Garden Plans

Over the weekend, we finally assembled our new shed at the top of the garden:

(To the left you can just about see the hazel tree which the tree surgeon coppiced heavily a couple of weeks ago. This should grow back quite quickly into an attractive crown.)

This is a Big Deal in many ways, not least because the shed is no longer in the house. It is a replacement for this old shed which was falling apart when me moved in and has just deteriorated over the ten years that have passed since then:

Other things wrong with this old shed are:

1. It is right in front of the front door and blocks precious light coming into the house

2. It’s ugly

3. It leaks

4. It’s very hard to open the doors

5. Now we’ve had a couple of trees cut down and more light into the garden, it is in the perfect spot for sitting at a table, drinking tea and relaxing.

This is the view from inside the house:

Won’t that look inviting as a little terrace with pots of herbs, the honeysuckle and a little table and chairs? I’m also going to build a little hutch to house the bins. And we’re getting a new front door.

There’s quite a bit of wrangling ahead to get everything from the old shed into the new one along with various DIY stuff from the understairs cupboard. But I have fun plans to whip the garden into shape. I’ve planted a few herbs already and bought a tomato plant today. I was also cheered to see this list of low-maintenance perennials at Unclutterer.com. With a bit of work this year, next year the garden should be looking beautiful. 

Right. That’s me done blogging until I get back from holiday. I hope you all enjoy yourselves while I’m away and I’ll “see” you at the end of next week!

Positive and Negative

I forgot to do the final part of the Week Seven tasks:

HEART: Name one positive thing you intend to do for your image/self-image/look and one negative thing you vow NOT to keep doing.

The positive thing I am doing to trying to improve my posture. After all the “head up high, tummy in, pelvis under” advice over the years, a simple description in Tim Gunn’s ‘A Guide to Quality, Taste and Style’ finally made it easy for me to put this into practice. In this book, he talks about the ‘Bistro Position’, which is the way you hold your body when squeezing between tables in a packed restaurant. It was a lightbulb moment for me and I am reminding myself to adopt the Bistro Position whenever I remember. And it’s true, good posture does make a world of difference. I aim to keep plugging away until it is second nature.

The negative thing is that I am going to stop assuming that all the photos I see in magazines are real-life images. Wende’s links to Jezebel really opened my eyes to the reality of photoshopping. I never knew…

Leftovers - WT Week 7

I’m going on holiday tomorrow so I thought I’d whizz through WT Week Seven today.

Party Clothes

I bought a new dress last week:

As usual, the photo doesn’t do it justice. The colour is a sort of warm mushroom and it has more of a gentle sheen than the glitz in the photo. Also, it was reduced to £9. I bought it to wear to a friend’s wedding in June, but I think it will also be a good standby posh dress for emergencies.

I have also decided that the peach lamé number still in my wardrobe will go on eBay when I get back. I’m more curious to see if anyone wants to buy it than the cash it might generate.

Exercise or Sports Clothes

Yeah. Um. I dusted my trainers (translate: sneakers) back in Shoes Week. I also have a navy blue Speedo swimming costume and just checked to see if it had been eaten by moths and it’s OK. The only time I will ever wear it is when I have the opportunity to play at a water park with slides and rapids and stuff. I love those, but I hate swimming.

Oh, but I did buy some new walking sandals last week for our holiday (we’re going walking in Madeira):

They make me bounce like Tigger and are very supportive. I love them.

On the walking holiday front, I did have a crisis last week about what to wear. As you know, I’m quite overweight at the moment and I half-heartedly tried on various items of outdoorsy gear in shops before having the startling revelation that all I needed was the shoes. I plan to follow our Victorian lady foremothers and walk in skirts and dresses. The shoes look a little weird with dresses, but who’s going to complain? Sartorially sensitive mosquitos?

Uniforms, bridesmaids dresses, etc.

Nope.

Luggage

All sorted. One wheely suitcase. One weekend bag. One little rucksack. One giant rucksack ready to hitchhike round the globe.

Umbrellas

I just counted and we have five in the house. I think there is also one in my car. This is fine by me as I like to keep a little stock of them. I’m forever leaving them places and it’s also good to be able to send guests away in a sudden downpour with their own brolly. 

