Project 333: Fall Wrap

November 30 and that means the last day of my fall rotation!  I'm not exactly sick of this rotation yet (not like how I'm always ready to burn my summer rotation by September 1!) but I'm ready to move into winter clothing.  I've been feeling a bit cold in the last week or so, and my options have been limited.  

Far left: Zwei Leben denim skirt, rust cord skirt

Top Middle: purple elbow tshirt, dark teal button up knit shirt, striped boatneck, rust henley

Middle: rust lightweight cardigan, dark green light weight cardigan, navy light weight cardigan, red light wool cardigan

Bottom Middle: cranberry waffle henley, green Ramona cardigan, burgundy wool cardigan

Once I got over my initial flurry of changes, my closet stayed pretty stable.  It is different from where I started, but the winnowing process was good, and I wore almost everything I had in my rotation this time.

I mostly wore my Dottie Angel dresses this fall, and didn't really get into my separates that much.  I did wear the blouses with my denim skirt a few times before the weather cooled, and I wore my Liberty dresses a ton when it was still in the 90s in September.  My chambray dress didn't get a lot of love this rotation; I prefer a looser waist line at the moment. 

Left: Rennie dress, chambray dress, Liberty #2 dress, olive knit eshakti dress

Middle: teal knit eshakti dress, burgundy rayon floral blouse, navy linen dress, autumn floral blouse

Right: Kennedy dress, gray linen dress, Liberty #1 dress, evergreen linen dress

I barely wore the green and navy lightweight cardigans, in part because I sort of forgot about them.  I put my two heavy weight cardigans in easy view, whereas the lighter ones were in a drawer away from my tops, and I just didn't see them.  I also think that because I tended to wear a shirt under my dresses, the third layer wasn't as necessary for most of this season.

The major hits of the rotation were the three linen dresses I made--I wore them constantly, usually with a knit shirt underneath.  The surprise hit was the Kennedy dress--I was on the fence about it after the photos I took in October.  I later realized that some dresses look better with layers and others look better without.  It helped that my layering dresses were slightly heavier weight than the thin lawn dresses that looked better without.

I almost wore the Kennedy for our Thanksgiving gathering, but the navy linen with the rust henley underneath won the day.  I was so comfortable all day!  I also wore that outfit to a birthday party in a park earlier in the fall and really liked it then as well.

 

A couple of misses: the red knit eshakti dress is too short for my preference.  I was buying my dresses to hit just at the bottom of my knee last year, and I really prefer another inch or two, particularly on these full-skirted dresses.  The olive green and dark teal knit dresses are my preferred length and I'm carrying them into my winter rotation.  They both got a lot of wear this fall.  I bought the teal one a size up since that style seems to run small in the arms and torso, and so it is a little roomy, but I think that is not a bad thing.  Some days you want less fitted.

I also noticed that my "wool" red sweater has a bit of acrylic in it, which explains why I sometimes feel simultaneously hot and cold in it.  I'm trying to decide what to do with it, as I do like the color and length, and it goes with a bunch of stuff in my closet, but I don't like wearing synthetics if I can help it.

My Ramona cardigan is starting to look pretty sad and ratty, so I'm not sure how much longer it will last.  I made a not-so-great choice in the yarn, and it pills constantly and picks up everything in sight.  I also made Russian joins throughout the sweater which was a mistake, given the weight of the yarn--the joins are a little more obvious than I would like.  I do wear it a lot, and it goes with a ton of things in my closet, so I'll probably make a similar green one in Swish sometime next year.  I'm hoping to limp it through my winter rotation and then retire it.

The burgundy wool cardigan is a nice sweater, and I wore it a lot because it is warm, but I don't think it is the most flattering thing I own.  The color isn't that great on me, and the shape is pretty boxy.  But it goes well with a lot of things in this rotation, so I'll probably hang on to it.  I wish I could find one that was similar in weight but more to a cranberry shade.

I'll share my winter rotation tomorrow!

