Golden-hour sunlight through the trees and the porch screen yesterday afternoon.
Lo, the rain is over and gone, for now. There will come a time, I know, when I want it back again --- July, say, when the garden is crisping in the pitiless sun --- but for now I'm glad to see that pitiless sun. Perhaps Dora and I will bask in it later on.
On today:
*dog walk
*coffee on the square with a friend at 10 --- the husband's car is still in the shop, so my friend kindly consented to come here, where I can walk to meet her, even though it was really my turn to go to her, one town north.
*work on essays this afternoon, and try to get a start on this book review before any more time gets away from me
*vacuum the Artgirl's room and put clean sheets on her bed. I've done all this work in the guys' room and neglected hers, though overall her room tends to stay in nicer shape than theirs has done (funny, that). She says that since she's currently not working, she might come home this weekend or early next week, and we will be very glad to see her. So I do want things to be in order. I should probably tackle the upstairs bathroom as well. It gets daily husbandly use, and is clean . . . sort of. Time to wield my steam cleaner again, and run the shower curtain liner through the wash. Let's just say that what we have going on in that bathroom is a difference of tolerance levels for certain things. Mostly I just let it be, and do not use that bathroom. But sometimes my tolerance level needs to prevail, for the good of the order.
Still reading Mapp and Lucia --- I've just started the second novel, introducing Miss Mapp. As you'll recall, I began with the novel actually entitled Mapp and Lucia, which is the fourth novel in the lineup, after Queen Lucia, Miss Mapp, and Lucia in London. These are great fun, though they make you feel that life in an English village would become strangulating really fast, with all your neighbors out to put you in your (strictly defined) social place and then talk about you. For all I know, this is how English villages really are, or were in the 1920s and 30s.
Anyway, this is not like reading The Enchanted April (which if you have not done you should do immediately, even though April is over). Mapp and Lucia does not make you long to be in an English village in the way that that novel makes you long to be an Englishwoman in Italy in the glorious springtime of the 20s. But it is funny, though both the titular characters are, each in her own way, hard going.
What's the weather looking like today? High temperature of --- wowza --- 88F. It's going to be a warm one. The next week overall isn't looking too hot, but today and tomorrow will be (if this forecast is correct) the warmest days we've had yet. Not cracking 90 degrees quite yet, but getting close.
It is, of course, Day 6 of this June Wear Everything Once Challenge that I've set myself. Once again, the rule is simple: wear every dress and skirt in my closet once before repeating anything. So far I'm enjoying this more than I've enjoyed other challenges. The Lenten Purple thing wasn't really supposed to be enjoyable anyway --- though it wasn't onerous! --- but coming on the heels of that, the idea of wearing blue every day in May felt like maybe a little too much of the same idea. This, even though I love blue and do in fact wear it often.
But a rule that just . . . makes me wear all my clothes . . . feels reasonable and even kind of fun. This is a good time of year for it, too, when it's warm enough finally to wear dresses and sandals without a lot of extras, but not so hot that dresses with sleeves are an automatic turnoff. In this season, it's not burdensome to wear my way through everything. Just wearing everything in summer mode is still a novelty.
And it's not as though this challenge will consume the whole month. I don't have that many dresses. By mid-month I can repeat things, which seems about right. My idea has been that twice a month per dress is about right, as a very general rule --- obviously there are dresses I fall back on a lot more than that. But as much as repeating things is good, I think giving them time to rest, so they don't wear right out, is also good. As long as I'm wearing something once a month on average, I consider that it's an active part of my wardrobe, but twice monthly seems ideal.
This challenge is also a good reminder to be grateful for what I have, and that I have plenty of it. Pretty dresses catch my eye all the time, but I don't need them. I don't need to spend the money. I don't need to give myself more choices than I already have (and at this point, I think I am maybe happy with shoes, too, although I'm not going to beat myself up for the fact that finding shoes that actually fit and feel good has been an ongoing quest).
What shall I wear today, that I have not worn in the previous six days? I still have a lot of choices.
*Wool& Fiona dress (M) in Teal, bought November 2022, last worn May 22. Wears in 2025: 7
AFTERNOON UPDATE
*Dog walked
*Iced chai latte drunk
*Friend visited with
*2 essays drafted for next week
*Urgent Care appointment made for 4 pm, so they can look at my latest tick bite (and also the previous one, which is still kind of unhealed) and maybe draw some blood to reassure me that I don't have Lyme Disease
Fiona still performing heroically in the heat. Dora and I sat outside for a while, and I was fine. I mean, it got hot, but Dora was hot, too. I moved my chair into the shade --- so more ticks can drop into my hair, come on, ticks, you know you want to --- and that helped, until Dora decided that she was too hot and wanted to go back in.