Phew! All done. That was easy.

General Update

On the work-at-home wardrobe front, I spent Saturday at the sewing machine doing fixies and alterations and finishing a jersey top I was making. I’m also knitting a wrap kind of thing at the moment and I’m not sure it will be finished by the end of next week for the Great Unveiling, but I’ll give it my best shot.  

The perfect accessory

After all the soul-bearing and vein-emptying of the past week, I think it’s time for a little levity. I was saving this for Accessories Week, but have decided to upload it now.

Oui, c’est sexy.

(From icanhascheezburger)

Whump

Right. I have been thinking hard about what came out in my Whomp response. Thank you to everyone for your input - it has really helped me think this through. The main things I have realised are:

1. The people who suggested I was dressing down as a form of self-protection were right. However, I also think I need to update my self-image a bit. The regular negative reactions I wrote about all happened a long time ago (now, it’s just occasional) and I suspect things would be different were I to doll myself up now. I am no longer the gorgeous, glossy thing I was when I was 20. I am now a 35 year old who is a little worn around the edges. I also now have a maturity that I didn’t have then, which must project itself somehow when I interact with others. This has to help. 

2. When I talked about people assuming I am an airhead, I was talking about men. I haven’t had that reaction from a woman for a long, long time (and even way back when, it was more of a “lock up your menfolk” reaction with associated bitchiness). But neither am I talking about all men (or even the majority of men) and, to put it into perspective, getting this reaction hasn’t actually prevented me from getting on with my own thing in any way. 

3. Quote of the week, as highlighted by Alana in the Whomp post comments, goes to my ever-wise brother:

The people whose opinions would acually matter to you are, on the whole, not those who will allow their initial impressions to change how they interact with you. So you can allow yourself to be the attractive lady you are, knowing that this will ease social contact with those shallower than you, and not harm discourse with people who matter.

4. In the comments, Alana also talked about the fun of watching people’s reactions change as they realise neural activity is happening behind the big blue eyes. I can see this would be fun and will try to enjoy it next time it happens.

5. This one’s a biggie. I have also been wondering if I judge other women (whom I don’t know) the way I fear being judged myself. And, to be brutally honest, I think that maybe I do. This is dreadful and must stop. Can anyone recommend any good resources (books, films, blogs, whatever) that might help remove this stain from my soul?

Why WT matters to me

Colleen wrote a brilliant Centenary Post today. I especially liked her penultimate paragraph, which mirrors my own feelings about the whole AT/WT thing. I’d like to add the the dialogue about why this all matters by posting a little quote.  

What is a closet, really, but a catalogue of the different personas we have auditioned and discarded? Hanging there in our closets are reminders, both good and bad, of who we are, who we’ve been and who we’ve hoped to be. No wonder things can get a bit muddled.

… Closets are often where we hide things: skeletons, forbidden loves, terrible birthday gifts we couldn’t return. It is for this reason that deciding what to wear while staring into those murky depths can be not just daunting, but emotionally exhausting as well.”

That’s from Tim Gunn’s ‘A Guide to Quality, Taste and Style’ which I bought on Wende’s recommendation. It’s the last reference to ‘emotionally exhausting’ that sums up why Wardrobe Therapy is important to me and why I want to answer the difficult questions, replace Velveteen Rabbits, buy lipstick and what-have-you. I want to be able to just get on with things and rid myself of this particular emotional exhaustion once and for all. My aim is to feel good and confident and ‘my best self’ in my clothes so I can then forget about them and use the energy currently expended on daily sartorial mithering on better things.

Whomp

Wende is, quite rightly, trying to get us all to address the deeper WT issues and has asked a Whomping Whompus Question:

What helps you feel like you’re worth taking trouble over?

Now I understand the question (and the fact that I didn’t to begin with should give an idea of how much this whole conversation scares me), I think I may have an answer:

Feeling intelligent and getting feedback that others think I am intelligent.

