"Karen's Doilies": An all-thrifted 10 x 10 wardrobe challenge

It's time for another 10 x10 Wardrobe Challenge, created by blogger StyleBee. You choose 10 items, and use them to create 10 days of real-life outfits. If you haven't seen any of my 10 x 10 challenges before, I do them backwards, or maybe it's forwards: make the plan and take the photos before it starts, instead of posting it as it happens. 

I was inspired by this photograph of coloured-thread doilies, crocheted by the multi-talented Karen Glass.

Lacy, loopy, intricate motifs; in plum and wine colours plus neutrals, and a few bonus flowers.

Here are the clothes

In the photo below are (top) a tapestry-fabric jacket, a cardigan which I love but which got bumped from the list in favour of a poncho (see below); (bottom) a turtleneck sweater dress which works as a sweater (it's showing as brighter blue than it really is), a knitted vest, and a cotton pullover sweater.

One openwork grey poncho, instead of the cardigan, plus its matching circle scarf. It seemed to work better with the crocheted theme, and I already had a jacket for something warm-with-sleeves.

A collarless paisley print shirt which can also be worn as a cardigan, with a pair of dark-wash jeans; and a plum jersey t-shirt with a pair of grey cords.

That makes nine items. 

I had thought about including this skirt, which goes with almost everything including the poncho.

But I added a grey t-shirt instead, because I didn't really have enough tops there for ten days. Also, the coming week is going to be busy with a couple of extra meetings, but nothing dressy enough to need an extra skirt. The sweater dress will take care of anything not-pants.

 Most of these clothes came from the MCC thrift store; the cords came from Bibles for Missions (another thrift store); and the cotton sweater and poncho are from a consignment store.

Accessories

So I'm thinking about Karen's doilies. What do I have that reminds me of those shapes and colours?

Jewelry: some thrifted, some gifts

Closeup of the earrings

Two extras, found at the thrift store

Scarves and a shawl, all thrifted except for the little silk one (I've had it since I was a teenager)

An extra infinity scarf, from the thrift store

Hat made by daughter

Four purses, all thrifted

Shoes, not all thrifted (sorry)

Here's the list

Saturday, February 17 

Plan for the day: Errands (groceries), and finishing an annotated bibliography assignment

Outfit: jeans, raspberry pullover

Accessories: grey scarf with roses (or maybe the pink infinity scarf), flower-shaped earrings, grey boots, grey purse

Sunday, February 18 

Plan for the day: Church, plus leading a class this week

Outfit: Sweater dress, grey poncho (not in the photo)

Accessories: Scarf that matches the poncho. Earrings. Tights, flat shoes. Small purse.

Monday, February 19

Plan for the day: "Family Day" in Ontario, but we have no special plans, so I'll probably be doing online course work, writing a term paper on the value of reading in later life, and doing housework. Or we might go to a local art gallery.

Outfit: cords, grey t-shirt, jacket

Accessories: knitted hat, purse, boots, if we go out. 

Tuesday, February 20

Plan for the day: Thrift store in the morning, "school" in the afternoon

Outfit: jeans, plum t-shirt, paisley shirt

Accessories: Earrings, purse, socks, shoes

Wednesday, February 21 

Plan for the day: Afternoon meeting at thrift store 

Outfit: cords, grey t-shirt, jacket

Accessories: tba

Thursday, February 22 

Plan for the day: At home, doing "school" and housework

Outfit: Sweater dress, vest

Accessories: fleece-lined tights, maybe some beads

Friday February 23 

Plan for the day: Thrift store in the morning, course work in the afternoon, and evening CM study night 

Outfit: jeans, grey t-shirt, vest / swap for poncho

Accessories: tba

Saturday, February 24

Plan for the day: Errands, and finishing off the week's class work

Outfit: jeans, dress as sweater

Accessories: tba

Sunday, February 25 

Plan for the day: Church

Outfit: cords, raspberry pullover

Accessories: paisley shawl worn as large scarf; purple earrings; small purse; grey boots

Monday, February 26 

Plan for the day: At home, working on term paper

Outfit: jeans, plum t-shirt

Accessories: fuzzy socks!