Let's Party Like It's 1765

Every year, my kids' school has a History Day celebration sometime in November, usually near the Thanksgiving break.  It is a nice way to end before the long break for Thanksgiving, and the kids look forward to it almost as much as the spring Literature Day celebration.  They get to dress up in costume and participate in a ton of history-related activities all day.  

In classical curriculum, the students study a different period of history each year, starting with the ancient world in kindergarten.  By the time they are in 3rd grade, they are studying the modern period (about 1800-1900).  In 6th grade, they start over again with the ancient world and delve more deeply into material as they move through middle school and high school.

Piglet is in 3rd grade this year, and his costume options included colonial dress, so he decided to go as George Washington.  

Boo's class is studying the medieval period, so he went as Robin Hood.

Birdie is in kindergarten so she went as a Roman princess.

When I heard that Piglet's class was focusing on colonial history, my ears perked up.  Long time readers might remember my brief foray into 18th century costuming way back in 2014.  I hadn't really abandoned it, but I did shelve the project for a long while.  I have been steadily researching textile history and keeping up with other 18th century historical costumers these last years.  

In any case, I decided that I could cobble together a working class outfit and make a presentation about it, if the teacher was interested.  She was enthusiastic about the idea (and it helped that the kids had visited a colonial farm in early November), so I spent a rather frantic 6 weeks putting together all the pieces I lacked, including stays!  (gulp!)  I'll try to do a post about constructing the individual pieces soon, but thought I'd share the photos from my presentation in the meantime.  I asked a friend to take them and she was sitting on the floor with the kids, hence the angle.

I started out in my shift, cap, and stockings.  (I had some modesty stuff underneath the shift to keep it decent in a public place).  I talked about my cap, and that I wore it to keep my hair clean since I would be working over an open flame most of the time, and also because it was considered proper for women to cover their hair.  I explained what a shift was, and that it was a prehistoric garment worn across many societies and cultures, by both men and women.  The basic shape didn't change much over time, and was constructed from a long rectangle of fabric.  

I explained that it was made from linen in order to make washing easier, and that people changed their shifts the way that we change our underwear.  I talked about pre-modern water usage (no running water = no easy baths or showers) and how keeping clean was different from today.  

I put on my garters to hold up my stockings, and explained that before elastic, women and men needed something to hold up their socks!  Many 18th century garters are embroidered with funny sayings, but mine were pretty plain (a folk-ware inspired ribbon strip on linen ribbon ties)  Then shoes.  (Cardinal rule: shoes before stays)

I talked about my stays, gave a brief history (starting with the Elizabethan "pair of bodies") and talked a little about how they are constructed.  I forgot to mention that stays were primarily made by professional stay-makers who tended to be men, because it takes a fair amount of finger and hand strength to sew stays (speaking from personal experience!)

Mine are front and back lacing so that I could get into them myself.  Stays can be front- or back-only lacing, and some maternity stays laced on the sides.  I find front and back lacing stays to be most comfortable as they are more adjustable for optimum fit.  They are also much easier to get into by yourself!

Lacing.

Still lacing.

Pulling it all tight.  Stays were not tight laced, but rather provided good back support for the heavy labor of the day, and also to give the body a particular shape under clothing.  The goal was a conical torso shape, not small measurements.

Tying the ends into a bow to secure the lacing.  I added my pockets here (you can see them peeking out in the photo below)  Pockets were a separate item of clothing for women until the late 19th century, when dresses became extremely fitted over the hips and separate pockets ruined the line of the dress and became impractical.  You read sometimes about women losing a pocket at a ball or some such.

This is my modesty petticoat, which is shorter than a regular petticoat skirt, and designed to prevent wardrobe malfunctions in a high wind or other activities where skirts might fly up!  As women (and men) didn't wear anything under their shifts/shirts, this was a real concern.  

It laces front to back, just like a regular petticoat skirt.  I made this out of a yard of linen and pleated it to a linen tape.  The slit in the side allows access to the pockets.

Then my heavy flannel petticoat.  You can see how it ties here.  The kids were curious about all the ties and lacings.  I explained that since washing machines hadn't been invented yet, clothing had to be cleaned by beating it with a stick in running water, so whatever was on your clothes had to be able to survive that.  Buttons wouldn't, and were too expensive for my farmer's wife persona.  Most clothing was laced or pinned shut.

