Closet Porn

Inspired by recent closet postings by Gina as well as several from my French Chic group, I decided to take a photo of my newly cleaned out closet. Much has gone the way of eBay, the thrift store, and the consignment store. Not exactly down to just ten pieces, but it's much better, and I can actually wear everything AND I actually like everything. All my workout clothes are in the bins on the left, which will make it much easier to pick something out at 4:30 in the morning!

I'm pretty happy with it, and plan to continue the weeding process. I have my eye on a couple of things for fall, including some new boots and a new purse, both in cognac leather. I'm really falling in love with that color lately. Anyway, it's the end of the weekend, so I'm going for a little bike ride.

Woohoo!

I think I understand that funny phenomenon where people lose a lot of weight when they start getting rid of stuff. You suddenly start feeling a million times freer and lighter just by the sheer acting of unloading. I know this probably sounds like I have truckloads of stuff, and I guess in some ways I do: I get gifts, I give myself gifts, I get stuff and for some reason, I have stacks of magazines from a year ago because I was always going to go through them to rip stuff out for my Style File.

So, then I realized--I have ripped out a few pages for my Style File--because they were actually my style. These are the ones that are actually in my Style File, by the way, the rest are in a box waiting to go IN the Style File. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think I may have actually found my style. Which is also making this process of getting rid of bunch of clothes and stuff a million times easier!

So far, I've made about $125 on eBay (although the final bids aren't in), I've sold six books on Amazon, I have a box of things for the consignment store (and I can take fall stuff starting in August) and about three boxes ready for the thrift store. My darling husband will be so excited!

I also still have a bunch of things sitting here waiting to get their pictures taken for eBay, so I'm going to stay up late tonight and finish....then tomorrow will be a couple of organizing projects (and cleaning all the huskey sheddings out of the car...ick).

And I'm finally getting over my horrid cold, too. Found a new doctor, who gave me another round of mega antibiotics (so now there shouldn't be one germ in my body, good or bad!) and a decongestant that's making me drier than a dustbowl, so I'm just chugging water and tea. But feeling good for the first time in three weeks! Now maybe I can start riding my bike and finally get this knee on some serious re-hab.

More later, and hopefully a soap lesson soon, too!

A Little Shopping to Round the Day Out...

The last part of my adventure in town was technically part of my de-cluttering fixation of late: I took a few more summer things to the consignment store (the rest are going on eBay starting tomorrow). Well, I guess it's okay that I took a boxful in and only came out with three things, right? I had a credit in there anyway, and even after my three purchases, I still have a credit. I was also directed to go home and get all my fall consignments ready for August....whooopee! I have a few gorgeous fall things that are too big now (yea!) and have to go, which makes even more room for my pre-fall purchases. First up, this great silver ring on a suede necklace. I love it---just so "me." Oh, and sorry for the rather ambiguous photo...I was in post-heat shopping and gardening mode, not quite ready for prime-time.

Next up are these fantastic pants, and I couldn't quite get a photo to do them justice. The fabric is an amazing kind of heathery-fawn color, with a subtle sheen to it almost--almost as if it were gold but it's not. They're awesome except for the high-waist (how do people wear stuff up to their belly-button anyway? Sheesh!), so I'm going to have my seamstress try to bring that down. If it doesn't work, I'm making a clutch out of them. Yeah, the fabric is that good.
Okay, and then last is my favorite. This mohair sweater in green (I love green) that'll tie so much of my wardrobe together. The bell sleeves are to die for, and while the button has to go, the shawl collar is one of my favorite things. It's long without being too long, too. Love it!

Farmers Market & Garden Day!

The garden is coming along pretty well, considering I got a really late start this year and have sort of been out of "gardening commission" for a couple of weeks. I rotated some things out last night and replanted, then got a little "four-legged help" on the corner there while we went out for a glass of wine. I keep trying to get the nasturtiums all the way around, and the little WooWoo keeps digging them up! We had probably the third talk this summer about how doggies aren't supposed to help in the garden!

The French Breakfast Radishes are ravishing!And the nasturtiums and mesclun will make a great spicy salad tomorrow night at my in-laws.
The plums are coming in, too, and we have two kinds and some apples. Can't wait! I broke down and got some more basil and another tomato plant after the heat killed mine, and also got a couple of French Lavender plants for the front porch to console myself since I didn't get to go to the Lavender Festival last weekend.

Yea! I also got to visit the Farmers Market today because my husband went kayaking and I'm not quite up for action and adventure just yet (still feeling kinda sick, still working on my knee). The day started out just blazing hot--even at 9 in the morning. I saw the guys off on their adventure and got my morning coffee, then headed downtown to the market. I was a little bummed because the lamb lady wasn't there with her lamb sausages and I was going to get a couple skeins of wool, too. But I did get some great Idaho potato sausages and some smoked buffalo sausages from Lost River Meats in Mackay, ID, a few of the first crop of fresh Idaho peaches and some Idaho bing cherries. I've been practically living on cherries for two weeks!

Also found some beets and potatoes, and got three baby baguettes (asiago, walnut, and something else that I can't remember) and a loaf of Cranberry Orange bread, too. The company that makes the bread brings it up from Utah and uses a grape starter. A friend gave me a grape starter recipe that I really need to experiment with, but not while the weather's so hot!