One of Karen's doilies, put to use in the Treehouse

Better than a dozen roses

Mr. Fixit and I went to the antiques market on Valentine's Day, and found just the right mirror for the blank space over this cabinet. It's also in the right spot to bounce light back from the balcony doors. You might think it's a funny Valentine, but I like it. 

For the sharp-eyed: the space to the left there was where we had the guinea-pig cage. Muffin and his hay were causing allergy problems, so he is now residing with with another family member (our family, not his).

Quote for the day: Abundance

"To believe in abundance is to believe that we have enough...This thinking is a stretch of the imagination. It envisions social relationships in a different world, in a manna-based culture. It's a sharp contrast to a culture organized around commerce, a market ideology based on scarcity and the central premise that we cannot believe in sufficiency. It declares that we can never be satisfied with what we have, with the effect that customer satisfaction is truly an oxymoron." ~~ Peter Block, Walter Brueggemann and John McKnight, An Other Kingdom: Departing the Consumer Culture

Thrifting: how do you choose?

Things I've found at the thrift store lately, with their rationalizations:

Silver and purple pendant necklace. Out of a whole rack of necklaces, why did I choose this one? Size, shape, and colour. I could see it fitting in with the clothes I wear most often. 

Plum-coloured jersey top with...poppies, maybe? The photo is showing purple, but it's more reddish, the same colour as the necklace. Why this one? It took a little more thinking: I don't usually buy clothes with pictures on them, and I do have a plum-coloured top already. But I liked the springy flowers very much, I like jersey t-shirts, and it is mostly cotton, not synthetic fabric. The fact that it was a half-price deal decided it.

Teal-green trench coat with a button-in lining  The winter weather has been "stink, stank, stunk," but by March this coat should get lots of use. Why this one and not some other coat? Honestly, need (and the fact that it was four dollars on the clearance rack)! I used to have a brown trench coat (no lining), and I wore it to church and places like that for years...and years. Finally I started to feel like a relic from 1989 every time I put it on, so I let it go, and I've been long-raincoat-less ever since. I did remove the shoulder pads on this coat, an easy fix since the inner lining isn't sewed down at the hem.

Conclusions: This story seems to need an ending. Here's one: know what you need, know what you like, know when to stop.

Quote for the day: Commitment to fish

"It doesn't matter what the subject is; I want an ichthyologist to be as committed to fish as [A. Hyatt] Mayor is to prints--to make me think there's nothing more important to him...if we care about the writer we'll follow him into subjects that we could have sworn we never wanted to know about." ~~ William Zinsser, Writing to Learn

Quote for the day: sometimes ideas are there and not there

 

"Ideas are everywhere, in the words and, so to speak, behind the words, present because they are literally present and present even if they appear to be absent. A writer may despise the idea of zoos and communicate that hatred by writing a book about animals in the bush, never mentioning zoos, never alluding to zoos or dropping a hint about zoos. Because of the way the mind works, we get the message...A book about the ethical nature of Christ may in fact be an argument against Christ's divinity. A book of recipes for winter soups made by cloistered monks may really be an argument against the modern world...If you picture a page of writing as three-dimensional, with the words hovering a half-inch or so above the paper, then you begin to see where the ideas are: behind the words, between the words, really everywhere." ~~ Eric Maisel, Deep Writing

Laugh for the day: faking it in fashion, 1967

es, Mr.
Stephens.
Oh, Miss Warbell, I'm dying to ask you a question.
- What is it? - Will boots be popular next year? I'd say that all depends on how Boots behaves herself this year.
- Well, shall we go? I'm starved.
- Yes.
I don't want to leave without my notes.
I hate to rush you through lunch, but I have a lot of notes to go through Oh, excuse me a minute.
Oh, there you are, Miss Warbell.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=bewitched-1964&episode=s03e27

Endora, pretending to be a fashion journalist: Oh, there you are, Miss Warbell. I'm Miss Krovistrod. I write the fashion copy for Tate & McMann. I've seen your picture a million times... I would like your opinion about the new polyester fabrics...

