Archive for the 'Clotheshorsery' Category

It’s that time of year again

Published at January 2, 2011 in Domesticity, Health, Home improvement, Money, Library stuff, Sports, Clotheshorsery, Vanity, Frivolity, Food, work work work and Travel. 5 Comments

Time for resolutions I won’t keep!

I’m going to try something different this year and set some concrete goals that will be easier to reach than something vague like “Eat better.”  Many of these goals are craft-related, since I inherited my mother’s propensity for starting projects and not finishing them.

1. Speaking of Mom and projects she never finished, finish the sweater she started knitting for me, oh, ten years ago (she died just over eight years ago).  Finishing this sweater was the reason I took knitting lessons in the first place, but I kept putting the bag with the unfinished sweater aside, or in a closet.  Part of that was due to it being kind of painful to look at the thing after she died, part of it was that I gained a lot of weight after she died and wasn’t going to fit in the sweater even if I did finish it.  But now I can look at the thing without getting teary, and I’ve lost enough weight over the years that I can wear it.  Plus, it’s motherfucking cold in my apartment and I NEED a big fuzzy sweater.  I’ve now got the skills to do it, too.

2.  Quilting projects: I’m making a quilt for my sister, and I also want to finish a quilt that my great-grandmother pieced and never finished, both because it would be a great way to honor Babushka and also because of the aforementioned state of motherfucking cold.

3. Home decorating: I need to locate my stud finder, so I can hang the pictures I already have, and then I need to go out and get my other pictures framed and hung.  I have a desk to paint, chairs to paint and re-cover, and at some point I should get a few more chairs and a vase or two.  Plus mirrors.  I also need a filing cabinet, badly.  This may not be a year in which I do anything with my bedroom, but I’m okay with that for now since I don’t really have a vision for it like I do with the rest of the place.

4. Sports: I haven’t lifted weights since last July, when I fell on the sidewalk and injured my shoulder, and then re-injured it in September.  I’ve decided to go a slightly different direction, doing a combination of yoga, running, and eventually some scaled-back weightlifting.  Running has gone very well; unlike in years past, I seem to have resolved some of the issues with my knees so that I’m not wearing my patella in some strange place after only a few weeks of the C25K plan.  I’m on Week 7 now (actually for the second time — I’d reached it in September, right before my second fall, which also rolled my ankle) and so far, so good.  My knee’s a little tender, but the exercise is actually doing it good.  I’d like to do a half-marathon and marathon this year, using the Jeff Galloway run/walk program.  Brooklyn Half-Marathon is in May, with the particular day yet to be announced, and I’ve signed up for the lottery for the NYC Marathon.  I’m also planning on doing the Bay to Breakers 12K in San Francisco in May, which will probably be the week before the Brooklyn Half.  If I don’t get into the NYC Marathon, I’m going to try for Chicago or Marine Corps.  All of these will be not only goals in and of themselves, but also opportunities for travel to places where friends and/or family are.

5. Food: I’m back to being mostly vegan, which is pretty easy since it’s a little hard for me to eat out much here if I have to walk everywhere I go; I also work in a place where the lunch options are very very limited.  I’ve got access to a really great food co-op and live around the corner from a grocery store, so I can easily get good, fresh ingredients and do a lot of cooking.  I’ve got a freezer packed full of individually-portioned meals I can just grab and go, and I’m working hard on using my cookbooks for more than just the old standbys.  My big goal this year is to stop eating mindlessly and to pay attention to and enjoy what I eat.  I’ve also made a special effort to clean off the dining room table, now that I have a dining room, and to have dinner AT my table with napkins and placemat and candles.  Bonus: the dining room is the only room that really gets heat.

6. Appearance: I managed to weed a lot of crap out of my wardrobe just before I moved, so I do wear a lot of what I have.  But I’m not wearing all of it, so I need to figure out why not and make any necessary adjustments.  For example, if I’m not wearing something because it doesn’t fit, I can make it fit or get rid of it; if I’m not wearing something because I don’t really like it after all, it has to go.  It *is* pretty nice having a lot of closet space free.  I also want to figure out this year what my style is, so that I can have some kind of consistent look.

7. Financial: I’ve started using Mint to track my money, and my new job has TIAA-CREF, so I’ve gotten started on a retirement plan (matching doesn’t happen until I’ve been employed a year).  I’ve identified several areas where I spend disproportionate amounts of money, so I can work on cutting that back. I’m also saving for a car; I plan on spending less than $2500 for a mid-90s Honda or similar that will run for a while.   Just like with the eating out, living here has curtailed my spending because I’m not passing stores and places to spend money all the time.  I’m also not reading like I used to, so my book habit is not being fed. My book habit really is shameful; I’m a librarian, after all, and I should be borrowing books rather than buying them.  And I should be selling off what I have; I see Amazon keeps asking me if I’d like to sell some of the books I’ve bought through them, so I may just take them up on that.

