My Artgirl birdbath/fountain, which I've put on the front porch mostly to protect it from breakage (also because there I'll remember to fill it up). That thing floating in it is a solar fountain, which turns it into a pleasant little water feature when the sun is actually shining on it. We do have an outdoor birdbath, but this is just a nice meditative thing . . . water is soothing to be near, even in a small quantity like this.
The skink Dora cornered at the top of the porch screen yesterday afternoon did make his way to safety once we went back inside. She loves hunting them, but they are faster and smarter than she is, so of necessity it's all about the chase.
Here he is again, looking somewhat put-upon, but also safely out of reach.
My bags are packed, though we're not going until after noon today. Plane is supposed to leave at 3:15, arriving Dallas around 5. We'll see how that actually plays out.
I did remember what it was I wanted at the store, other than dog treats --- another tube of Lume deodorant cream. That was the other main thing I was going for. I'm almost out of my toasted-coconut scent and would like to try another. It does work very well, and to be able to use it on my feet, for example, as well as my armpits, makes it worth the price for me. You could, in theory, use it all over your body if you needed to, though you'd run through it pretty fast if you did (they do also make body wash and wipes, though I don't think those are available in stores). Still: it lasts 72 hours, and it really does work, without aluminum and other potentially harmful ingredients.
I haven't bought a lot of products this year --- mostly trying to use up things I already had but hadn't quite finished, in the past, before buying something else. When the husband was fixing the bathroom drain, for example, he found an almost-full bottle of Cantu Curl Reviver that I must have bought . . . three years ago? four? . . . and forgotten I had. This is not a bad product at all. The idea is that you dampen your Day 2 or whatever hair and spray this on to help re-form your waves or curls with some definition. It smells very tropical, like a pina colada, and it's quite effective. I think I might have stopped using it because glycerin sometimes makes my hair more frizzy in humid weather, but honestly . . . it's okay. I'm going to use it. I might well use it this very day.
Of the products I have bought in the last 6 months or so, these are the ones I would buy again:
*Humby Organics shampoo and conditioner bars (have I raved about these enough already? I love them)
*LUS 3-in-1 leave-in
*Lume deodorant cream
*Not Your Mother's Curl Talk spray gel
I don't use a lot of products, generally. My facial care consists of: water. Lotion on my body for dry skin. I have a gigantic bottle of Queen Helene coconut lotion that I've been using for I don't know how long. The only annoying thing about that is that Dora wants to lick it off my legs, but then she seems to like the taste of any lotion. Shea butter is also a big favorite licky snack. This is fairly disgusting as an experience from my end, and my skin is probably drier than it needs to be because I'm avoiding lotion because I dislike being licked by the dog. One lick: fine. Repeated licking: nah, really, take that someplace else.
It's cloudy out today, and I might need to toss the laundry in the drier. It hung overnight because it was still damp at sundown, but now the weather is so humid that I think if anything is going to dry, it's going to have to be by artificial means --- at least if I don't want to leave all the laundry hanging all weekend, which I really don't. So that's another task to accomplish before we leave.
Yesterday I washed and dried Dora's crate bed and also washed the daybed cover upon which she likes to recline. I changed the top fitted sheet and pillowcases on the daybed, too, because all of that can start to become pretty grubby and doggy. I like the way this jersey sheet fits --- it's a tighter fit than the sheet I was using, and I might see if I can't pick up some more jersey fitted sheets in the thrift store sometime soon. I always keep a waterproof cover over the stacked mattresses (which themselves have individual waterproof covers), and then a fitted sheet on top of that, so that anyone coming to stay is spared any dogginess. I can make up a clean, lovely fresh bed at a moment's notice. But in the meantime, the dog and I do lounge on that daybed a lot, so it's really necessary to refresh the surface periodically.
I wasn't sure I'd like the red, because generally I've had kind of a blue-green pale soft thing going on in here. As it turns out, though, I do like this. Mostly I like that it's clean and looks neat. But it's also pretty cheerful. (I also continue to enjoy the outdoor table brought in from the front porch. It is exactly the size and shape I needed for a coffee table in this room).
As you might recall, I bought the daybed before Christmas with my birthday money. This is another thing I'd definitely buy again: both the daybed and the Poang chair, which I'm currently sitting in. I don't want a whole house full of Ikea, but I tell you --- the Ikea items I own are among my favorite pieces of furniture. I've had my kitchen island for 11 years now (and they don't make that particular piece anymore, which is too bad --- it is a fantastic kitchen island). We bought our new bed a year ago in January, and it too is just great. We did not buy Ikea mattresses, but the frame is Ikea, and it's beautiful and sturdy, exactly what we wanted. This Poang chair is easily the most comfortable chair in the house.
And the daybed is just clever as a guest arrangement, since it pulls out to make a king-sized bed. It too is extremely sturdy. Here again, I did not buy Ikea mattresses. The ones I bought on Amazon were quite cheap (even cheaper than their Ikea counterparts), but are comfortable. My guests at Christmas exclaimed over how comfortable the bed was, and now that I've napped on it many times, in its stacked-mattress configuration, I can attest to its comfort as well. Dora, of course, would give it thumbs up, if she had thumbs.
Anyway, having washed those doggy items makes the whole house feel cleaner. It's not actually that clean, but some key things are clean. I've swept and dust-mopped a good bit, too, as an alternative to dragging out the vacuum cleaner. Anything to make the house I come home to feel good to come home to . . .