The Crone of Cawdor, masquerading as Miss Warbell the fashion expert: I think Polly Esther is as good as the next designer.

Someone else asks Miss Warbell, "Will boots be popular next season?" Her response: "I'd say that all depends on how Boots behaves herself this year."

(Bewitched, "The Crone of Cawdor")

Quote for the day: Wolves wearing sheep suits

"Besides, sweet reasonableness, more often than not, is a clever disguise for barely concealed self-interest." ~~ David. R. Williams, Sin Boldly!: Dr. Dave's Guide to Writing the College Paper

Some frugal finds, Part Three

Yesterday's Frugal Finds post stopped with Part Two, but everything's better in threes. Here are the rest of the recent Frugal Finds.

A fun tweed skirt. The texture and colours don't show up well in the photo (my camera always puts in too much blue); there's actually a lot going on here between blue, green, grey, and beige. You can see it better in the earring photo (below).

Here's what it looks like with a green sweater, and a purple necklace I found at the thrift store. 

The tassel earrings came attached to the same bit of cardboard as the necklace, but I didn't notice them hiding underneath until later. 

I like the skirt and the jewelry, but this book was the real life-saver this week.

Quote for the day: the democratic right to grammar

"Since we live in a competitive society in which the struggle for survival is primary, power exists, and power will have its symbols. Literacy is a far better tool and symbol of empowerment than any other, even money...However much you may hate grammar, think how much better a system ours is in which even the lowest peasant can achieve literary equality by learning rules of writing, spelling, grammar, and diction that are available equally to all and that apply equally to all." ~~ David R. Williams, Sin Boldly!: Dr. Dave's Guide to Writing the College Paper

A few frugal clothes finds: let someone else do the fixing

"'I like your clothes awfully, old chap,' [the Rat[ remarked after some half an hour or so had passed. 'I'm going to get a black velvet smoking-suit myself some day, as soon as I can afford it.'" ~~ Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Part One

I sometimes feel like the luckiest thrifter around. Many times when I've worried about needing something expensive, or finding what I need at all, something used but good pops up and reminds me not to be so anxious. There was that time I searched for pants, and finally found them on the clearance rack at the thrift store. (I'm still wearing those blue jeans.) There were the scarves, and the shoes, and the hat, and the cardigan, and the hook with a bird on it (or the bird with a hook on it)...and Lydia's bed, and the dining room table...well, you know the rest. (I probably forgot to mention the bed, it was a couple of years ago.)

Last week I was looking for pants again; but nothing grey, because almost all my pants are grey. I found a pair of dark-wash, high-waisted jeans for $1.50, plus a pair of "skinnies" to replace my worn-out jeggings. The skinny jeans are labelled "khakis," which I find funny because they're navy blue. Anyway, I came home with the two pairs of not-grey pants, and a belt, and a book we're studying at church (I was using a borrowed copy), all for about ten dollars.

The dark jeans fasten with a zipper plus three metal slide-plus-bar fasteners on the waistband. The zipper was fine, but two of the slides were missing. It looked like they'd never been added at all (maybe that's why the jeans were in such good condition). Walmart sells multi-packs of slides and bars for $5 (plus tax), but a) I wasn't quite sure how to insert them, and b) what was I going to do with the lifetime supply of extras? I decided to inquire at the same shop that took in a too-big skirt and hemmed my grey jeans, and sure enough they have promised to add two slides, for only a couple of dollars more than the Walmart package (plus tax). I'll be good for jeans (and blue khakis) for quite awhile.

Part Two

I was thinking about summery colours, and along came this slightly crazy top with a giant beaded flower and lace sleeves.

Yes, I bought it, because it was that kind of day. It really belongs with summer shorts, but it's not bad either with a purple jacket and grey jeans.