I also picked up a container of fat little blackberries and some hot garlic cheese curds. Mmm.... off to make myself some lunch! It looks like a rainstorm is heading in, too, thank goodness. Although it might ruin tonight's plans for going to the races, it will be so nice to have a little break from the heat.

Ooops du Jour

So I found some great Patons "Katrina" yarn, on sale. Like really, really on sale....I think it was a dollar a skein. Love it--chocolate brown (mmmmm), sorta shiny-ish, stretchy. And I needed a nice, plain little cardi, so I started whipping up the Chic Knits Scoop du Jour. The design was exactly what I was looking for, but the designing left quite a bit to be desired, and I kept making all kinds of changes to it. The more I consider designing myself, the more I appreciate patterns with forethought.

But anyway, yarn substitution is just evil, because no matter how good my remedial math skills are (and yea, by the way, I did pass my remedial summer math course and can now move up to just above remedial math!), I calculated wrong.

So, my Scoop du Jour just turned into a big Oops du Jour. But it's going to work out just fine, maybe even better as a great additition to my wardrobe! I ripped out the sleeve-and-a-half, and the two front pieces, then I started reworking the sleeve into an elbow sleeve and the front will now become a pull-over style instead of a button up. Voila!

Sick Day

So, I've had this wretched cold/flu/whatever thing for a week now, and I'm pretty well ready to be over it. I'm so not good at being sick. I hate being sick more than anything! Ugh. Everyone teased me after my knee surgery that I couldn't stay down---my husband couldn't believe that I was still busier than he was!

This cold is kicking my butt, though. I started getting sick last Saturday, which was the worst possible time: I had three tests, one 20-page paper, a presentation, a bunch of stuff for work and a full load of Pilates classes! Well, I've made it through everything, but my Fourth of July sucked royally: I just slept all day, then tried to study for my math test while everyone else went to watch fireworks. Yesterday was just the bare minimum: taught Pilates at 5:00 am, went to work for a couple of hours, took my math final, worked a little more, dropped of a FedEx, then helped my husband install my new (woohoo!) Cadillac Tower at the studio.

I slept for a while, but it was really too hot to sleep. That's the other problem with being sick in the summer: the normal remedies like hot baths, hot tea, and down comforters aren't exactly summer-friendly. Bleh. So we got up and went to Driggs to see the Clumbsy Lovers. They were doing an outdoor concert last night and it was super-fun. People up there breed like rabbits, though! I can't believe how many kids, babies and pregnant women we saw. Holy cow!

So today I taught a private lesson and then I'm taking the rest of the day off. My husband went kayaking with his friend, and I'm going to catch up on some knitting (almost have my Scoop du Jour finished!), some shopping, and finally getting my closet organized. I'm also going to try to not talk too much...afraid I might lose my voice!

Oh, and I'm getting stuff ready for the August Fire Sale, too. I'm thinking of making some batches of soap and lip balm for it---I used to have a little skin care company, and in the last six months I've had seven or eight people request stuff again. Wow!

Midnight Paddle on the Lake

What a fun night---I love it when the unexpected happens. I was home studying all day (have to do that today, too....ugh) and my husband and his friend climbed Dissapointment Peak in the Tetons. He got back and we hemmmed and hawed about going to a Bluegrass concert at the art museum because I also caught cold yesterday. I HATE being sick more than anything in world, in fact.

Anyway, after a few phone calls to see where our friends would be sitting, a peppermint and rosemary bath where I mostly sat pouting about my cold, and finally getting dressed and out the door, we made it just in time to see the last group, a fairly reknown fiddler from here. She was so cute and had tons of personality, too. Then my husband noticed a guy that we paddled with in the Tetons last October, and I went over say hi. He's pretty amazing to me, because despite being blind, he's an excellent paddler who thinks nothing of carrying his own boat over steep or rocky terrain, hiking around rocks and trees, etc. Okay, so there was the unfortunately incident where my husband walked him straight into a tree, but we won't discuss that any further (thank God it's at the "funny now" stage).

Anyway, I went and said hi to Todd and he asked if I wanted to paddle Gem Lake, about four miles away...tonight? Well, yeah! Of course I do---the news has been reporting a giant full moon for this weekend (not that it mattered either way to Todd, of course), and the chance to do something so fun and unexpected was too much temptation. I ran back to tell my husband and to invite the four friends we were with. Two weren't so sure, but the other two were ready to go load their kayaks. The not-so-sure's hadn't ever paddled before, but we convinced them and ran to get our kayaks: the sea kayaks for our friends and the whitewater boats for us (I hadn't been in that hated whitewater boat since I almost drowned).

After a mad rush to grab boats, floats, paddles, life jackets, and sweaters, we were at the launch ramp exactly at 10:30. Todd and his wife weren't there yet, but we got to meet their friends Jana and Bonnie. Jana's deaf and I got to practice my (really remedial) signing with her. She was a lot of fun and invited me to their ASL study group, which I just might take her up on. I feel like my sign is as bad as my French at this point...wow, use it or lose it, huh?.

Anyway, we jumped in the boats and launched. It was gorgeous, calm, warm, and so much fun for a bunch of people to just suddenly meet and instantly have so much to talk about. Until the cops showed up, of course....the park closes at 11. So, by midnight we were on our way home, somehow feeling like kids again....we almost tried to find an all-night diner for biscuits and gravy!