RAIN. Rain rain rain rain rain rain rain. And it's chilly and dank.
My plan for the day:
*steep in a hot bath for a bit and wash my hair
*let the dog out in the backyard (unless it slackens off, in which case, yes, we will try to take an actual walk)
*make headway on essays
*continue work on the upstairs room
I'll take some more photos up there later today. It's looking better and better --- yesterday I mounted a curtain rod and hung new blackout curtains on the big side window, plus a paper shade (light-filtering --- I really am going to need to mount a proper blackout shade eventually) on the dormer window. I also moved the mattress that's been living on the Artgirl's bedroom floor into that room and put it in the dormer for a floor-bed nook. I think I'll put up a tension shower rod and hang another set of curtains there, so that the nook can be private. Then at Christmas the Fire Son won't have to sleep on the futon, and I can buy another cheapo memory-foam mattress, like the ones on the daybed down here, for any other person requiring accommodation.
Today I want to disassemble the big table and see if I can't store the top under the bed or futon (or make it a low platform for the floor mattress), then store the legs in the closet. That way we wouldn't have to get rid of it. It's a nice enough table, though the top is in need of some restoration. THEN we could move the punching-bag stand into that corner, and the room would be basically done. It's amazing how much you can improve things simply by decluttering, cleaning, and shifting large elements in a room around --- this isn't an actual renovation, but it feels like one.
It feels good to have every room in this house be clean, functional, and pleasant. I do need to vacuum and clean a bit in the Artgirl's room and make her bed back up again, now that I've finally stripped and washed all the bedding, but that's not especially urgent. Still, boy howdy, are we ever ready for houseguests.
I had planned to wear linen all week, but it's so dank out that I think I'm going to revise that plan. Back to cozy mode . . .
SLIGHTLY LATER
I've had my warm bath and hair wash: another minimal-product/styling day, because the rain is still bucketing down out there, and there's just no point in trying. Today I did Humby shampoo bar x 2, followed by some fairly water-diluted Treluxe Reflex Serum, from a bottle I've had for . . . as long as two years? I'm still trying to use up stuff I've had lying around, and to remind myself why I bought it in the first place.
This Reflex Serum is basically analogous to LUS 3-in-1 leave-in. The idea is that you shampoo and condition (I didn't bother with conditioner), then use this product as a styler. Where the LUS is more like a light cream, Reflex Serum resembles a liquid gel. It's clear, anyway. It has moisturizing and conditioning elements and does add some slip (unlike a gel), which was what I was after --- just enough slipperiness in my hair that I could detangle it in the bath with a wide-toothed comb. So I used this fairly generously, given that I'd already watered it down at some point to make it last longer. Then I added more water to my hair with my cupped hands and squished it all through, because more water is what makes your hair form larger defined clumps, rather than going all stringy.
When I got out of the bath, I took a microfiber towel, bent over at the waist with my hair flipped upside down, and just pressed my hair to my scalp gently with the towel, to remove excess water without breaking up whatever clumps had formed. Then I diffused on high speed/high heat for maybe 10 minutes to dry my scalp and remove more water. I keep the diffuser fairly far from my head when I'm diffusing at that speed and heat level, so as not to damage my hair --- if I want to touch the diffuser to my hair at any point, I switch to medium speed/lowest heat. But today I just wanted to get it about halfway dry, so I wouldn't have a wet scalp and clammy hair sticking to my back.
As you might be able to see in the photo below, I did get some impressive curls here and there. My curl pattern is very mixed: curlier on top and in the front, less curly in the back and underneath. I never know what it's going to do, although overall, in the last few weeks as the weather has warmed up, I have noticed much more curl as a general rule. I guess my hair is really healthy? That's the message here?
There's some frizz here, but that's just life. Short of shellacking my hair, I don't really see how to eliminate it, especially on a wet day. But you can see how the clumps of hair have turned over in spirals and curls, basically of their own accord. All they needed was a little encouragement. Here my hair is still damp --- I might or might not gently comb it, to neaten it a little, once it's fully dry. With wavy hair you can get away with combing and even some judicious brushing, in a way that you can't with a tighter curl pattern. I can break up these clumps a bit, to smooth things down, and still have relatively defined waves. Someone with a tighter curl pattern, on the other hand, can't comb or brush out their hair without its turning into a massive bush (which might be the desired effect, honestly, or it might not).
Anyway. The Reflex Serum is a nice product, and I'm pleased with the results I got today, combining this product with a minimal outlay of effort. Its fragrance is stronger than the scent of the LUS 3-in-1, but not as strong as the Not Your Mother's Curl Talk line. It's pleasant, though less flowery than Not Your Mother's. And I do like it as a light-hold product, the kind of thing I most often reach for. It seems to encourage nicely defined waves and curls without being heavy or crispy, and it imparts a lovely shine. That is the thing I notice in a good product: that without my doing anything other than what I've described above, I get more curl action and definition, and shine, than I do when I don't use any product at all.
And again, today was a 2-product day, just shampoo and this serum, with no fiddly styling technique other than what I've found works to encourage curl clumps to form.
