultimately did not love how the dress looked on me overall. But the color was wonderful for my coloring, if a little hard to keep clean. Light as it was, it showed every spot, which was another reason I had to make myself reach for it and finally decided to sell it. Still, I adored the springtime freshness of it, and the way it paired with other fresh springtime colors, especially tender greens.
So I think that Iris Blue will be the darker (and therefore harder wearing) version of same, like a really saturated periwinkle. I expect to wear it with many of the same colors: the leggings I'm wearing right now, my lighter, mintier green Allbirds leggings, my green pullover sweater, etc. I expect teals to play well with it, as well as lighter duck-egg blues. It's a dark enough color not to feel too summery in the fall and winter, but a pretty enough color not to feel too dull or wintry in the spring and summer. I also think it can count as a purple, or at least harmonize with purples, for Lent --- always a consideration!
Anyway, I'm impatient for the mail to arrive. I really want to see if I'm correct in all these expectations. But in the meantime, I am insanely comfortable in what I'm wearing, and I also think it looks pretty cute.
I won't keep up with recording reading, poetry memorization, etc, because I never do. I start strong, and then by about the second week of the new year, I fizzle. BUT:
*still reading Sigrid Undset's Catherine of Siena, which is fascinating even if I don't really feel much connection with Catherine
*memorizing Thomas Campion's "Now Winter Nights Enlarge"
Part of memorizing for me is copying the poem, section by section, from memory. I've learned the first quatrain --- easy to do, with these trimeter lines. My plan is to get it quatrain by quatrain. I really need to revisit Milton's "On His Blindness," which I memorized this time last year but can't seem to hold in my memory.
Meanwhile, back in the land of the relatively trivial, I liked this In/Out list this morning. Mostly I liked it because her In category is stuff I do or have anyway: old car? forehead lines? outfit repeating? CHECK. And it's been some years since I participated in anything like "haul culture" --- as in, Here's my latest Goodwill haul. I never really bought clothes from Amazon, and certainly never a whole "Amazon Haul." But thrift stores? Pretty much every month I had a "thrift haul." Too many clothes, too few good clothes, too little that worked together to create outfits I really wanted to wear.
And while I think extending grace to messes (physical or otherwise) is always in style, I'm kind of over having messes, even unseen ones, in my house. What's in for me this year is better organization, more freed-up usable storage space, and knowing where things are. We were cold in bed the other night, and you know what? I didn't have to wonder whether we had another blanket that would fit our queen-sized bed. I knew we did, and I knew exactly where it was, so that at 3 a.m. I could put my hand on it. This, mind you, is a blanket that has been in our house for at least ten years. But having folded it on the shelf of the linen closet, I knew it was there and exactly where, so that getting up and bringing it to bed was a matter of two minutes. If I hadn't known exactly where it was, I would have thought, immediately, that getting up to find a blanket was more trouble than being cold was, and we would have kept on being cold.
But yeah, it's always a good time to say no to perfectionism --- perfectionism about your appearance, perfectionism about your house, perfectionism about your accomplishments. It's always a good time to say no to stupid stuff that doesn't work anyway (looking at you, "detox").
It's always a good time to remember that your life is your life, not a performance for other people's consumption. Yes, it's fun to share things. It's fun to make connections with people, and a grace of the internet (for all its non-graces) is that it enables those connections among people who would otherwise never cross paths. I don't really know where the line is between connection and performance for others' consumption, but it is there, and maybe the only way to discern it is in your own intentions. I think it is important to interrogate your own intentions --- far more important than interrogating anyone else's intentions. It's always a good time to forego influencerism and keyboard warriorism for actual relationships and the cultivation of virtue in real life.
And yes, while outfit repeating is in, it can also be in to keep yourself from falling into too much of a rut, making no effort, sliding into winter depression. I stand by my rule of not wanting to outfit-repeat as a default mode. But I absolutely endorse the principle of wearing the same set of clothes and not feeling that you have to rush out and buy something new for an occasion.
Waiting, waiting, waiting for the mailman. I think I'm going to have to take the dog out first. We'll see if she consents to leave the yard today. The fireworks and shooters from New Year's have scared her pretty badly, and so far she has not wanted even to stand in the front yard. The backyard seems a little safer, and she's felt all right, especially in daylight, poking around back there under my watchful eye. I might need to find some other form of exercise for this week, because I might not be doing so much walking.
. . .
And . . .
THE MAIL HAS COME.
*Wool& Sierra dress (XS) in Blue Iris --- arrived today, first wear.
Initial review:
-I'm pretty glad I sized down an extra size in this dress. I couldn't go any smaller (not that they make a smaller size), and as it is, the fit is pretty close, especially for a swing dress. But I have seen how much this particular fabric stretches out. With a few wears, I think it will relax into a good fit --- not that I dislike it now, mind you. But there is a little bit of pull under the arms, for example, that I expect to relax out in the course of a few wears. Over time, the armholes on this dress style, especially, stretch out a lot. I've already seen my secondhand small Sierra relax somewhat, and I know that's what's going to happen with this one. I would not ordinarily size down this much, and I don't think I'd do it in any other style. But if I'm going to wear this one over the course of multiple years, sizing down twice from my normal size seems indicated.