Quote for the day: keep learning

“You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.” ~~ T.H. White, The Once and Future King

Free is a nice price: use what you're signed up for

Sometimes we are entitled to more perks and benefits than we're using. Our apartment building has amenities such as an exercise room and a sauna. Your public library might have online subscriptions to databases or to language-learning tools that you thought you couldn't access. There might be something in the income tax laws where you live that allows you to (legally) deduct something you didn't know about. Or your automobile association card might offer special deals at restaurants or shoe stores (we've used both).

This week we realized that, because I'm currently registered at a university, and have an Office 365 student mailbox, we could also download a much newer version of Microsoft Word, an upgrade we badly needed. Free for subscribers, straight to the computer, just like that: one very big wow, and thank you Mr. Fixit for making that work. If you have someone in your house with a student email account, check it out.

A Flaky, Buttery Wednesday Hodgepodge

1. Speaking of endings....at your wit's end, at loose ends, a dead end, burn the candle at both ends, all's well that end's well, or no end in sight...which 'end' phrase might best be applied to your life lately? Explain.  

Well, no, not at loose ends: there's lots to do, including a class report due at the end of the week. But I am not at wit's end about it. Lydia is more the one burning candles here, since she is juggling high school (and its extra-curriculars) plus a part-time job.

2. What was a must have accessory when you were growing up? Did you own one? If so tell us what you remember about it.

"How about a pair of pink sidewinders
And a bright orange pair of pants?"

Is a Sony Walkman considered an accessory?

I did have a pair of '80's legwarmers around that time too.

3. Something that made you smile yesterday?

A giant art book about the Group of Seven, that came into the thrift store. I didn't buy it myself, but I hope somebody will enjoy it.

4. January 30th is National Croissant Day. Do you like croissants? Sweet or savory? We're having chicken salad for lunch...would you rather have yours served on a croissant, a wrap, a bagel, bread, or a roll of some sort?

I will eat croissants any way you want to serve them. They're best eaten absolutely fresh from some little bakery in Quebec; but I'm no croissant snob, I'll buy them on clearance at Walmart too.

5. Sum up your January in fifteen words or less.

Much time online but not for blogging: I'm doing my homework. Plus there's snow.

6.  Insert your own random thought here.

One thing leads to another: we were watching the detective series The Pinkertons, and that reminded me of an old mystery book my grandma had, Miss Pinkerton by Mary Roberts Rinehart. I downloaded that from Open Library and re-read it between other things. Then I wondered if it had ever been filmed, and it turns out yes, there is a 1932 movie with Joan Blondell and George Brent. You-tube has only a trailer (and it's pretty bad), but we found the whole movie for $3.99 on Google Play. We're not much in the habit of paying to watch movies, but decided to go for it anyway. It would cost me almost that much to bus to the library and pick up a free DVD.

So we had our evening of black and white whodunit, with snow falling outside and discount store chocolate chip muffins in the kitchen. (Could have been croissants, but I had already bought muffins.) And that's the way we do things in this brave new world.

Linked from The Wednesday Hodgepodge at From This Side of the Pond.

Sunrise, from the balcony

Wednesday Hodgepodge: Down the hatch

1. January 24th is National Compliment Day. Is it easy or not so easy for you to accept a compliment? Share a recent compliment you've given or received.

Not so easy: I was told early and often "don't show off."

I was told by someone at the thrift store that I am a "book sorting machine." I took that as a compliment.

2. Ten five little things you are loving right now.

1. A rare sunshiny morning here, and we're getting the best of it through the balcony window.
2. New-to-me sweater.
3. A quick game of pool last night with Mr. Fixit (our building has a library-with-pool-table room).
4. Online databases that have replaced having to hunt through the periodicals index. And you can use them at home, sitting in the sunshiny window.
5. The colours of Janet Read's paintings.

3. Would people describe you as a positive person? Do you see yourself that way? I read here  a list/description of eight things positive people do differently-

Positive people find something to look forward to every day, they celebrate the small stuff, they're kind, they stay busy, accept responsibility for their actions, forgive themselves, know when to move on, and resist comparisons

Which action on the list would you say you do regularly? Which action could you add to your life to give you a more positive outlook? If you're a positive person, what's something you do regularly that's not on the list?