Then I added my final petticoat skirt, a heavy-weight gold linen that I lurve so much.  I can't wear that color next to my face, and this was a fun way to be able to wear it!

I used two full yards and pleated them to a double fold bias tape that I sewed shut on the ends.  It isn't as historically accurate as the linen tape, but it worked okay.

Then my shortgown, made from some heavy weight linen scraps.  A short gown is a t-shaped jacket without closures that has cut-on sleeves.  I had to do some piecing to get it to work, but they would have done in the 18th century as well, so I figured it was all to the good.  I left it unlined because I ran out of fabric.  I based the shape on several extant short gowns, and the length and general measurements are similar.

There is some debate about whether linen would have been used for an outer garment like this, but I think it must have been since cotton was used once widely available.  These jackets and many dresses of the period were often held together with small straight pins.  

There was in fact a shortage of pins during the Revolutionary War, and Abigail Adams writes to her husband John, in England at the time, and begs him to send her a bundle of pins in his next consignment to her, as they are desperately in need.  I read out part of the letter.  I made a little pincushion on a ribbon tie to wear on my apron, since women would have wanted pins near to hand in case they lost one on their clothes during the day.

Pinning shut.  The pins are inserted lengthwise, with the pointed end down.  Someone asked me if the pins would stick you during the day, and my answer is no, because: stays. There are four layers of heavy cloth plus bones between you and any errant pin pricks.  Another person wondered about holding babies with straight pins in the clothes, but babies tended to be swaddled in lots of layers of linen at the time, so I suspect they wouldn't have made contact with the sharp points all that often.

Tucking in my fichu (neckerchief).  It fills in the neckline and adds some modesty to the low cut of the shift and stays.

Adding my apron.  I showed them how the apron can be tucked up into a little pouch to hold things like potatoes or other garden produce.  I'm sure the pouches were used to carry other things as well!

And finally, my Bergère hat!  It is quite a hack job, but it worked well for the presentation.

Bet you'll never guess what it is made of!  (Hint: a placemat)  It is tied on over my cap.

The finished outfit!  The hat would only be appropriate for going "to town" or other public places, whereas my cap is more appropriate around the house.  This outfit is the 18th century equivalent of jeans and a t-shirt.

I'm ready to haul water, chop wood, tend my cooking fire and the copper, weed the garden, slop the pigs, milk the cow, and generally do the hard labor of the farm!

I'm sure there are a ton of Historical Sew Monthly challenges tied up in this outfit, but I'll hit the details later.

Talking Tuesday: Take a Deep Breath

I don't know how things are in your neck of the post-election woods, but we've had choppers overhead every night and early morning for the last two weeks and it doesn't look to let up any time soon.  Frankly, I'm weary of it all.  The whole thing.  This election cycle broke Facebook for me, possibly permanently.  The ugliness that I saw from both sides makes me feel sad and lonely.  I will say for the record that I didn't have a dog in this fight; I voted third party for my conscience.

I try to refrain from discussing politics on this blog, but I think today is a good day to share this wonderful reflection by Brian Kaller of Restoring Mayberry, in the hopes that it will provide some ballast to the current mood of the nation.  Please read the whole thing--he makes a lot of good points and has the advantage of being somewhat removed from the fray.

From the article:

"I don’t know what kind of president Mr. Trump will be– by all means, keep a watchful eye on his administration. Clinton supporters can stop, however, going on as though they’ve been robbed of the glorious future they were supposed to have, if only their candidate had been elected, and that we are now sliding into an age of evil and darkness. No political figure will fix or destroy everything. There is no bomb counting down to Too Late, no point at which it is Game Over, nor any point where our story ends Happily Ever After. The nation is not a ship that can sink or a train that was speeding towards Progressistan; it was not derailed, and will not get Back on Track.

