What's wrong with this picture? There's nothing falling from the sky, that's what's wrong. Clearly the end of the world is nigh.
I'm back from a nice coffee out with a friend, with whom I'm going to Santa Fe for a few days in September. We've been talking for more than a year now about this writers' retreat we'd both like to take, but now we've booked our Airbnb, so I guess it's getting real.
Today:
*walk the dog (check, have just done)
*work on essays (sigh, do not feel like)
*work on libretto (yes, do feel like)
*leftovers for dinner instead of pub night, because we're going to Blowing Rock tomorrow for Valentine's Day fun.
Wearing today:
*Secondhand Old Navy pink wide-leg jeans, bought January 2025, first year of wear.
*Secondhand Not Perfect Linen Bay tank in Oatmeal, bought January 2025, first year of wear (but it's getting a LOT of wear)
*Secondhand Banana Republic silk-cotton (like 80% silk, 20% cotton) cardigan, bought February 2025, first wear (of what I can tell will be many wears)
*Old silk scarf given me many years ago by my mother
*Farm to Feet merino socks, Christmas gift from my husband in 2023
*Xero Tari boots, bought summer 2022, third year of wear
*Puffer coat a Christmas gift from the TXgirl in 2020-ish, I think --- been wearing it some years now
Temperatures are variable today. It was in the mid-30s Farenheit when I got up this morning, but now it's about 50F, and supposed to go up another 15 degrees in the next couple of hours. The sun has come out --- that strange bright thing in the sky --- so maybe this will actually happen. Tomorrow is supposed to be cold again, but at least we're getting a little break. Anyway, I dressed for weird weather, and here we are.
When I got home from coffee the mail had come, and ---
*Secondhand Universal Threads lavender wide-leg jeans, bought February 2025, arrived today.
I'm wearing them, but I dunno . . . there's wide leg, and then there's wide leg. These are kind of fun. I love the color, and I like that they're full-length, not cropped as my pink ones are. They are right on the line of being too big, but I think I'll wait and see how they do. They do fit okay at the moment through the hips and waist, and they don't give me a wedgie, which is always nice (my Levis kind of do give me a wedgie, and I'm waiting to see if they stop doing that before I make any further decisions about them).
The main negative about these jeans is that they have back pockets but not front ones --- didn't catch that from the listing, which is my fault. I might not have bought them if I'd realized that. But they do fit smoothly through the hips, in the way that a skirt might, and that's not bad. I just have to get used to not trying to put my hands in pockets that don't exist.
So . . . we'll see. These are a maybe. The good thing about secondhand shopping is that there's no return window, and no disincentive to wearing clothes first, to discern how and whether they're going to work for you. You can give purchases a serious chance before deciding they're not for you. Now, you do usually lose a little money on these resales, but it's never that much (and in any event, I paid $13 for these, so not much of an investment to lose).
The main thing, I think, is that these are just really different from anything I've owned, and I need a chance to get used to them. It's been a long time since I really wore trousers of any kind, let alone anything with a leg this wide. There is something fun and skirt-like about this much volume in the legs, and I'd like to see how I wear these, and with what, through a couple of seasons. The soft lavender will obviously be good for Lent, and it'll go with pretty much everything: greens, pinks, blues, other purples, as well as the neutrals I'm wearing today. I think I'll like these with my graphite Birk Melrose boots, but I could also wear them with my Papillio wedges, but also plain ol' Mayari sandals in the summer. I like the funky 70s boho kind of vibe that they give.
So I'm going to keep them on today, since I have put them on and changing clothes is a pain. I'll see how they feel. And I'll pay attention to stretch and give. There is some elastane in this fabric, and they might very well stretch enough to become too big, in which case I think I'd resell them sooner rather than later.
I do like that my current outfit looks not too wintry --- this lavender, like the pink I had on originally, is a nice soft springlike color --- but is warm enough and "covering" enough for a February day.
So anyway, that's the day. I really wish I had nothing else to do, but alas . . .