Lent 2014 - Days 6 & 7

Started a new job yesterday, so I cheated a bit by (mostly) repeating my outfit for today.

Flat discipline

We had folks round for tea before a committee meeting yesterday and ate baked potatoes with various toppings.  I had tuna, so there goes my fish for this week (exercising an interesting definition of week to my own sneaky ends, but was healthier than the alternative cheese/baked beans options).  we served this up with the remaining diced vegetables roasted up for the occasion, so it was a win on the vegbox front to the tune of 5 potatoes (including the one I wound up with for lunch today) and several other vegetables.  There's a little bit of time this evening, so perhaps dicing and parboiling further veggies is in order.

Lone discipline

Complete with concentrating face and last weekend's festival wristband.

Wearing

Smocked jersey dress (item 12):  Soft and comfortable with an empire-line cut that I find really flattering (comes of being short-waisted and long in the rise).  This dress totally points out one of my proportional quirks though - it's two sizes smaller than I usually wear from this retailer, because I have a relatively narrow ribcage, especially when you consider the width of my shoulders and my hips.
Striped jersey blazer (item 3):  Yet more gentle jersey comfort.  And another under-a-tenner bargain.  From a cheap retailer so the shoulder pads (which I could probably take out due to the afore-mentioned broad shoulders) and facings require a bit of care to lay properly.  In the photograph above I've cuffed the sleeves as the manufacturer intended and that exposes a bit more wrist than I like all day.  These sleeves usually end up folded down and nearly long-enough or cuffed and then pushed up nearer my elbows so I look like I meant to show off my wrists/forearms rather than having great long gorilla arms.  The tricks height encourages us to...

Footwear:  Red heeled Mary Janes - another pair of shoes in need of a polish, I'm afraid.  I've written about my love of red shoes already and they really are a very close match for the colour of this dress
Accessories:  Giant pearls - yet another bargain.  Added to an online order to make it cross the free delivery threshold.  Really handy when I need a neutral statement piece, but strangely, they prevent airflow round my neck so I can't wear them to dance in for any length of time.
Celtic cross with garnet - the necklace I wore yesterday, a bit less flashy than today's and given to me by my paternal grandparents when I was baptised (aged 13 or so).  A surprisingly perfect choice when I consider that my grandmother usually had tastes so different from mine at that age.
Hosiery:  Sainsbury's Medium Support tights.  I love these tights.  They're comfortable, tend to hold up to repeated washings and wearings and really do give me a nice silhouette.  Yesterday's tights were more opaque and grayer.  Today's are better, but I was really after the slightly pale fleshtone that the Sainsbury's tights come in.  It feels like spring is arriving and it's time to return to lighter tights.  But I put my thumb through a pair yesterday, so I'm stuck until I shop.

This is all about the holy grail of being comfortable while looking put-together.  In those stakes dresses are absolutely the way forward.  I'm also nearly halfway through my allotted number of clothing items for the season, so more care may be required with my picks for the next week or so, I need to ensure I have suitable items for a couple of dances at the end of this week as well as enough dancing clothes and things to get me through my work-weeks.

Talismans... talismen?

Red Shoes MK IV

I have, in the past few years, developed a  habit of wearing red shoes to important events and interviews.  It probably started when I wore red shoes to my PhD interview and was woken the next morning by my flatmate exclaiming that there was a professor on the phone - I had got the place.  I subsequently wore red shoes to hand in my Masters thesis, to my viva and to receive the results.

Then came the Magical Shoes of Wonder.  One Christmas a group of my friends and siblings all got together and bought me a beautiful pair of red shoes, with heels and bows.  I was totally surprised.  I have never found it particularly easy to find shoes that fit (I'm right at the top of most manufacturers' size ranges and have wide feet to boot) but that pair fitted like a dream from day one.  They later told me that the friend with feet the closest in size to me had been sent into the shop to try on these shiny heels in her hiking socks!  The Magical Shoes of Wonder saw me through numerous presentations, my PhD Viva and graduation (I know the dress code is black and white, but they go with a red gown, it simply had to be done) and are still my most prized footwear.

These days, though, the red shoes above suffice for all but the most high-level requirements.  They also come out on a day-to-day basis.  I can stand all day in the Magical Shoes of Wonder but don't ask me to walk too far!

Now, I'm not a superstitious person.  I don't in any way believe that red shoes will change the outcome of any event I wear them to.  I think I wear them as a touchstone.  A reminder that, at the end of the day I am not the result of this interview or the reception this presentation gets.  At the end of the day I am the sort of person who wears red shoes.  The sort of person who can pull that off.  If I'm not the person for your job or you don't like my work, that's OK.  I have not misrepesented myself and all is well.

My shoes aren't my only talisman.  Others more specifically connect me to my family - the celtic cross necklance that my paternal grandparents gave me on my baptism, the ring that belonged to my great aunt, the perfume from my maternal grandparents.  That's important when you live five hundred miles away from your immediate family, half a world away from another branch of the family and have been separated by death from others.