Whoah, that sounds like giving myself a compliment.

Just say that yes, I work at those things, and appreciate them also in others. Everybody needs more "rainy day people" around.

4. Homemade chicken soup, beef stew, or a bowl of chili...what's your pleasure on a cold winter's day?

We have all three quite often, so I'm not sure. I might pick the chili because I like the cheese and tortilla chips that go with it, and I like making the leftovers into a taco salad.

5. The best part of my day is....

Depends on the day. It might be doing a thing I'm doing, or it might be finishing a thing I'm doing. Or it might even be thinking about something I'm going to be doing.

6.  Insert your own random thought here.

We got a bunch of decluttering books in the thrift store yesterday, which is a conundrum in itself. Did someone give up on decluttering, or are they now such experts that they don't need the books? Anyway, those led to an interesting conversation with one of the full-time staff, on the subject of fast fashion and donations and what's happening in countries like Kenya (Kenya doesn't want any more used clothes). The MCC store, like all the others, gets more clothes than it can sell, and has to dispose of the rest. Is the solution convincing people to buy less and hang onto their clothes longer? Blaming the industry and the retailers? Or concentrating on the disposal, landfill issues? The global garbage problem can feel like we're standing under a massive garbage chute and getting buried in falling bags, without any control over the situation. I think we need to see ourselves at the top of the chute instead, understanding that we're responsible for what we drop down there. The donations are good, and they all help support (in MCC's case) international programs like schools; but the fact that people have so much to donate, and keep on buying more to replace those things--that's the big problem.

Linked from The Wednesday Hodgepodge at From This Side of the Pond.

Thrift store seek and find (and a hack for the height-challenged)

Many times the things I find at the thrift store are somewhat accidental; which is, of course, part of the fun of thrifting. Today, though, I had one thing in mind: a grey cardigan, and it had to be a nice one, not something grandpa would wear for yard work. I recently re-donated two grey blazers I wasn't wearing, so now I didn't have any grey "third layers." Since most of my pants and skirts are grey, that was definitely a gap. But I did not want a blazer (or I would have kept the other ones). OK then, a cardigan. But would this be a day when a grey cardigan might magically appear?

I checked through all the likely cardigan spots in the store, including the plus sizes, the blazer rack, the pullovers (sometimes one kind of sweater gets hung with another), even the women's suits, because you never know. I passed up any sweaters that were very lightweight or very embellished. This was the winner, and actually the only one that fit what I was looking for:

I liked the stripes; they lighten up the dark grey a bit. The sweater goes well with my grey corduroy skirt, and with my pants. It's warm enough, but not so heavy I'm bending under the weight (like one I bought last year). So Yay, to quote Vanita Bentley.

Here's the trick I promised: the large amount of fabric in a shawl-collared cardigan can easily swamp petite people. The easiest fix is to fold the collar and the front edges under. You're not trying to hide buttons or fancy collar details, so it still looks fine, just a bit more streamlined.

As always, thank you to the nice people who donate such good stuff to the MCC store. (Maybe somebody else out there will be blogging about their new grey blazer.)

Four book finds

Recent thrift store book finds:

Sounding the Seasons: 70 Sonnets for the Christian Year, by Malcolm Guite

That Distant Land: The Collected Stories, by Wendell Berry

Deep Writing, by Eric Maisel

An Other Kingdom: Departing the Consumer Culture, by Peter Block, Walter Brueggemann, and John McKnight

On the longevity of clothes...or not

I'm taking time out from studying the philosophy of adult education (really) to throw out a few thoughts on why we do or don't, should or shouldn't keep clothes around for years. It's two years since I started following Project 333, a.k.a. trying to get my own clothes thing together, so it seems like a good time to pause and remember what this was about in the first place.