Wearing today:
*Wool& Sierra dress (XS) in Iris Blue, bought January 2025, last worn May 24 (I did wash her out well after all my cleaning exertions on Saturday). Wears in 2025: 27
*Secondhand Allbirds tencel-merino leggings, year 2
*Thrifted Peruvian Connection alpaca cardigan, year 3
*Darn Tough socks
*Xero Oswego walking shoes, year 2
I doubt I'd turn any heads in this outfit, but I am comfortable and cozy, as desired. I don't wear these spruce-green Allbirds leggings all that much, but the color makes a decent choice for a late-spring day, and I like the color-blocking I have going on. I would buy more pairs of these leggings, too, in more colors. I like the tencel-merino blend, which is very comfortable and breathable, and I like the price (especially secondhand), which is roughly a third of what any pair of merino leggings would cost. AND they are very sturdy. People complain about thinning and pilling in their Wool& leggings, but all the tencel-blend leggings I own have held up amazing well.
Comfortable feet in Oswegos and Darn Tough Socks, my faves (if and when I must wear socks).
You can also maybe see how much my dress continues to relax. I've been hand-washing in cold water, wrapping in a towel to remove excess water weight (so it doesn't actually stretch out while it's air-drying), then laying over the drying rack.
It's dry now, though, and I might well stuff it into my rain pants to go out with the dog, so that it stays that way. That's another good reason to wear what I'm wearing right now: it all fits neatly under serious rain gear. I don't love walking in the pouring rain, but one advantage of doing so is that nobody else is out walking, and Dora and I can amble in perfect peace with no reactivity triggers. No dogs barking from yards. No other walkers. Just rain and quiet. Of course, Dora dislikes being wet, so there is that drawback, but otherwise rainy days are our friends.
AND . . . rain rain rain rain rain rain rain. It is just flat raining. For now, Dora is still curled up snug in her warm, dry crate in the dark end of the back hall, glad not to be out in it. And I'm enjoying the quiet of my lamplit study, where eventually I'll get to work.
More photos to come from upstairs . . . stay tuned . . .
Also: Still reading Mapp and Lucia --- I'm currently in Lucia's Progress. There are at least two novels that precede the first one I read, Mapp and Lucia, but I think I'll go back and read those last, after I finish the whole sequence where everyone is in Tilling (the village both Lucia and Georgie move to, from Riseholme, in Mapp and Lucia).
AFTERNOON UPDATE
As promised, some upstairs-room photos. We're still in that phase where things look worse before they get better, but much has been resolved --- or I can see the resolution just ahead.
A shot from the doorway. I still have cleaning and other supplies gathered next to the futon, but all that will go away.
Windows with new blackout curtains. I have been liking "natural"/golden-beige curtains in various places, including my office. They're a lot warmer and softer than a stark white and add some subtle glow to the space. Visual warmth is especially welcome in a navy-blue north-facing room. I have steam-cleaned the windows and the AC unit.
One shelving unit just about filled --- I still need to finish the end slot on the right. The shelving unit to the left is still waiting to be bolted back together.
This desk came out of the building --- a 1914 neighborhood bank building --- that my brother bought at literally a fire-sale price (as in, it had been on fire) after his divorce. Ten years post-renovation, he lives in a spacious apartment upstairs, and downstairs is his woodworking workshop and showroom. When he bought the building, it had --- until the fire --- been in use as a boarding house and was full of all kinds of stuff. He still has and uses a metal bed frame he found in the building, and he gave this desk to the Viking.
All these years, I had thought it was just a wood-veneer metal desk. It had been pushed up under the window in the dormer, where it wasn't very useful as a desk because there's no electrical outlet for a lamp there, and so it accrued layers and layers of detritus over the years. When I excavated it and cleaned it off, thinking we might just curb-mart it, I realized that no, actually, it's a solid wood desk, albeit with a laminate/formica top. It's a nice desk, in other words. My brother had also made that desk-lamp arrangement --- a lamp on a wooden caddy of sorts, with note paper and a place for pens --- but again, in all those years there wasn't a place to plug it in so that it could sit on the desk and be useful. Now it's plugged in.
So the desk will sit at a right angle to the shelves under the window, and the punching bag with its stand will go in the corner there to the right. You can also see where I've made up a bed in the dormer --- I'd like to get a paper lantern or something to hang in the alcove for light at night, but at any rate, that's a place where someone can sleep.
The elephant in the room at the moment (as you can see from the first photo in this series) is the table, which I started to take apart, then found that I couldn't undo one last nut to take the fourth leg off. I've realized, having slid it all over the room, that it won't fit under either the futon or the twin bed. BUT I have taken the fold-down bed frame from under the double bed in the husband's office, where it had been living --- and the table will fit under there. I just need him to take the last leg off. And then together we need to move the punching bag into the corner, where at last, at last, it will be out of the way. Right now it's in the way of everything, the other elephant in the room. AND I'll need to sort out all the stuff on the futon.
A place for everything, gradually, and everything in its place. The guys will come home again, and when they leave it will be as though a bomb had gone off in that room, but this time I'll know what to do about it. It's not a denuded, minimalist room, but so much has been packed (and labeled), or has gone altogether (actual garbage), that cleaning again won't be nearly this kind of job. Everything is just more functional.
So, that's that update. I have finished but need to revise my Thomas Campion essay, and maybe I'll start thinking about Coleridge for next week. Really trying not to grind too much here.
The rain has stopped, and Dora and I have been out, but it's still a chilly, uninviting kind of day. I'm happy to sit here (getting up periodically to do something else upstairs, or to lift some weights), and feel warm and comfortable. Leftover steak for dinner tonight. All good.