restingmotion

exploring style through the camera's eye

I rediscovered my clothes this past week.

Here are a few of the things I have worn over the past few days. Only the gray corduroy pants were in the suitcase I packed last December.  If I had realized how long it would actually take me to get to my own things, I might have packed a little differently.

 

I have noticed a few things.  First I still don't have a full length mirror in the house, for various reasons, and although I will eventually get at least one, at the moment it seems to suit me to not check how I look.  When I had a mirror, I spent too  much time wondering if something looked right.  Now I can see enough to see if there is some gross fitting problem (head to mid thigh) and I can tell how my clothes feel on and that seems to be enough.  I see my clothes.  I think of how I would like to wear them and I put them on.  I have started taking photos in lieu of the mirror, but often by the time I actually get around to looking at the photos I took, the day is over and it is too late to change anything.  Although I am not always happy with the results, it seems that I fret less over my perceived imperfections becaues it is too late to do anything about it anyway.  Besides, if my goal is to have a wardrobe of only clothes I love and which play well together without huge amounts of fretting on my part, this seems as good a technique for finding the winners as any.

 

The blouse and skirt were worn to two different choral concerts.  When I wore the blouse out with the corded wrap belt I was overdressed, although I felt very casual. It was an evening concert and I took the small blue clutch  (1998 or 1999) shown, only to learn that most of the audience wore jeans and fleece vests and carried big bulky daytime satchels.   The picture in the bathroom mirror captures how I felt in the outfit (sleek and sinuous), the full-length photo how I actually looked, which is actually better than I had feared (not sinuous but not so bad either).  For the second concert, when I wore the blouse simply tucked in with a belt. I was slightly underdressed for the audience but felt perfectly at home.  I liked the simplicity and the structure, and the truth is that I could live in outfits like this, a simple blouse or sweater and skirt or tailored pants.  

 

Running errands after church and before concert, I simiply switched out the blue skirt for the beige jeans and the pumps for flats.  Truthfully I felt kind of dumpy, even before I looked at the photos, whereas I had felt very sleek and accomplished the day before wearing the same jeans with the checked tunic (one of my spring Lafayette 148NY purchases). I was surprised to see that the jeans and tunic looked better when I wore the jeans rolled up above my ankles rather than long, something I thought would make my short-for-my-height legs look even stumpier.  The fact that the checked tunic is cut in an a-line rather than straight also probably helped, but I believeI could make the purple blouse work with different accessorries. 

 

The gray outfit with the pinky-beige sweater is something I love even though tying the cardigan at my hips probably does nothing for my middle-aged tummy.  Oh well, the fit my spirit anyway and spirit trumps tummy any day.  These pieces have moved to the "keeper" end of the closet. 

 

There are a few things still in boxes, primarily a few shoes and handbags.  I don't have room for them on the very few shelves although I think I can accommodate them by moving knitted wool scarves and shawls and the heavier sweaters to another closet for the short term, until I at least make another pass at sorting what I have, need, love and want to keep.  After that, I can do the necessary accounting and design a new closet system that will actually work with what we have, which in my case will probably always include too many shoes and sweaters.

 

If you want to see more posts from women who probably have much better control of their closets than I, head on over to Visible Monday.

Little Bits of Joy

A fold-down ironing board was installed in the laundry room yesterday.  It wasn't the ironing board I wanted or the one the builder and I talked about and ordered.  But it works and it makes me happy and that is enough.

 

Here are a few other things that make me happy:

Flowers that G bought me for Valentine's Day, flowers he went out and chose himself without my assistance.  These are the only flowers I have had in the house that have not been nibbled by Sam the cat.  No matter how much I may love flowers I do not love them enough to want to clean up cat puke.  Of course this may not be the flowers so much as the fact that they are on the kitchen cabinet and Sam can't jump that high.

 

The pretty cherub that G inherited from his aunt.  This was just supposed to be a temporary location, but I love seeing her everytime I walk through the house.