You won’t defeat the Moonbats, Wingnuts, Useful Idiots or Forces of Hatred, because those are imaginary concepts from a web site – the people on the other side are named Molly and Amy and Adam, and they are trying to do the right thing just like you are. The odds of they, and you, dying is 100% in the long run, but the odds of dying in the next few years in a Zombie Apocalypse, Nuclear Armageddon or Nazi Death Camp are quite low. Remember, we’ve been through this many times before, and we’re still here.

No matter what happens, no matter what your politics, there is one thing that’s bound to help your country in the years ahead. You could help rebuild the social institutions around you -- churches, fraternal organizations, town halls, unions, markets, and webs of mutual obligation – that have so deeply deteriorated. They are what democracy used to be, before it became images on a screen. They are what our dreams used to be made of. They are what kept towns and neighbourhoods functioning fifty or a hundred or two hundred years ago, back before we looked to a candidate to fix everything for us."

~Brian Kaller, "Backing Away from Hyperbole," Restoring Mayberry Blog, November 20, 2016

Put not your trust in princes or in sons of men.

Charcoal Linen Frock of Goodness

I didn't really think my fall rotation would involve much fluidity.  I was pretty happy with where my rotation ended last fall, and the few pieces I had added seemed to be perfect additions to an already great rotation.  Then...I don't know.  I stopped wanting to wear prints, and just wanted to wear muted solids.  We had a week or so of quite chilly weather (yay!!) and I realized that my cold weather clothing is almost invariably solid.  The non-solid dresses are printed such that they function as a solid in my wardrobe.  My fall rotation was very heavy on the prints, and as the weather started to cool, I realized I was longing for my cold weather solids.  (Of course, now we've had a week of freakishly warm weather, and I'm happily back into my prints; go figure.  I guess that is why these transitional rotations need to include a bit of both).  I've done some swaps, thinned the ranks, and now I think I'm pretty happy with things.  I'll post a round up about the fall at the end of next month.

I've done a lot of making this fall.  I've been learning how to sew with knits (not a steep learning curve, but figuring out which sorts of knits I want to wear has been challenging after wearing woven garments almost exclusively for several years now).  I made a few wadders.  I fell in madly in love with linen, particularly a heavier weight that works well for cooler weather.  I rediscovered my love for historic costuming and have the opportunity to give a demonstration of 18th century working class clothing next month.  I want to learn how to weave.

That's all to the good, I think.  I realized that I really want to be doing some form of living history (if I could find a proper job doing it that works with my crazy schedule and life, that would be even better!)  It is something to pray about, to be sure.  I feel quite certain that these interests and abilities were given to me for a reason, and the fact that I've been studying history for so long speaks to a deep-seated desire for knowledge about the past.  I pray God will reveal His plan for these things in due time.

In the meantime, here is the last of the linen dresses for this rotation.  I have a good friend from church who is at a very similar stage of life to me and has a similarly busy academic husband; we've been talking a lot lately about life stuff, and she mentioned that her sartorial mood is all blacks and grays lately.  She sews a little, and had asked me to trace off my redrafted Simplicity 1080 for her at some point.  I decided it would be a fun thing to make her a frock too.  I bought some charcoal gray linen and in the meantime, made up the navy blue linen dress out of TWO YARDS.  I was frankly shocked that I squeaked it out!  I had to trim a little off the sweep of the bottom skirt portion to make the cutting layout work, but I think I actually like the trimmer silhouette, so I did that with the charcoal linen and was then able to cut two dresses out of the fabric I had bought for my friend!  So we each got a charcoal linen dress.  #winning.

I'm really into kangaroo pockets right now, and so I made both dresses with them.  They are so fast and easy to apply, and I really like them as a functional matter when wearing.  I'm also loving shawls this year--I'm so eager to finish my Rent/Tess shawl.  Of course, I cast on another sweater Monday evening, so I've slowed down on my progress, but I need several things on needles so I don't get bored.

Details:

Teal Coco underdress: Telio Organic Cotton (this brand is suddenly everywhere!), Coco pattern, length added.

Charcoal linen overdress: Nine Iron linen from fabrics-store.com in IL019 weight, vintage bias tape, Simplicity 1080 (redrafted)

Orenberg shawl: bought in Russia in 1998 from an old lady on the side of the road (no kidding!)