And then I get to stay home for a while. As proud as I am of my children, and as much as I would not have missed any of the events of the last several weeks, I very much look forward to not going back and forth constantly. Maybe once I'm settled in place again I can actually get some things done. Many cleaning and garden projects call to me, but I haven't been oriented enough this month to consider them with any seriousness. We'll just see how serious I really am when I'm back to stay.
Wearing today:
*Wool& Brooklyn dress (S/Long) in Beetroot, bought November 2023, last worn May 7. Wears in 2025: 6
*Secondhand Banana Republic silk-cotton cardigan, first year of wear. Basically I'm stuffing this in the top of my backpack in case I get cold on the plane. Otherwise, I think that outside of severe air-conditioning situations, I'll be plenty warm without it. But I do like it with this dress.
*Thrifted Crocs, second year of wear
I can't believe what a difference taking a stitch in the bodice of this dress has made, in terms of my wanting to wear it. For me this is a loud color --- though I love it. In person, it's really luminous and dimensional, not just a flat hot pink. And although it's at the outer limits for my level of color and contrast, I do feel good in it, not washed out or overwhelmed. I was considering whether I'd want to resell this dress --- but nope, I don't want to.
I did try it on backwards before settling on what you see in these photos, just to test how much difference the bodice stitch makes. The big selling point of this dress style, supposedly, is that you can wear it backwards. I have worn my Pacific Brooklyn reversed once or twice --- while it is kind of fun to have this sexy vee in the back, I don't love the high neckline that much, so I tend not to choose that. BUT I can report that it does work okay with the stitch, and I'm reminded that maybe in the winter this would be an option, when I want more coverage in the cold. But mostly I think the crossover bodice is more flattering --- I feel better that way, at any rate.
It's also interesting to compare this style to my new-to-me Sofia --- about which I'm on the fence. I want to love that dress, but I'm not sure how I feel wearing it. I chose not to pack it for this weekend, because I don't want to get caught out, while traveling, in a dress I don't feel 100% confident wearing. What I notice about the Brooklyn (and this one seems a little smaller than my Pacific one) is that the skirt, while not as full as the Fiona's. is still a little fuller than the Sofia's. And the bodice, even in a small, is a little blousier, which means that if you need your dress to flow more generously over your stomach, hips, and backside, and to make your whole silhouette feel more balanced, this whole shape is better and kinder. It's why I love the Fiona so much as well.
Lots of consideration over what to keep, what to resell. This has felt like a very experimental year so far, and while some of my experiments have been successes, a number of them have not been --- and oh well. That's the way it goes sometimes. I did really want to try the Sofia in a small size, since it's a style that seems as though it would work for me, and the medium I tried two years ago did not. It might just end up being a case of a dress I love that doesn't love me. And again, oh well. That is the way it goes sometimes.
I'm still on the fence with my NPL Mama dress, too. I think I'll try to wear that one when I get back, just to see. I do love the color. And while the style can feel maybe a little LARPy*, it is very forgiving. I haven't really given that dress a chance in warmer weather with just sandals, and I think I should do that.
*LARPy as in I think I feel like I'm pretending to be Tasha Tudor --- but then she did look really cool in her quaint way.
The good thing about resale is that there's no window of time in which you have to accomplish anything. You can mull over an item for as long as you want. Once you sell it, it's gone, and you probably won't be able to replace it exactly in kind, so it pays to think carefully before you put it up for sale. I put up and took down my Ocean Teal Willow multiple times before finally saying, yes, definitely, it's time --- and having decided that, I don't think I'm going to miss her. That's the thing --- you have to ask yourself how much you will miss an item, because once it's gone, it's gone. Sometimes the answer is clear. The item might not fit. It might not be the color you thought it was going to be. It might look or feel weird in a way you couldn't have anticipated.
But sometimes you have really liked an item . . . but there's something about it, especially when you look at yourself in photos, that makes you think maybe it's not serving you as well as you had hoped. Your clothes are there to serve you, not vice versa, and you do get to decide what is and what is not pulling its weight in your closet. BUT sometimes you have to think a lot before you make that decision. Yes, you want to cultivate detachment; at the same time, it's okay to deliberate over an article of clothing that you have loved but aren't sure about, because it's okay to have loved the item of clothing.
In the case of the Ocean Teal Willow, yes, I really loved that dress. But I started not to love how I looked in that dress, a sense I tested multiple times before decided that it really was time. Now that she's gone: no regrets. I have plenty to wear, and I like the way I look in what I have to wear.
Oh, by the way, I guess my glasses will have to be my Marian Blue today. They don't really count --- at least I haven't thought they did --- because I wear them all the time. But I'm not knocking myself out to make an outfit with blue. I'm sort of tired of knocking myself out to make outfits, at least for the time being. That's one thing I love about the onset of summer: the simplicity of dressing. I will get bored with that and start to long for layers again, but for now, especially with Lent still visible in my rearview mirror, it's a relief just to put clothes on and wear them, without necessarily any kind of rule or plan or contingency. That's why seasons are so wonderful. You get bored, but then something changes, and things are fresh again for a while.
I have been wearing the same earrings all month: little silver drop earrings with tiny Our Lady of Guadalupe medals. So that's Marian, anyway.
I hear the dog stirring in her crate, so it's about that time. This time of year, I do love being able just to go out, without having to bundle up. I enjoy walks in the cold, but I also enjoy the ease of walks in warm weather. So now, before I run my errands and arrange myself for another departure, that's what I'm going to do: enjoy a walk in warm weather.