 

The new sofas which arrived last week and how nice they look with my teal and turquoise cushions and a lovely yellow throw.  Sam is pretty cute too. Looking at this picture makes me want to go join Sam on that sofa and take a little nap.

 

And since I started with the ironing board, I have to admit that I loved ironing today, smoothing the fabric, reveling in the wonderful aroma of just-pressed cotton. As I ironed  I was thinking about how nice it is to have this ironing board downstairs, separate from the upstairs pressing area (not yet set up) which led to thoughts of sewing and all the things I want to make.  Instead of taking a nap I frittered a little time looking at new patterns on the Vogue website but I haven't ordered any yet; I haven't ordered any patterns since last summer and I don't need to order any right now.  I do however think I may be ready to start unpacking fabric soon.

Midday Monday

When I was much younger I used to have nightmares in which I would find myself out in public at some even or another, where everyone was pointing at my feet and laughing.  Invariably I would look down and find that I was wearing my slippers and I would wake up in a cold sweat, absolutely mortified. I outgrew that fear as well as my youthful social anxiety.  Actually one of the ways I conquered my fear was by doing exactly what I dreaded most.  I forgot and wore my slippers, a pair of Ugg boots, out to the grocery store.  This was a long time ago, before you saw Uggs on every corner, and it was not common to see them out and about.  It never occurred to me in those days that I would wear them out, just that they were warm slippers.  The point was that no one noticed, or if they did, they were too polite to say anything, which is as it should be, and I stopped having nightmares.

 

But I still didn't wear my Uggs out in public.  That was one of those things that I just didn't do. Actually it was one of those things that striving upper-middle class people like doctor's wives just didn't do and I toed the line.  Until recently anyway.  

 

I was actually thinking of wearing my Uggs out before I moved to Tennessee, but hadn't yet.  When we were still living in the hotel I wore them a couple of times with jeans or a short dress and tights.  They seemed a better fit, stylistically speaking, than any of the other choices I had with me.  Once we were in the house they were happy to stay home while I galivanted about in loafers, clogs, my Acne boots, or the occasional Manolo.  Until this weekend anyway when it was cold and windy and I had a cold as well.  Warmth and comfort were desireable, and suddenly the uggs seemed perfect.

 

There we are, out and about on Saturday afternoon.  me in my uggs, jeans, a pink striped shirt and fleece-lined Barbour jacket.  G in his typical uniform of black fleece pants, gray tee, and brown fleece jacket.

 

Speaking of the new house, I can't believe its been 5 weeks already and I am still not completely unpacked.  It seems I always over anticipate how much I can do, and then I get mad at myself for not living up to expectations no matter how unreasonable they may be.  But the house, for the most part looks pulled together, and things are waiting for work that needs to be done, such as redoing a few closets, putting up bookshelves and unpacking the books and so forth.  Forget about upstairs and my own creative space; it is all still boxes, although I actually have hopes of getting to it soon.  

 

Once I wrote all this down I realized I am not that far behind schedule and that I don't give myself enough credit for having to do it all myself while at the same time trying as much as possible to maintain a sense of normalcy and routine for G.  I forget that I voluntarily went from having full time live-in caregivers to having someone come in only 4 full-days a week and 2 half-days plus a couple of hours on Saturday, just to maintain a sense of routine. And those activities, spending time together, shopping, cooking, watching TV in the evenings, can constitute a full-life even without the unpacking, acquiring, assembling, and putting away that moving into a new place can require.  And yes, there are days when life seems like a burden, and other days that it seems like a joy.  I am learning to hold on to the joys and let the burdens slip through, although being human, that always sounds easier than it actually is, and the burdens seem to crave more than their share of attention.

 

So perhaps living up to expectations isn't always in our best interest.  We are human.  We fail.  Hopefully we pick ourselves back up again, apologize to any we may have hurt in the process, and continue on.  As to apologizing to ourselves, it shouldn't be necessary, although all too often it is both necessary and neglected.  Something to remember when the brain turns on itself and our thoughts are consumed in self-immolation. Corny as it may sound, warm and fuzzy is often better and reality, if given a chance,  may be more rewarding than keeping up appearances.