Autumn Was a Lamb

    Autumn was a lamb. I spent the better part of autumn going outside for afternoon sunbathing and wearing light cotton dresses, enjoying every warm moment while it lasted.  Winter is already roaring like a lion. I look forward to the cozy winter days indoors, bundled up by the fire, reading an old favorite or a vintage page turner, but this year, because we've been working on our house so much, I'm afraid the cold season is upon us and we are woefully under stocked on firewood.  So, as the rain and sleet are falling outside my window this morning, I'm writing this from under the covers.  I've already dashed out to feed and water all the animals and run right back in to stoke the fire without overloading it on the precious pieces of firewood that we do have left, and wrap up to keep warm.

    As soon as this little cold snap passes, we'll get back outside to cut more firewood, so I'm not really worried about the length of the winter, but this first pass has been rough.  Even our 20 year old tabby cat has given up laying on my feet and snuggled as close to the fireplace as she possibly can.  It's hard to believe it was only two weeks ago that I the leaves were vibrant and the fall sunshine lit up the woods to create this beautiful evening in the photos for today's post.

Outfit Info:  Bernie Dexter Kitchen print Kelly Dress, Betsey Johnson Bag, B.A.I.T. Heels, Betsey Johnson Necklace & Earrings

Pink Porcelain

"sometimes just getting up and carrying on is brave and magnificent." 

"One of our greatest freedoms is how we react to things."

"When have you been at your strongest?" asked the boy.  "When I have dared to show my weakness. Asking for help isn't giving up," said the horse. "It's refusing to give up." from The boy, the mole, the fox, and the horse by Charlie Mackesy

As the holidays approach, I know that this can be one of the most difficult times of year for many.  I've had this post written for years, but now seems like the ideal time to post it. 

    I always hated asking for help. Hate isn't really a strong enough word. I felt a physical revulsion to asking for help. Why? Well, for one thing I was a perfectionist who hated to admit that things weren't perfect, hated to admit that I was weak or had failed. But it goes beyond that.  

Asking for help means being vulnerable enough with someone to expose your weakness to them and then stand there, naked, while they consider whether or not you're worth their time and help. It means not only showing that your weakness, admitting failure, but also in the midst of all that, facing rejection. I could deal with the failure. I could deal with the weakness. It was the vulnerability and even more so, it was the utter rejection in a time of greatest need by someone who claimed to love me or be a true friend that I could not accept. If I was rejected once, even on or perhaps especially on small help, I would never ask again. If I was rejected on really big help, I found I could no longer look at those people, let alone feel kindly toward them. And, please bear in mind that on the rare occasion that I did ask for help, the answer was nearly always No.  

And, so rather than dislike and mistrust a growing number of people, I stopped asking for help. Can't get rejected if you never ask.  It was only years and years into my adult life that I found myself in such a state of utter brokenness that I cried out, begged for someone, anyone to help me, and kept begging until someone did. Even in that awful time, I got a lot of rejections, but it didn't matter anymore; I'd already experienced the worst, what was a little more? I didn't just have to face rejection, I had to keep facing it. It sounds like it would be the hardest thing to do, but it wasn't. At the end of myself, at the end of my delusion of perfection, it was either face up or give up.  

There were a very few who came to help and they made all the difference. Asking for help, isn't giving up, it's refusing to give up. Asking for help means that you are saying, I will keep going, keep fighting, keep asking no matter what it takes. So, keep going, keep fighting, keep asking for help until you get it. As for me, I'm no longer a perfectionist. Not interested in pretending. Not interested in trying. Far more likely to ask for help if I need it and shrug off rejection when I face it.  And far happier because of it.

Outfit info:  Selkie pink porcelain Renaissance dress--thrifted 

Songs of Love; Songs of Loss: Music Review

I have never done a music review on the blog, but a couple of new releases have me extremely impressed, so I wanted to share.  I'm not a fan of Taylor Swift, but I don't hate her either and it seems like (or at least the media wants us to believe) that all people must fall into one of those camps.   I loved Blank Space, video and song, still do.  And I wouldn't skip it if Style came up in the shuffle.  Shake It Off wasn't a favorite, but it was catchy and I did like the message.  My personal opinion of Swift is that she is beautiful, talented and she works very hard.  I'm happy she's happy and I hope it lasts.  I've heard people slam her for repeating lines across multiple songs, but that's what happens when you write your own music; You repeat yourself.   Have you ever watched some pop-whore like Katy Perry or Beyonce try to explain what a song means?  They stumble because, they didn't write it.  They just sang the words with no feeling behind the voice.  I admire that Swift did or does write much of her own material.  And, yes she's taken criticism for releasing albums directly after break-ups, but strong emotion tends to need an outlet. 