I just read a post that could be summed up as "better but fewer, keep them forever" by a minimalist blogger. My reaction was "that could really make you feel guilty." My own first clothes page from two years ago has maybe ten things on it that I still own, and those were all fairly new (or new to me) then. Ironically, some of those ten things were the cheapest, the ones that theoretically should have fallen apart by now, like the stereotypical $8 grey t-shirt. So, point number one: cheap does not always equal lousy.

Do I see myself keeping what I have now for several more years? I probably will, because I like what I have, and  I'm wearing almost everything I own regularly. I don't have the particular problem of wearing 20 per cent of the clothes 80 per cent of the time. On the other hand, I have re-donated many of the clothes I tried out during the past two years. I got tired of them, the style was too young or too old, they made me look even shorter than I am, or whatever. Thank you, departing clothes, for teaching me what doesn't work, as Marie Kondo would say.

The last point is one on which I do agree with the article, and that is that you should not feel guilty about skipping whole categories of closet must-haves if they don't work for you. I've said it before myself, but it's always worth repeating: you may not be a pants person, or a white shirt person, or a little black dress person, or just a 2018-round-hole person. You may walk through an entire mall full of clothes, and dislike everything you see, because you are not "that" woman. You may also spend fifteen minutes at a thrift store, and find your favourite dress ever. It's not all about what things cost, or where they're made; it's also about how much we do or don't buy into what's new, what's normal, what everybody else buys; it's about what works for us. I had a classic denim shirt, but I recently handed it down to my daughter because it didn't work with anything, and fastening  the teeny little buttons drove me crazy. I like pullover tops better.

Ask who made your clothes, and think about the planet and the rivers and the landfills. But wear what makes you happy, hold onto it awhile if you can, and let the rest go.

Quote for the day: Jacques Barzun echoes Charlotte Mason

"One of the virtues of learning anything is that it takes one out of oneself and into a subject--something independent existing out there, in the world of fact or ideas, or both. To pull the mind back into self-concern and self-excuse is not only a hindrance to learning, it is also a deprivation of the feeling of community with others." ~~ Jacques Barzun, Begin Here

Quote for the day: you make it sound easy

"It's harder to begin a sentence well than to end it well. As we'll see later, to end a sentence well, we need only decide which of our ideas is the newest, probably the most complex, and then imagine that complex idea at the end of its own sentence. The problem is merely to get there gracefully." ~~ Joseph M. Williams, Style: Toward Clarity and Grace

Thrifted scarf: roses in January

The weather since Christmas has been icicles-hang-by-the-wall. Now we've gone from bitter cold to slop and slush, with the predictable result of one Squirrel (so far) feeling a bit ungood. There's definitely something yucky going around.

On a brighter note...how about a scarf featuring orange and fuchsia on a background of...I don't know, sort of olive-grey? It's bigger than it appears--it can even be a shawl. The floral pattern is on only one side, and the reverse shows very subtle little dots. You'd think at first that means "hide the backside," but I actually like the dots showing here and there. (DUH moment: I just figured out that it's meant to be reversible.)

I found it on my way out of the thrift store this morning, along with a book about Leonard Cohen for Mr. Fixit, and Joseph M. Williams' writing book Style for me. (One from this year's want-to-read list, so I was happy about that.)

From the archives: Charlotte Mason, and peeling back the veil

First posted January 2014

In one of Ellis Peters' medieval mysteries, The Leper of St. Giles, the diseased beggars living near Shrewsbury wear cloaks and veils that allow only their eyes to show. This encourages rough treatment by others passing by; the beggars are more like shadows or ghosts than real people, individuals, flesh and blood beings.  But Brother Cadfael, reflecting on the times he has treated some of their sores (through his work as the abbey's herbalist), says that he has found sharp minds, unique personalities behind the veils..."by a thousand infinitesimal foibles of character that pierced through the disguise, they emerged every one unique."  He has the gift of seeing what others miss.