Shawl pin: Ginny Sheller's Small Things etsy store

Thistle necklace: etsy

Earrings: bought in Ireland in 2010

Boots: Macy's (last year)

Over the knee socks: O Socks from sockdreams.com

A Bit of a Blether

(I started writing this in June 2015; I do get to everything sooner or later.)

Two summers ago, People magazine released their 2015 Body Issue.  It was in the waiting area of at my physical therapist's office, and I picked it up and leafed through it, intrigued by the plus-size model on the cover.  I should have known better.  After a two page interview with the size 22 model, Tess Holliday, plus a two page photographic spread of 'real' people being fearless about their bodies (including a double amputee and a mom in a bikini with stretch marks), the following 15 or 20 pages was the same ol' same ol' of scantily clad celebrities with cartoonish Batman-style captions. Celebrities whose stock in trade is their body--a body that they can afford to work on like a full time job, with personal chefs, personal trainers, personal assistants, and, failing that, plastic surgeons.  It was objectification of the worst kind.  I closed the magazine after a few pages in disgust and sort of hated myself for even opening it in the first place.

I've been thinking a lot lately about cultural visual norms, and how that relates to body image.  From what I read and hear from other women, most of us have some issues with our bodies.  There is always something that doesn't quite measure up to the cultural standard that assaults us from every magazine cover, every U.S.-produced television show, every perfectly cultivated photograph on social media.  It is a visual onslaught.  The funny thing is that, going by averages, almost no woman fits this ideal.  Let's set aside for the moment whether the ideal is healthy, and whether the actual average woman is healthy.  I want to focus specifically on the visual norm that it creates, and the huge gap between it and reality.

I think we can all agree that most of us don't look like celebrities.  No one looks like Kate Middleton 10 hours after having a baby--heck, I don't even look that great when I'm all dressed up for a dinner party and haven't just given birth (I really think she did all new mothers everywhere a great disservice by showing up outside the hospital looking like a model so quickly after the birth of her daughter;  I'm intrigued by the notion being floated about that perhaps she actually gave birth a week earlier)  I find it very interesting and frustrating that so many clothing retailers offer garments for a lifestyle that many of us don't live on the daily.

I think it is one of the chief reasons why women struggle so much to find clothing that fits well, feels good, and suits their lifestyles.  (The proliferation of style blogs and the agonized comments sections bear this out)  I know it is something I struggle with.  There is a big disconnect between the cultural visual norm and where many of us actually live.  Which is, mostly in the car, at the school pick up and drop off, getting groceries, running errands, going to work, hanging out at home, etc.  Not jetting off to some island or fancy dinner party or partying on the red carpet.

I think our collective body image suffers as a result.  This is setting aside issues of health and other related things, and really thinking about visual norms, how we feel about ourselves, and how we view our bodies.  Personally, it is all too easy to look at my body in the mirror and see all the ways it falls short of the cultural ideal.  I have stretch marks, saggy skin, a baby belly that is never going away, flab, cellulite, skin spots, gray thinning hair, dry skin that splits and keratinizes, dark hair on my arms and legs.  And that is just the stuff that I theoretically have the ability to change.  I'm also proportioned oddly and quite muscular for a woman.  But I'm okay with all that, actually. Yes, I need to lose weight to be more healthy, yes, I should take better care of my body because it is the only one I get.  But I'm also realistic that I'm not going to look like a teenager forever, and my body bears the marks of where I've been, what I've done with my life, the children I've borne. Please note that I'm not suggesting that we celebrate obesity, or that there are not many many real health and societal costs to having more than 2/3 of the population overweight or obese.  I also think it is a real problem that a publication like People would choose to celebrate someone with an eating disorder (going by the information in the cover story interview).

That said, I would like to propose some ways to develop a positive body image.

1. Change your visual norm.  I've tried to stop buying/reading fashion magazines, because so much of the imagery is designed to make me feel bad about my body.   I've lately noticed the same phenomenon when I spend too much time looking at vintage patterns for style inspiration.  Instead, I'm trying to steer my research toward photographs of actual women, rather than line drawings of an ideal that many women didn't even attain at the beginning of the 20th century with serious foundation garments!  The gap between the ideal presented by a disinterested fashion industry and reality has always been there.