By strong contrast, her new album, Life of a Showgirl, has just released with a solid love song entitled The Fate of Ophelia, which I really liked.  It was lovely and intelligent, well written and well performed.  The videos for this album were really wonderful, well choreographed, employing a host of talented dancers and fellow singers like Sabrina Carpenter (again, not a fan of her music per say, but Please, Please, Please was smart, stylish, and catchy)  and each one is filled with beautiful scenes.  I can't say I enjoyed any of the other songs on the album as much, though I did like the fact that not all the songs are love songs.  The title song itself is a correspondence between an up and coming showgirl and one on the decline.  It wasn't world shattering, but it was a refreshing move away from all the love and hate songs out there.  It's like people have forgotten there are other things to sing about.  So, I'm giving kudos to Swift for a shift away from the break-up music, and truly, she's stepping down as the break-up queen just in time.

Lily Allen's new album, West End Girl, has just released and if it's not the most brutal work of (please pardon my language, nothing else would do) fuckoffery  in existence, I owe you a coke.  Growing up, I remember hearing Carly Simon's, You're So Vain, and thinking it was a rather scathing anti-tribute.  I even sang it in the mirror a few times to the junior high boy who broke my heart.  So, Taylor Swift didn't make this mold, but Lily Allen definitely broke it.  Simon's song doesn't even hold a candle to what Allen has created here.  West End Girl is a thorough walk through pain and loss: Allen's husband asking for an open marriage, lamentably in consenting, feeling that laying ground rules would help, and the utter implosion that followed after.  She doesn't hold back and it is achingly beautiful.  

Quite honestly, I wasn't a fan of Allen's either.  I only knew her as the woman who was with David Harbor after Alison Sudol (whom I am a fan of), and I used to love watching Architectural Digest, so had seen the tour of their home.  As the new season of Stranger Things is set to release (David Harbor plays Hopper in the show) I only looked into this album out of a shameful curiosity, like browsing through a People magazine.  What I found instead was something so raw, so viciously honest that I truly was moved by the work as a whole.  Even the accompanying videos portrayed a woman stuck in a slow-motion hell on repeat, and if you've ever experienced any sort of deep grief from the loss of a relationship to the death of a loved one, you know that's exactly how it feels as you struggle to cope. 

These amazing ladies are sharing their love and loss in such touching ways.  I recommend you at least give them a listen.  Their stories are worth hearing.

Fighting FOMO

Black Friday brought a bevy of fantastic sales on things I had at some point in the year thought of purchasing and now was ever so tempted to give in or forever miss out on these items' promises to finally make my life complete and at a special bargain price.  I so wish that buying stuff actually delivered on the promises they make, that feeling content and complete is just one purchase away.  I was fighting FOMO hard during the kick-off to holiday spending.  The Fear Of Missing Out is a normal human instinct and one that has driven mankind to pursue their goals, reach higher, go the distance, etc., etc throughout history. On the grand scale, life is a temporary condition and it can quite literally pass us by if we don't get the fear in us to make the most of it.  But, like all things there has to be some balance to it.  At some point, it's time to let a few things pass us by as we sit back and enjoy life a bit too.  The pursuit, the fear, can become addictive and all consuming.  The simple fact is, you gotta let a few go, opportunities and amazing sales alike.  That's become more difficult than ever in this age of constant advertisements of the life you could be leading if you only bought X.    

Growing up, I believed I was born into the wrong style era and suffered the emotional consequences, because I was too young to understand that there was nothing wrong with my body, and everything wrong with the trend of clothes I was trying to fit into.  As a result, if I did come across something that actually fit or even better, actually looked good on me, I would stock up so I could have nice clothing until I could find more on some far distant day.  Scarcity mindset got a hold of me pretty early on in life. 

Over the years my body changed and styles changed too.  There are now so many options for sizes, styles, and fits that I don't really have to buy in bulk when I find something that works because there are so many options.  I have a plethora of perfect-for-me pieces of clothing and yet I find myself still constantly searching.  What started out as a survival mechanism turned to a habit and an obsession.  It was only a few years ago that I realized that I spent most of my time searching for and acquiring more, but rarely ever stopping to enjoy what I already had.   It's been a stressful year and even thrifting has been a crutch I've leaned on way too much.

I've had mixed success with spending freezes and the low buy year hasn't been a total triumph but it hasn't been a total failure either.  I've managed to stick to thrifting everything except a few Black Friday purchases and even then walked away from about 70% of what I wanted to buy.  In light of all that, I've decided to just keep at it until this gets easier and I get better at it.  I really want to just take a break from shopping, wanting, searching, obsessing, from FOMO, from all of it.  I want to spend some time just appreciating what I have.  And I have realized that if I really want to be successful at it, I have to get off the internet.  With the holidays coming, I can't just stop spending altogether, but I can stop for a few days out of each week and make a plan to shut it down for a while in the new year.  That may mean pausing the blog for a while too, but I think it will be worth it if I can see it through.