In The Living Page, Laurie Bestvater says, "One of Mason's primary purposes for making history the 'pivot' of her curriculum is to allow the child to see the flow of history and to think of himself within it."  She points us to Philosophy of Education, page 273, where Charlotte Mason calls history "the proper corrective of intolerable individualism."  So history, as a way of seeing, cuts us down to size but also shows us where we belong; gives us a place and time but makes it clear that there are other places and times that matter just as much.

But we have to see it.  However we can make that happen, for ourselves and our children.

Epiphany Candles

Happy Epiphany! (Or Christmas, if you're celebrating!)

Frugal Finds and Fixes: Hats and Jackets Again

A brief and frosty Frugal Finds and Fixes

Frugal and more organized: three inexpensive cloth bins, which fit perfectly under the shelf in our biggest kitchen cupboard. They come in sets of two, so we put the fourth one on the bottom shelf of Mr. Fixit's desk, to hold office supplies. It looks better than the cardboard box that had been there since we moved in.

Free and fun: a library "date morning." Mama Squirrel and Mr. Fixit spent a couple of entertaining hours checking out our closest library branch.

Frugal fashion finds: a thrifted fedora (wouldn't you call it?). Howard the Bear is modelling it right now, but Mama Squirrel is going to wear it once we're out of strictly-toques weather. The label inside the hat shows that it came from a children's-wear chain (although the thrift store hung it with women's hats). That might explain why it is marked Large but fits Mama Squirrel. Never say I don't tell all here.

Also from the thrift store: a purple jacket with a ruffled neckline and a zipper closing. (Shown here with a previously thrifted grey dress.) Often I find clothes that are officially too big, which therefore need to be belted up or trimmed down. This jacket had the opposite problem: it's one size on the small side, but it's fine unzipped, and that's the way I'd be most likely to wear it anyway.

For a cold Twelfth Night: two poems

Poet Malcolm Guite's blog posts for yesterday and today are two poems by others, that remind us that winter can be beautiful and awe-inspiring (rather than just irritating, slushy, and too-cold-for-anything). Here are a few lines:

Rocky Mountain Railroad, Epiphany, by Luci Shaw

I mind-freeze for the future

this day’s worth of disclosure. Through the glass

the epiphanies reel me in, absorbed, enlightened.

Hymn Before Sunrise, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,

And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!

Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!

Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven

Beneath the keen full moon? 

From the archives: book lover in the making

First posted January 2008. Crayons (Lydia) was six and a half.

 You reap what you sow--sometimes beyond. I have great sympathy for our young AO friend Tim, whose preschool sister Miss M. Is horning in on his Tolkien books.

 A couple of weeks ago I culled some of our bookshelves and put the extras and giveaways in a box. I asked the Squirrelings to have a look through it and please make sure I wasn't giving away anything that they really wanted.

 Crayons went through it and came up with a pile up to her knees of books she wanted. Not anything I'd read to her or that she'd read herself--these were books that, for some reason or other, she Just Wanted to Keep. The list included an extra copy of Kidnapped ("I've been dying to read that book!"), a 3-volume Ladybird set about great artists ("Mama, look, it has Van Gogh in it!"), Plays Children Love, Modern Plays, Pauline Johnson's poems, Maryanne Caswell's memoir Pioneer Girl, Hind's Feet on High Places, and a book of Hanukkah riddles. And about three others that I convinced her we did already have other copies of. And a book of fairy tales (do you know how many other books of fairy tales we have?). 

 Most of those books were nothing I'd pick for a six-year-old. Truth is, other than the fairy tales and maybe the artists, I doubt she'll even find them interesting for a long time yet. But I can see it happening already: the bug is there. This will be a girl who asks for her own box at library sales.

Wednesday Hodgepodge: First of the Year

1. It's that time of year again...time for Lake Superior University to present a list of words (or phrases) they'd like to see banished (for over-use, mis-use, or genera uselessness) in 2018. You can read more about the decision making process and word meaning here, but this year's top vote getters are-

unpack, dish (as in dish out the latest rumor), pre-owned, onboarding/offboarding, nothingburger, let that sink in, let me ask you this, impactful, Cofefe, drill down, fake news, hot water heater (hot water doesn't need to be heated), and gig economy

Which of these words/phrases would you most like to see banished from everyday speech and why? Is there a word not on the list you'd like to add?