2.  Related: watch what you watch.   I admit to a serious weakness for British and Aussie television programming, in part because it is excellent and well-written, but also because the people look more normal.  Very often, the leads have lumps and bumps, imperfect faces and teeth, everyone comes in different shapes and sizes and ages, and the visual norm is closer to the diversity I see in my everyday life.  (I especially like the Miss Fisher Mysteries and Inspector Lewis for this reason--almost all the characters look like normal people to me)

3.  Measure yourself and write it down.  This may sound counter intuitive, as I think a lot of us can get hung up on the numbers on the tape or scale, but actually, I think knowing your measurements is empowering.  It is just a number, after all, not a judgement.  Don't compare numbers with other people, because the same measurements can look very different from person to person.  My measurements are very similar to another blogger I read (I'm not linking for obvious reasons), but my proportions are totally different, so she looks quite different from me in similar styles.  I could write a whole exposition on the size game played by the fashion industry, and what a total random crock it is, but suffice to say that size is just a number, like anything else.  It has no relation to reality, there is no industry standard, it is whatever the fashion people say it is, and how they make their slopers.  They might as well come up with sizes designated Frog or Fish for all the sense the sizing charts make.  Measurements are power--measurements will help determine if something will fit well, and if you sew like I do, help determine what size to cut out for best fit.  A body is a body, and a number is a number.  All bodies are good bodies. (Keep in mind that until the late Renaissance, the visual norm, and ideal beauty standard was one of a pregnant-looking woman.  Even into the Renaissance, with the standard changing to a more fitted torso and padded hips, skinny women were always trying to find ways to plump up their bodies to meet the ideal of the day.  It wasn't always about looking like skin and bones.  End rant).

4.  Try to understand your body's quirks and understand your body's limitations.  I'm never going to be tall and willowy, even if I lose 80 pounds.  I'm always going to be petite-proportioned, with stumpy lower arms and legs and a lot of muscle mass.  I'll always have more physically in common with a peasant woman than a ballet dancer.  I'm always going to have narrow shoulders and beefy upper arms--I know this because I was quite thin once.  My basic body proportions aren't really that different from when I was thin--just bigger.  I think understanding limitations can be quite freeing.  Do I wish I was thinner?  Of course.  I am working on it.  And I'm not saying that I don't wish sometimes to have long legs and lean muscle mass, but I've learned to appreciate what I do have.  My dad always says that our people were made for pushing threshers with our feet, and I'm often grateful for my (sometimes freakish) strength.  Graceful, I am not.  I'll never be a sprinter or even run very fast.  But I can lift a washing machine, take the pump apart, and put it all back together, so there's that.

That said, I still have lots of times where I just feel jumpy in my skin.  Like Picasso went and did a number on my face.  I think this feeling serves as a reminder to me to back away from the cultural norms--perhaps I've been spending a little too much time on Facebook (and my previously excellent ad blocker seems to have stopped working, so my Facebook experience is definitely visual ad-based these days).  I've maybe spent too much time scrolling Pinterest for ideas.  (To be fair, I find Pinterest an excellent research tool for historic clothing construction, but I'm as guilty as the next person of using it idly to look for sartorial inspiration)  

I wrote a little bit a while back about Anne Hollander's excellent book, Seeing Through Clothes. That book really turned a lot of my thinking on its ear, not just as a strict sartorial matter, but how imagery impacts and reinforces cultural norms, and how those visual norms change over time.  It also convinced me that what we wear matters, as it is the first thing the world sees.  Our clothing speaks for us, and can become a kind of short hand for who we are.

There aren't a lot of people around who dress like me, or personally find visually normative.  I've never minded being the odd man out, particularly with my clothing, and I don't strive to be one of the crowd, but it is hard to feel so at odds with what is in front of you all the time.  I'm trying to be more selective about the imagery that I allow into my head, particularly in the blogs that I read, and to set harder limits for myself with social media.  I think this can only help in the long run.  I long for a solid self.

