The February Slog

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Style

I don’t know if its because I spent all my energy traveling, or because it’s February but I have felt like I am slogging through fog this month. I usually tackle all kinds of house projects (lets clean the basement!) but no.  I am committing myself to writing at least a page a day of a novel I’m working on – committing sounds much better than ‘trying’ doesn’t it.

I am getting out. David and I have had several ‘date nights’ this month where I shrug myself out of lassitude and get dressed, like this:

The vesty thing you may have remembered as one of the things I had made in Senegal. I am quite pleased with it.

 

And, every Monday I head over to a workspace to repurpose flowers at the The Bloom Project.  I may have written about the project before which uses flowers leftover from wholesale dealers and grocery stores to put together bouquets for people in hospice.  The day my dad died last year I was not near him, unfortunately 2,000 miles away, but I was sending beauty to other hospice patients through my work that day at Bloom.

It is strange to have a vibrant loved one fade before your eyes.  It reminded me of child development, how kids first learn to babble, then sound words, then talk.  Or learning to walk when they start with scooting, then crawling, then standing and low and behold they are walking.  With people dying it is just the reverse, they are folding back in on themselves.

I’m not sure my dad would have appreciated the flowers, he was not that kind of nature/beauty lover. But my mom would have. So I imagine my bouquets bring joy to someone in the last phase of life or their families.

 

On this homebound day (it snowed!) I’m going to check out Visible Monday

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Think outside the bouquet

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Celebrations

In my work and creative time, I am a floral designer (well in some of my work time).  I tend to not let this spill over into the Travelindigo blog because  this is where I talk about all kinds of other things.   The difficulty comes in when I want to share the same topic in two different places.  So with this post, I point you to another post, this one on Valentine’s day and flowers.

I love flowers. I love foliage, greenery, gardening.  All of the things that take us back in touch with Mother Nature and with the importance of the earth. I love flowers because they also put us back in touch with the cycles of life and the sense of impermanence that really does exist, even if we chose to close our eyes to it.

Flowers (and plants) emerge, bud, come to fruition and flower, seed, and then fade.  No matter how much we try to extend the life of a flower, especially a cut flower, it will always come to an end. Just like our lives.  And if we are lucky, our span of existence will be as graceful as a flower as it slowly lowers itself back to earth.

Not everyone gives and receives flowers as gifts. I get that. Some people think its a waste of money because the flowers will die (Hey, what about food, we just eat that. Isn’t that a waste? Because we just die). Others because flowers take up land that could be used for growing food. Or because they have never thought about gifting flowers.  But flowers are the beauty in our lives and we sorely need a boost of beauty, sometimes quite often.  My flower blog has the tag line: When you have only two pennies buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.

I’ve seen this sentiment echoed in a number of cultures in a number of ways. It is not enough to have nutrition for our bodies, we also need food for our souls. Art, style, music… and flowers are that sustenance.

So here’s a little excerpt:

It’s fun to put together a bouquet using the language of flowers. For example, put together a bouquet of  red roses (passion,) red tulips (love). Alstromeria (devotion), stock (beauty) and ivy (let us bind together).  A card reinforcing the message is all that’s left to deliver your floral poem of love.

and check out my other blog, Rooms in Bloom if you are inclined for some thinking outside the bouquet for Valentine’s Day.

A poke to February

Because I am almost back to “normal”

Because there was a full moon

Because it’s already February

Because black and red go well together

Because I love hats.

I was gifted with a box of hats at the holiday and am wearing one of these beauties.  More to come.

Heading over (after a hiatus) to Judith’s Hat Attack

 

What to wear, what to want to wear

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fashion, NaNoWriMo, Style

We were gone for a month and in three weather zones: Chicago, Dakar, Paris. In other words way below freezing, temperate and windy, and moderately cold and rainy.  I like to pack light.

To my advantage, I had access to my sisters’ wardrobes for Chicago and my daughter’s for Dakar. But I needed to have a solid background of items for myself.

Turns out I did pretty well. Although my traveling companions saw the same outfits day in and day out.

To be fair the middle outfit is my daughters.

I did all right in Dakar and Senegal where no matter what I was obviously a tourist.  But of course in Paris, what I really wanted to be wearing were these lovelies:

Nonetheless I must have looked somewhat different than the usual traveler, having been mistaken for a French speaker at one of the museums. Of course I was wearing black.

I did have three articles of clothing made in Dakar, which is always fun. Two were based on an existing piece of clothing. And one from some African fabric my husband bought.

Original

Adaptations

 

Third piece

I am now curating what I brought to be better prepared for the next trip. There were a few things I ended up never wearing. And I few things I wish I had had (more underwear, low cut socks).

Jet lag is almost done and I’m back to my normal sleep schedule.  Time to figure out what’s blooming in the garden. And to plan the next trip.

L

In getting this post ready I stumbled on this website: http://dresslikeaparisian.com/blog/. I haven’t checked it out very thoroughly but I am intrigued.