I don't even recognize some of these! (I do know that Cofefe was only an accidental "word.")

I don't know about hot water heaters, but hot water heating is a logical phrase. As in, some apartments have radiators because they have hot water heating. 

Pre-owned is a euphemism I don't mind. It's nicer than second-hand. Or you could just say new-to-me.

2. What's something you need to get rid of in the new year?

We've already decluttered so much that there isn't much left to work on. Today I read the manga version of Marie Kondo's The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and that did inspire a bit of paper sorting.

3. Where do you feel stuck?

On a writing project.

Plus I also have to do a research paper for a course I'm taking, but I'm not far enough into that yet to feel stuck, more just a little anxious.

4. January is National Soup Month. When did you last have a bowl of soup? Was it made from scratch or from a can? Your favorite canned soup? Your favorite soup to make from scratch on a cold winter's day?

We eat soup semi-regularly. Canned soup is mostly a quick lunch fallback; if it's for dinner, it's probably homemade. Mr. Fixit makes his grandma's chicken soup with a whole chicken. I make slow cooker soups with beans or split peas.

5. Tell us one thing you're looking forward to in 2018.

Celebrating our first year as non-homeowners.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Niagara Falls is frozen, and I'm a bit chilled myself. It's probably a good time to break out the split peas.

Linked from The Wednesday Hodgepodge at From This Side of the Pond.

What Sudoku taught me about planning and fresh starts

Sherlock Holmes: What is that? (balloon with a face drawn on it)
John Watson:  That is… me. Well, it’s a me substitute.
Sherlock Holmes: Don't be so hard on yourself. You know I value your little contributions.
John Watson: Yeah? It's been there since nine this morning.
Sherlock Holmes: Has it? Where were you?
John Watson: Helping Mrs. H. with her Sudoku. (Sherlock, "The Six Thatchers")

A chance line in a T.V. show...it was enough to make me curious about something I had missed out on. Besides, I was getting bored with the newspaper's daily crossword (too much Mamie Eisenhower and Alma Gluck). So I set out to learn something new-to-me.

If you don't know this already, Sudoku is a logic puzzle, not a math game. It's not like the magic squares that require you to add things together. You just have to figure out where the numerals 1-9 go, so that there are no repeats in the row, the column, or the mini-section (1/9 of the whole grid). Puzzles ranked "easy" have more numerals already filled in; "hard" ones have fewer clues. The one in our free weekly newspaper seems almost impossible to solve; I may need Dr. Watson's help.

After several months of increasing Sudoku addiction, I noticed some parallels to other parts of life, such as making plans and decisions. Here's one: don't waste time worrying about every possible permutation for every square. Start with the easy, obvious steps; then look for "criss cross" places that rule out several possibilities at once (that's hard to explain, but just trust me that it reduces tedious pencil-scratching).  By that time, even on the hard puzzles, you should have enough numerals filled in so that you can start pencilling in pairs of "either-ors": in this row, we have a 1 or a 3 in this box, and a 1 or a 3 in another box. That's almost as good as nailing it down for sure.  But then you leave those either-ors alone, move on to another bit somewhere else, and sooner or later they'll get solved.

There is a similarity here to jigsaw puzzles: you do as much as you can on the flowers, then go work on the sky or the frame for awhile. It's also like the sort of logic puzzles where you figure out that either Joe or Jim lives in the red house, and Bill is either the doctor or the movie star. You eliminate what absolutely won't work, and limit your choices to the few remaining possibilities. The secret is not in bringing in extra information to overwhelm the brain, or in thinking about all the maybes, but in figuring out the path or the plan that actually works. Finding the key that does fit.

And if you end up with a gridful of too many either-ors? Rub them all out, keeping only the numerals you know for sure. Start again as if you had a new puzzle with a few added clues. With the clutter gone, you see fresh possibilities.

Happy New Year!