More Artgirl: our house as ceramic art object.
We're off again today, to be in Dallas for the Artgirl's closing reception tomorrow evening. I'm hoping to hang out on campus tomorrow to work on essays --- that seems like a good plan. I'm finished, right now, through Monday of week after next, but in that week I have a total of three essays on poems I haven't written on before, so I will be grateful to myself if I can get even more ahead with it all. That's the week following graduation, I anticipate being exhausted --- AND I have three again for the following week. I would thank myself for getting all of those finished in the next week.
What I have packed for this weekend's trip:
*Wool& Pacific Brooklyn
*Wool& Teal Fiona
*Blue rayon shrug cardigan (kind of dressy, though very old)
*Greenish silk-cotton kimono (with blue accents)
*Cobalt merino cardigan
*Crocs sandals
Wearing today for travel and beyond:
*Wool& Sierra dress (XS) in Iris Blue, bought January 2025, last worn May 1. Wears in 20025: 22. Still the frontrunner as the year's most-worn dress.
*Thrifted Peruvian Connection alpaca cardigan, year 3
*Xero Jessie barefoot sandals, year 3
Yeah, yeah, you've heard me extol the virtues of this dress many times before, as well as obsess about the sizing. I do like the fit better with each wear. At this point I think it fits about the way the new Flora princess-seamed dress is supposed to fit, but with the waist hitting in the right place. A number of short-waisted or petite women have reported that that style doesn't do much for them --- that the flare happens too low on the body. Now, I'm not actually that short-waisted, in terms of the space between my ribcage and my hip bone, BUT my proportions are fairly small overall, AND I'm pretty extremely pear-shaped, with extra weight distributed through my abdomen and hips. A flared dress with the flare beginning higher on my body is going to fit, move, and feel better to me than one that hugs me through my stomach and widens out at a lower point on my body.
This dress, in this double-sized-down fit (sized down initially from M, which is my size in a number of Wool& dresses, to S, which I also wear in several Wool& styles, but then sized down again to XS), works that way. The fact that I could use a tad more room through the shoulders and bust is more than compensated for in the overall shape. I do like the bigger swing of my S Sierra, but as you've heard me say a million times before, this fabric relaxes.
As indeed it's done here. I think I've gained about an inch in length since I first put the dress on, back at the beginning of January. And it's relaxed significantly through the whole body. The drape over my rear end is a lot better than it was to begin with. The pull at the pockets is pretty much gone.
With its vibrant dark color and its less-swingy fit, this dress really feels as though it could dress up as well as down. I could wear it with a sheeny cardigan to this reception and not feel underdressed. It feels a little sleeker, a little more elevated --- but of course I can also hike in it.
Also, yeah, I love my Xero Jessie sandals. They're so cute. I love the contrast of the off-white with my saturated, dark dress. I imagine we'll go out for dinner tonight in Dallas, and already I feel dressed to do that.
Playing it a little fast and loose today with my Marian blues, pairing Iris Blue + aqua. Still, I'm in the color range. And I'll be comfortable in the airport and on the plane. Wearing all wool: Branwyn merino bra with wool bra pads, wool bike shorts from Minus 33 (and these are okay, though I'd prefer not to have the brand name in bright white all around the black waistband --- it doesn't show through this dress, but I always fear it's going to show through something, just because the contrast is so high).
We don't leave the house until after noon today, mercifully. I'm packed, but there are things I can do between now and the time we pitch all our stuff in the car and take off again. It'll be good to be there, of course, and there's no such thing as seeing our kids too often, but I'm glad that once this weekend is over, we'll be 2/3 of the way through this travel-marathon May.
PS:
We have a direct flight today, which is a mercy. I was looking at my Kindle app, to see what I have to read --- my great temptation is to buy Helen Castor's book on the Pastons, but as I see, I've still got The Golden Bowl, the complete Shakespeare (maybe I should go ahead and read Richard II and the Henry IV cycle while the history is fresh in my mind), and numerous other things started but not finished.
So I am proud of myself for not making another purchase at this time. Right now I am taking a one-day-at-a-time addiction-recovery approach to shopping --- not to blow things out of proportion, but I do kind of think that every day I don't buy myself something is probably a good enough day. A day when I do buy myself something: perfectly fine. But when I feel low-dopamine, as I have been feeling lately, I particularly need to be mindful of my habits. Specifically, I need to be sure I'm shopping among things I already own, instead of things I don't.
My closet is a great example. I spent a little time yesterday plotting some outfits to wear next week --- things I won't want to pack for travel, but do want to wear.
For example:
*Blue gauze Indian tunic + Japanese linen pinafore
*NPL Dusty Blue tank + rayon floral maxi skirt (OR red linen-blend maxi skirt)
*NPL Chocolate Brown Leila + periwinkle crocheted cardigan
*Wool& Camellia (my v. old trusty friend) OR Wool& Maggie OR NPL Oatmeal tank + floral pinafore
*NPL Dark Blue-Gray Smock dress, all by herself
This Camellia dress: oy. She's developed some faded spots, probably from washing and having the dye rinse out unevenly --- but basically she's okay. She's certainly okay for knocking around the house in, for hiking in, for sleeping in, for wearing under things. The only problem is that after three years, the dye still rubs off, so that I hesitate to wear her as an under-layer with anything light-colored. BUT she's still wearable, and I need to remember that.
Ditto my one remaining Maggie. She has been mended in several places, not entirely invisibly, but she's still wearable, especially for days at home, and under other clothes.
That is the thing about these dresses. They are an investment --- I am rather shocked by the amount of money I've spent on the dresses I own, although I've acquired them fairly slowly over the course of nearly four years. It does pay to treat them well, because they're not that readily replaceable, and they're not meant to be disposable.
But the upside is that even when they start to wear out or incur injuries that make them not as presentable as they were to begin with, there's still a place for them in the closet. Some people pay big money for nightgowns that aren't as comfortable as a Wool& dress to sleep in. Some people have whole sections of their wardrobe that are like schlumpy clothes --- they buy athleisure or loungewear or whatever. And . . . some people own way more shirts that I do. None of which is wrong, I hasten to say. But I find that even as my dresses start to look a little ratty in places, I can still wear them, and they fill spots in the closet that might have been filled by entirely separate items, all of which would have come with some price tag.
Anyway, it does kind of work out.