Now for some clarification. Right off the bat, I have to make the kind of statement that Wende has been trying to extract from us: I am above-averagely attractive. I know this because people have told me, and told others, but I’ve always had a hard time seeing it myself. In fact, someone (a woman) once said that I was “a fraction away from being stunningly beautiful”. I don’t know how much that applies to me right now, being two stone overweight and not having made an effort for a while, but that’s the bottom line.

When I was growing up, I had a sense of being “the pretty, creative one” in a family of Big Brains. This was partly due to my deafness, which could make me seem a bit thick because I couldn’t keep up with conversations and school lessons very easily. However, as soon as school work turned more academic (i.e. requiring more personal input and thought rather than learning facts), I found myself in my element and I went straight to the top of the class throughout school and university. Over fifteen years later, I have just about come to terms with the fact that I might just have a brain bigger than a pea.

However, running parallel to all that is the way other people have reacted to me. When speaking, I’m not particularly eloquent and don’t think I express myself very well (my intelligence expresses itself best when I have been working away at a problem quietly and then produce an end result, usually in writing, which no one was expecting - that’s what my clients pay me for). I also have quite a girly voice. People are often visibly surprised when they find out I have two degrees from a good university.

So, how does this all relate to the Whompus Question? Well, I like making an effort to look pretty but I prefer for the people I admire to interact with me on an intelligent level from the outset. History has taught me that the two don’t always mix. Ergo, in order to feel comfortable looking pretty, I need to feel that my intelligence has been recognised.

How do I get around that one? I would love to feel comfortable wearing lipstick without having to win a Nobel Prize first, but I don’t know how.

Right, now I’ve emptied my veins onto the keyboard, I’m going to go and have a little lie down to recover…

Me, me, me, me, meme

As of 10.30 pm on Friday night, I am now completely up to date on my work. It feels great, especially as I went one better and got completely up to date on my volunteer tasks yesterday. So now my brain is completely free for thinking about important stuff like WT.

So here are my answers to Wende’s meme:

What accessories do you wear everyday?
Wedding ring: one plain, gold unbroken circle. (Yup, I cut and pasted the whole thing from Wende and then realised I didn’t have to change this answer.)

What is your beauty routine?
I’m with SCB on the ‘don’t have one above basic hygiene’ front. I wear moisturiser every day and a little squirt of perfume. I do own make-up but don’t like the feel of it on my face particularly, so only wear it for special occasions. Having said that, I have started to notice that the whole naturally dewy youth thing has begun to deserted me, so I could do with a bit of daily help. Various problems I have with make-up are: very sensitive skin, wandering hands (which will smear and remove eye make-up within hours of putting it on) and super-pale skin which leaves me prone to looking like a circus clown if I actually let the make-up touch my face instead of just wafting the brush in its general direction.

What was the last item of clothing (for yourself) that you purchased?
I went shopping yesterday and bought another pair of trousers for my work-at-home wardrobe and a pack of dye to make them black. I would have bought two pairs, but they only had the one left.

Do you use a dresser, closet, or both?
Neither. I use a ‘chest of drawers’ and a ‘wardrobe’.

What type of earrings are in your ears right now?
None. My ears are pierced and I believe that I do have some earrings somewhere, but I never wear them because dangle earrings annoy me and my wandering hands twiddle with studs until my ear lobes hurt.  This fidgeting thing is a real pain, but I can’t control it. As soon as get deep into thought, I twiddle, smear and fiddle without realising it.

Do you wear glasses?
Yes, but I also have contact lenses which I wear occasionally.

Do you wear makeup?
Yes and no (see above).

What is your favorite perfume?
Lolita by Lolita Lempicka. However, I don’t own any of this - I just indulge in a little squirt whenever I pass a perfume counter that sells it. I’m still working my way through a bottle of Jean Paul Gautier Classique which is OK but doesn’t thrill my senses like the Lempicka one.

Is your motto “quality over quantity” when it comes to clothing and accessories?
I would like to to be, but I’m not quite there yet.

Do you wear rain boots?
Are those wellies or the little things that you wear over your regular shoes? Either way, no.

