One Cobble at a Time

Pulling Things Out of the Closet

Little things can make a world of difference. I have been frustrated with my closet for years. The shoes were always in a jumble at the bottom. I thought about getting a shoe rack, but if my shoes took up vertical space, they would interfere with hanging space for shirts. So I kept having to [...]

Favorite Colors

I’ve been thinking about colors lately. Part of this is driven by the fact that I still have kids in elementary school. In the lower grades knowing your favorite color is of paramount importance. Every “about me” survey will ask about favorite colors. Kids will ask each other as well. Knowing a person’s favorite color [...]

Storymakers Day 2, the Whitney Awards, Retiring a Dress, and the Day After

Howard is out of his element at the Storymakers conference. It is an event full of women, many of whom read and write stories that are essentially romantic. I’m not precisely in my element, but in many ways it is a better fit for me than the average Science Fiction convention. On the whole these [...]

How I Spent My Conference Saturday: A Report of an Ordinary Day

General Conference Saturday is the day when I turn on the radio and work at some project while I listen to the elders of my church teach about true principles and how to be better people. This time I decided that my project would be a major re-organization effort in Gleek’s room. She hoards things. [...]

My Closet and the Clothes in it

After my post about Red Shoes and Wishing, someone pointed out that what I was trying to accomplish with a wish list might work better as a Pinterest board. So now I have a Pinterest account and I’ve begun slowly populating my pin boards with appropriate images. I’m not sure how I’ll use the site [...]

Red Shoes and Wishing

“You’re allowed to want things.” I said to myself. I didn’t quite believe it. If I began wanting things then there would be conflict between the things that I wanted and the things which my husband or children wanted. The simplest way to avoid the inevitable conflicts was to remember that what I wanted most [...]

Remaking a Formal Dress

Last May I bought a dress. I bought it, not because of what it was, but because of what I could make from it. I loved the bright color and the full swing of the skirt. It reminded me of all those long dresses that Ginger Rogers used to wear when dancing with Fred Astaire. [...]

Cliche and Shopping

Yesterday I took my daughters for a mother daughter shopping trip. We were out for hours, had a marvelous time, and came home with big bags of new things. I say new, but since we spent most of the time at at thrift store, the things were only new to us. This does not diminish [...]

Discovering Shawls

Mary and I were in our hotel room getting dressed to venture into Baycon for the evening. I had a lovely short sleeved shirt, but once again came up against the knowledge that hotel interiors are invariably frigid. I could wear the shirt and feel pretty, or I could cover it almost completely with a [...]

Attending a Regency Ball

One of the events at Baycon was a Regency Ball. Mary loves the regency period and had two dresses, so we dressed up and went to the dance. I found the process of dressing in period style fascinating. Mary told me all about the reasons for the various undergarments and what look the regency ladies [...]