I did want one dress that was this short (but not billowy, as my former Willow was). This is the length I really wanted for hiking. Yes, it's too short to wear to church, at least on its own, but then I have plenty of dresses to wear to church. I'm going to enjoy this dress with leggings and tights in the winter, and on its own with sandals for everyday knocking around and outdoor adventure in the summer.
Color: Iris Blue is purple. It is a very nice purple. I had been eyeing the Purple Fig color that came out last year in a number of Wool& styles, but I think this is really what I was envisioning that purple to be. I guess what I'm saying is that I thought it would be a purply blue, but what it is is a bluey purple.
And this is great. For one thing, Lent is coming, albeit not for a couple of months. For another thing, it's just a really flattering color for me. It will go with my green lantern maxi skirt pretty well (though I need to try it to make sure it's not too bulky), and with my blue floral rayon maxi as a tunic. I could probably wear it under a linen dress as an underdress, too, when the weather is really cold. I might experiment a little here . . .
*With secondhand Garnet Hill green cotton-modal lantern skirt, bought May 2024. A great solution for Mass wear (is it hypocritical that I'd otherwise wear a short dress just as it comes? I don't think so . . . it's just a matter of context-appropriateness and reading the room).
*Under my beloved secondhand NPL Dark Blue-Gray Smock dress, bought in December 2023. Another great solution if I'm wearing this Sierra dress and want to go to daily Mass. Also a great solution for wearing this linen dress on a cold day.
*With this secondhand Flax tunic, bought February 2023. I pulled it out on a whim, but I think I really like it with this dress. That's good news, because otherwise I really only like it with my Black-Heather Audrey, and I had been wondering whether I should hang onto it at all. I do really like this tunic with the Audrey dress, which is why I haven't resold the tunic. But rather unexpectedly, I like it a lot with this Sierra. The high neckline fills in the huge open neckline of the tunic. And the fit isn't so swingy that a tunic over looks too boxy.
So I'm happy with this purchase. I'm also happy not to buy anything else for a good while.
And so to work.
AFTERNOON UPDATE:
Today I have
*finished out my income/expenses spreadsheet for taxes
*made my bed
*hung up and put away my clean clothes
*run a load of towels and kitchen laundry and hung it all to dry
*answered emails
*decluttered:
1. moved a dollhouse from one of the under-eaves closets in my husband's upstairs office to the upstairs bathroom linen closet --- having this item take up floor space in that closet means that no other junk will get dumped in there.
2. moved a fairly trashed mattress from the same closet out to the curb. There is ZERO reason for us to be holding onto a caved-in twin mattress that apparently was on the Artgirl's old bunk beds.
3. Ditto two old, stained whiteboards. Nobody is using these things. Maybe somebody else can.
I wanted to do more closet cleaning than that, but I think that just moving those items out of the house or into a better niche for storage is enough for one day.
*enticed the still-traumatized dog outside and across the street, using shredded cheese.
*trampolined for 3 minutes, lifted a medicine ball, did a few exploratory deadlifts with dumbbells. Nothing like photos of yourself in a sleeveless dress to make you feel like lifting some weights.
*ate the last of my leftover rotisserie chicken/tomato/artichoke heart/goat cheese bake of the other day, washed out the baking dish and put it in the dishwasher. Sink is currently clear, another daily goal of mine.
*worked on a poem
*read another chapter in Catherine of Siena
I'm going to eat leftovers from last night's black-eyed peas-with-ham and cornbread for supper tonight, so that's easy. Tomorrow I think I'll just eat scrambled eggs with smoked salmon.
This burst of activity brought to you by the prospect of five days on my own. I truly don't mind that at all --- if anything, I can get too comfortable with solitude. I'm going to read, binge-watch some things, putter around, and go to Mass for First Friday tomorrow evening, because why not? Dora, meanwhile, is quite good and constant company. Not husband-level company, but company nonetheless.
Anyway, it's been a very nice day thus far. Just having a little retreat, with spells of work. All good.
Meanwhile, looking back at my outfit plan, and having just put on my Dark Blue-Gray Smock dress for a minute today, I think tomorrow I will amend the outfit I'd considered in this way:
*Dark Blue-Gray Smock dress
*Pink merino cardigan
*Snag Red Velvet Cake tights (OR Storm Cloud, actually)
*Earth Shoes Mary Janes
I haven't worn that pink cardigan much in a while, and I like it. I especially like it with that dress. That would be a comfortable ensemble for the day, and good to wear to Mass in the evening. I can wear a thermal layer (probably not this Sierra dress, though) under my linen dress for extra warmth: I have a bamboo slip that I've really been under-utilizing, and it might be just the thing.
Yeah, let's do that.