Do you wear socks or slippers when your feet get cold?
Both. When my feet get cold, they stay cold. In the depths of winter I have a little routine after coming in which involves sticking my feet in a bowl of hot water (or having a hot bath if I’m chilled all over) before putting on three layers of footwear: a pair of normal cotton socks, followed by fluffy bed socks, followed by slippers (mine are a bit like Ugg boots). Then I park my feet in front of the fire. That just about gets the heat back to my poor little toes.

Do you have a set of travel luggage?
No. But I did buy a wheely suitcase a couple months ago. It’s fun to feel like an air hostess, but I still have my massive backpack stored in the loft in case I need to make a rapid escape over the mountains.

If you are married, did you wear a veil with your wedding dress?
Nope. This bride wore brown - a long chocolate brown velvet dress with a matching frock coat (it was a winter wedding and I also wore woolly tights). A veil would have been a bit weird with that ensemble.

Do you wear a watch?
When I go out of the house, yes.

Do you prefer zippers or buttons?
It depends. Buttons on coats and shirts. Discreet zippers for skirts, dresses and trousers (and bags).

By the way, I’m really confused where we are on the Wardrobe Therapy front. This is an alternative Week 6, which I believe we’re doing in the original Week 8, but Wende also says that this alternative Week 6 is to replace the current Week 8 because we all got an ‘F’ for Week 5. Does this mean it’s Week 6 or Week 7 now? Anyone got any idea? I’m lost.

Aaargh.

As it seems to be the week of “one step forward, two steps back”, I thought I’d share a little bit of the chaos round here:

Yup. That’s a shed. In my sitting room. Hopefully it won’t be there for too much longer as the tree surgeon is coming on Friday to give the tree which is in the way of its new home a haircut,  so we should be able to assemble it over the weekend.

Nevertheless, it does sum up how things feel around here. I’m struggling to keep control. I know what I’m meant to be doing (for example, that shed is part of a larger decluttering plan that should reap enormous dividends) but everything has descended into chaos.

Meep.

On the wardrobe therapy front, I’m so glad I am restricting myself to just the work-at-home wardrobe, but even that is proving to be a bit of a challenge. As predicted, all the ‘who do you think you are?’ and ‘what makes you feel beautiful?’ questions have got me running for the hills (which is probably why I’ve been silent for a while). But I’m plugging on with the practical things and am on target to unveil a complete work-at-home wardrobe by the end of this round.

Unders and Overs

I’m way overdue a Wardrobe Therapy update - sorry about that. I haven’t been slacking, just incredibly busy. This week it’s underthings and overthings. I can dispatch with the former straight away, as all is absolutely fine in that department. For overthings (jackets, etc), I am restricting myself to top layers for my work-at-home wardrobe which is, after all, the focus of this round of WT for me.

As I have nothing to pile, I have identified that all I need here are two big slouchy cardigans. I looked around the shops, but couldn’t find anything that fitted the bill in terms of joyous colours, so instead bought wool and have been knitting away. Here is a sneak preview of the first one:

It’s big and chunky, and is a bit too warm for summer, but it ticks all the boxes in terms of comfort and joy. I would never wear it out of the house (or rather past the garden gate) but for private, work at home time I think it will be perfect. The colours make me smile and feel creative and the wool is so, so soft (it’s Adriafil “Friends” in case you are interested).

The second cardigan is going to be much less chunky and probably a drapey shawl cardigan of some sort. I’ve bought a load of Rowan Summer Tweed for it, but haven’t decided on a pattern yet.

In other WT news, my copy of the Ottobre Woman pattern magazine arrived at the weekend and I spent Sunday making the first of my tunic tops. I’ve got to buy some more thread when I’m in town tomorrow to finish it. It was my first attempt making anything with jersey fabric and it’s not perfect, but should be OK. Hopefully my second attempt will be better. I’ll post photos when it’s finished!

I also stumbled across a great pair of work-at-home trousers in a cheapy clothes shop yesterday. They are fake jeans with elastic at the back of the waist. They sound horrible, but the fabric is so soft and below the waist/crotch area they look just like normal trousers. And they are so comfortable - perfect for working at home. I’m going to test this pair for a couple of days (I need to take them up by about an inch first) and then maybe grab another pair to dye a different colour - charcoal perhaps?