I'm working on it.

Talking Tuesday: Green Living

image via google images

"If, over several centuries, you remove ordinary people from access to productive land; if you 

arrange agriculture to produce a small number of commodity crops for distant markets using exotic inputs rather than serving its locality; if you allow food prices and land prices to get so out of kilter that almost nobody can afford to farm, that only rich people can afford to live in the countryside, and that poor farmers globally need to search for paid work wherever the pull of the global economy takes them; and if you impose a car-based infrastructure on the countryside while systematically stripping it of services and public transport, then, yes, it’s probably fair to say that it’s greener to live in the city and that few want to be small-scale farmers. But there’s no reason to accept all that as given." 

~Chris Smaje, "Two Tribes," Small Farm Future, September 17, 2016

Image via.

If you'd told me in my younger days that I would pine for country life in middle years, I'd probably have laughed at you.  I longed for the city, for urban existence, for the excitement of living amongst so many different kinds of people, for the access to many different kinds of experiences.  

Now, after many years of living a gritty urban existence, and raising children here, my perspective is a little different.  I don't think it is realistic for us to move to the country, given the demands of my husband's work schedule, and our rather intense need for emergency pediatric health care throughout the year, but I confess I do long for the open spaces, for room for my kids to run around without fear, for the ability to reclaim an older way of life.  The life we live now is fine, good even, but it isn't sustainable if something were to happen to the supply chain.  Having our water shut off regularly these last months during the water and sewer main replacement on our block, and dealing with food supply shortages this winter during the storm season made me realize that we are out on an island here; we have no access to fresh water should we need it, no ability to grow our own food, and almost no way to dispose of trash or human waste in a safe way if city services break down (as they frequently do).  It makes me anxious if I think about it for too long, so I try to dwell on the positives of living in the city.  God has us here for a reason, and we must rest content in that knowledge.

This weekend, for example, we had an impromptu block party when we temporarily closed our road with trash cans and a leftover traffic cone to allow our kids to bike in the street on a quiet Sunday afternoon.  Because our family was outside on the street, other families came out and pretty soon there was a whole mess of kids running around on bikes for a couple of hours, and the adults could chat and engage in fellowship, thus growing the social capital on the block.  

Our location is ideal for the life we currently live.  We live half a block from an Orthodox Church, which allows us to go to far more mid-week services than we would otherwise be able to, given everything.  We are five blocks from a large grocery store (and grocery stores are few and far between here, for some inexplicable reason).  We have easy access to grocery delivery services, and other delivery options.  We are an easy public bus ride to school.  Parking is a pain, but we have learned to navigate the murky waters of it and rely on cabs and Uber when it is impossible to move the car.  We live three blocks from our excellent pediatrician and the children's hospital is a short cab ride away.  We have a good group of friends, both for ourselves and our children.  My husband bike-commutes most of the year, and we are short train rides to New York and DC, both of which are needful for my husband's job.  

Image via

We are in a good place.  But sometimes, sometimes, I long for wide open spaces, with mountains at behind me and water before me.

Help a Friend in Need

I worked most of the morning on a pretty self-indulgent post.  It was navel-gazing in the extreme, and I felt weird about writing it in the first place, and was hesitant to post it.  I'm glad I left it in my drafts because when I went to read my feedly, I discovered that the lovely Jessica of Chronically Vintage has lost everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) in a tragic and senseless fire that consumed her home and everything in it.  She and her husband literally escaped with the clothes on their backs and are homeless and completely without property aside from their car.

She wrote about what happened today.  If you are so minded, please read, and consider giving to the funding account her friends and family have set up for her.  She is a lovely person who've I had the opportunity to get to know a little bit first through her blog, then through the combox here on my blog, and lately through private correspondence.  She is a sweet person with a big heart, and I really feel for her situation.  I can only imagine the devastation that she and her husband are feeling right now.

She and her husband both ran home-based businesses, and they lost everything related to their livelihoods in the fire as well.  They will need a big helping hand to put their lives back together.

Please consider giving.