8. Personal: I’m still not into the idea of dating, but I want to make some friends here outside of work.  The yoga studio I attend seems to be a good place to meet people, especially since you’re asked to introduce yourself to the people on adjoining mats before class starts.  I’m also a member of the food co-op, and that seems like a good way to meet people as well; working there is optional, so I plan on signing up soon.  There are also extension classes to take and the local running shop organizes group runs every week, which will help with my half/marathon training and get me out a bit.  I’m also planning on taking advantage of the first paid time off I’ve had in about 10 years to do some travel, including a horsepacking trip through backcountry out here as part of the extension classes.

9. Professional: I’ll start teaching legal skills in the fall, which will give me some great experience.  I’ve also committed to writing a couple of articles, I’m involved with some committees and caucuses in my professional association, and I also have opportunities to do some outside work for pay and recognition.  I’m doing all this partly because I’m positioning myself for a return to New York or a move to another big city for my next job, and partly because I really do like my new career.  I made a good choice.

Bum-looker

Published at September 12, 2009 in Iron and Clotheshorsery. 0 Comments

I’ve lost some weight since I began with the iron, enough to necessitate some new clothing purchases.  I bought “real” clothes first  — workwear and the like — since I have to be out in public and all.  I put off buying new workout wear since I don’t really care what I wear to work out in, as long as my boobs are hoisted and all important bits covered.  But my bras were beginning to get shot, and I was getting holes in my workout pants.  So I got a bunch of new outfits, in the smaller size.

And — hello!  Now that I’m wearing formfitting workout pants (I previously had too-big non-clingy sweatpant-like things) and shirts that come no lower than the top of my hips, I can see that I now actually have a curved ass.  Curved on the top, no less.  And fairly prominent hamstrings as well.  I’ve actually managed to overcome my flat-assed genetic legacy by doing squats.

Yay!

Unfortunately, the bras didn’t work out as well.  I got them from Figleaves, which does very helpfully tell you that a UK F is equivalent to a US G.  But I didn’t look quite as carefully at the sizing on the particular bra I bought, which seems to have been made in France, where an F is the same as a US F.  I could have returned them, but, eh, it’s only one cup size, and it would have taken weeks to get replacements.

There’s another reason it was a good idea to get new workout clothes: it’s easier to check my form in form-fitting clothing.

It’s good to have skillz

Published at June 7, 2009 in Clotheshorsery, Domesticity, Books, Fun Stuff, I see fat people and Vanity. 2 Comments

I went to the reading of Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby’s book on Friday night at Re/Dress, a plus-sized vintage/resale boutique in Brooklyn. I’m not the world’s biggest fan of shopping, in part because at my size, it’s difficult to find *anything,* let alone anything fashionable and at the same time age-appropriate* or suitable for my body type (please let the tyrrany of the Empire waist come to an end). But I also get grumpy in stores, which makes vintage shopping kind of a trial (and when you add in the musty smell that is inevitable among vintage clothing and which also turns me off used bookstores, well), because you kinda have to look at EVERYTHING because everything is one-of-a-kind.

Not my idea of a fun way to while away the afternoon. And it’s not like I can even get into shoe shopping, because of my big feet. I do have jewelry, though! Which is important when you wear the same drab old outfit nearly every day. Continue reading ‘It’s good to have skillz’

Eep!

Published at March 22, 2009 in Spend!, Clotheshorsery and Vanity. 10 Comments

I just spent an ungodly sum of money on a dress. A fancy dress. A dress I may never wear but once.

But, damn, it’s a nice dress. And it makes me look fantastic. And it’s fancy enough for a fancypants black-tie-optional event, which is something I’m going to next week.

I’d spent the whole afternoon Saturday looking for something, anything, that I could wear and look good in and feel good in and maybe not have to fork over almost as much as I would like to spend on a flight to Iceland for. Lane Bryant had some cute dresses, but they all had Empire waists — which make me look simultaneously hunchbacked and pregnant — and also had major static issues. Most of the stuff at Macy’s either had Empire waists, needed special underwear, or was matronly.

So I went to Leelee’s Valise, a store I try to avoid because it makes me want to spend money. But damn, they have some gorgeous stuff.

