Olive and Red Revisited

I love olive and red together. This Talbot's cardigan was last seen here, with navy pants. Today I combined it with a springy Boden tank and a red Talbot's pencil skirt, olive tights, and the Golc Mary Janes.

You didn't really need to see the top of my head, did you?


But wait, are those . . . shoe boxes?

All will soon be revealed.

Pink and Brown Monday

If I weren't pathologically opposed to repeating a look over and over, this is what I would wear every day:

A stretchy, knee-length dress (Kohl's Apt. 9 via eBay), a three quarter sleeve cardigan (Talbot's), a waist enhancing belt (Ralph Lauren) and low-heeled boots (Markon). Comfortable, flattering, easy. This particular dress even comes with its own jewelry!

Blue and Taupe and Another Action Shot!

Wow, so glad this week is over! To see the week out, I wore one of my favorite color combinations: blue and taupe. Or marine and ivory, navy and cream, etc. I rarely wear deep navy and stark white together - it makes me feel like a flight attendant - though I do have that J. Crew striped tee that sees a lot of action. Since I was a teenager I wanted to be that girl in the perfectly faded jeans and her boyfriend's white oxford, but that silhouette just didn't fly on me. I have a photograph from years ago, when I was at my thinnest, in jeans and a cream silk shirt, and I look like that mental picture I had for ages. What the picture doesn't show is that I was thin because I was profoundly depressed and not eating. My brother once commented years ago on having the same visual disconnect: "I feel like sh*t, but I look GREAT!" (We're all better now, thanks for asking)

Here, I feel pretty darn good (still counting my many blessings), and I am happy with how I look as well. Though, hmmm, maybe the boots are a little bulky with a midi hemline.

Here's the stuff; wooden bracelet from who knows where, a Talbot's necklace and earring set that might be older than Ben (who is 23, as it happens).

And here is another poetry in motion shot of a furry blur and a couple of feet.

He sticks the landing!! The East German judge gives him a 9.8!! The crowd goes wild!!

Purple and Grey and . . . the Flash?

Yesterday was the memorial service for our dear friend. If it had not been such a sad occasion, I would have been happy to see so many former colleagues and work pals. I hope that in some small way, it was heartening for the family to see how much this person meant to all of us over the years. I wore the pearls that Nerissa gave me as a tiny symbol of these friendly work connections and mementos.

See that gray blur? It's Riley leaping up on to the counter. "Heavier than air flight IS possible!", said a friend today.

Orange and Fawn

We have to keep going to work, you know? I have to drum up more donations for our Rotary fundraiser at the end of the month, I have to meet with staff for their evaluations, I have to figure out a "best offer" price for our bookmobile, I have to organize a focus group for the Chamber. The memorial service is tomorrow and we're figuring out how to cover the desks so that many of us can attend. Everyone is stepping up to help out.

Feeling useful and engaged saves our lives in moments of crisis. All my life, when I've been the most depressed, worried, even afraid of what my future held, it was work and those relationships that made me feel better. Working in libraries has only intensified this feeling of value and support from my coworkers. I'm not dragging people out of burning buildings, don't get me wrong, but we're an important part of the community, and a "free" library is a public good. We're not really free of course, but every resident is welcome and encouraged to use us every day. That's why it says PUBLIC in our name.

Here's what I wore.

Talbot's head to toe: burnt orange cardigan and knit top, "fawn" stretch pants, cognac ankle boots. Faithful furball at my side.

Bottle Green and Yellow, and Loss

It was tough to summon a smile for this shot. Right after I took it, I changed into stretchy pants and curled up with the cats. We've had a death in our library family. This person was someone we loved, married to someone we also love, who passed away at a cruelly young age, having been married less than a year.

The offices are quiet and somber, our staff subdued. The compassion and concern were obvious, as we all were especially kind to each other, and kept the tissues handy. We emailed friends in the next suburb and across the country. I suspect we are all feeling sad for those we have lost, but also counting our blessings.  

Recapping the First Quarter of the Big Game

Let's recap the first quarter of 2012, shall we?

$620 spent on 24 items

• Nine (9) pieces of jewelry
• Three (3) pairs of shoes/boots
• Three (3) items of clothing; two maxi skirts and a bra
• Nine (9) other; purses, socks, a belt, gloves and a watchband

$86 of the above resulted from eBay sales. In the area of make and mend, I spent $40 on alterations and re-heeling a pair of boots, previously mentioned.

This isn't . . . too bad. In the same way I've become accustomed to How I Look, I'm becoming accustomed to How I Spend. Leaving out the $86 in PayPal money (my equivalent of Geoffrey Dollars), I spent $21.36 on each of the above items.

Sadly (?), the red maxi skirt I ordered from Shopbop after my astrological mandate last week was ALL WRONG. It committed the cardinal sin of making me look fat. One thing I've learned over the years, it's the clothes' fault, not mine. It had elastic at the back which was really unflattering, and was also too long and too sheer. Back it goes!

And since I'm randomizing here, I read 100 Unforgettable Dresses and Alexander McQueen, Savage Beauty this week. Both were marvelous compilations of thought and style. The McQueen book was particularly well laid out; it is a museum exhibit catalog of course, and thus extremely professional in production. Ben patiently sat with me as I showed him some of the work and talked about the designer and the-fashion-show-as-performance-art concept. I had been rummaging through my brain the past few months, trying to remember the name of an artist I had seen years ago at the MCA, and Savage Beauty mentioned that McQueen collected him - Joel Peter Witkin. If you look at his art, you'll understand why I was afraid to Google him: "artist, hermaphrodite, death, decapitation." I'm not brave enough to look at THAT search string.

These are both books I wanted to linger over, but couldn't really afford. A public library is a great thing.