And let me tell you, after an afternoon spent trying on stuff that looked cute on the hanger but made me look horrible, it was nice to be handed a pretty broad selection of beautiful, well-made dresses that made me look great. And the killer one was this knee-length Tadashi dress with a black ruched-chiffon bodice and skirt and lace-over-nude sleeves with a little bit of sparkle (something like this one, but with a portrait neckline). I walked out and looked at myself in the mirror and was almost speechless. I looked really damned good.

I actually bought a different dress at first. Not that I didn’t love the Tadashi, but that price tag was giving me fits. And I don’t go to many fancypants black-tie-optional events, so I figured that I’d be better off buying a cheaper dress I could dress up with accessories and probably get more use out of. I will most definitely be going to cocktail parties and dinners at library conferences. Librarians, I am learning, network like nobody’s business. Nobody likes a good conference, complete with opening receptions and closing dinners, like a librarian. But the Tadashi might be a bit much for that kind of event — though it might not, but I won’t know until I actually go to one.

So I got the cheaper dress. But that lovely, gorgeous Tadashi dress was still calling to me.

I started looking for shoes. I wanted gold, but so many gold shoes look tacky. But I found these, and fell in love.

I spoke to my sister, who’s also coming up for the event (our aunt is being honored for her work with a Catholic foundation). She was going to wear a black wrap dress that she’d worn to her company Christmas party. I was again hearing the call of the Tadashi, so I offered to let her wear the lace boudoir dress, which would give me an excuse to go get the Tadashi. Which is what I did.

And you know? Now I have something to wear to fancypants events. It won’t go out of style, since it’s classic, I know it looks good on me, if I lose weight I can have it taken in and if I gain weight I can sell it on eBay.

I’ll just have to start going to more fancypants events, that’s all.

Score!

Published at March 11, 2009 in Clotheshorsery. 1 Comment

Just got a $750 Dana Buchman robin’s-egg blue suede jacket for $99 at Filene’s Basement.  And it’s not dowdy!

For that, I will (temporarily) forgive them for moving their women’s department to the top floor in an out-of-the-way location and cutting it by about 2/3.

I *knew* these shoes would get me someday

Published at May 15, 2008 in Clotheshorsery and Crime. 2 Comments

I have a long history of footwear with murderous intentions.

In the ’70s, I had a pair of clogs that I loved. Unfortunately, when you wear your wooden-soled clogs with cable-knit tights and you have unstable ankles, bad things can happen. My mother eventually took the clogs away.

In college, I had two pairs of shoes that tried to kill me. One was a pair of black sneakers that would send me skittering down the stairs, the soles slipping along the edges of the steps, until my foot would catch a horizontal surface. The other was a pair of knockoff LL Bean boots. The boots, like the sneakers, tried to do me in on the stairs. Oh, they were tricky, holding onto snow and ice in their treads, releasing the slush when I was on the stairs in the Student Union or Monteith Hall. I narrowly missed being thrown over the big marble staircase over the info booth at the Student Union, but they got me on the stairs in Monteith, sending me face-first down a flight of stairs.

I managed to catch myself by putting my hands out in front of me, but I still have damage to my right shoulder from that little episode.

I managed to avoid angry shoes for many years, until I started working as a lawyer.  Fortunately, the shoes that tried to get me shortly after I moved to New York were somewhat inept, doing nothing more than causing me some embarrassment and a scraped knee after they made me wipe out in the middle of Rockefeller Center one spring day.

Today, though — another attempt, by a different pair of shoes.  I was crossing Houston to change trains, navigating through road resurfacing and trying to beat the light, when my left shoe took a half step ahead of me.  I landed half out of the shoe and my ankle rolled, causing me to scrape my foot against the asphalt and nearly sending me into oncoming traffic.

Wonder which pair will come for me next?

Sorry about the light posting, and some fashion

Published at August 16, 2007 in Clotheshorsery, Fun Stuff and Vanity. 8 Comments

I’ve been a little ill. There’s a stomach bug going around these parts, and apparently, I caught it.

In the meantime, has anyone ordered clothes from these folks? I found them while looking for caftans, so I could have a nice-looking yet comfortable after-work at-home alternative to the jeans I picked out of the laundry pile. What’s great about them is that they not only have everything on their site in plus sizes, they also have a custom-fit option so that if you’re larger than the standard sizes (which go up to 3X), or if you have particular fit issues, you can have them make something for you to fit YOU. I mean, they have bust sizes of up to 75 inches in their custom option.

I’m in love with the caftan on the main page,* as well as a whole lot of their skirts. I especially like the long geometric paneled skirt.

The biggest drawback, it appears, is order time since stuff comes from India. But hell, if it’s made to measure (and at very reasonable prices), why the hell not?

__________

Okay, it appears they have a rotating image on the main page.  The caftan I like is the cream caftan with Moroccan embroidery.