New Sunglasses — and a teeny Break from my Blog Break

Just popping my head in to empty my suitcase, do a load of laundry, and pack up again for another week or two away (okay, that’s all really just metaphorical, extending my little fiction that you’re all chatting on my porch while I’m off on vacay — in reality, we’re still here in our transitional apartment in the city, and my vacation is really just a blogging break, but play along, please?).

While I’m here, I thought I’d show you my new sunglasses — finally took the plunge and for the first time ever, I now have a pair of Prescription Sunglasses, so much better than having to wear my contacts every sunny day just so that I can wear sunnies.  I’m thrilled with the choice of these Face à Face frames, grateful to the good people at Eyes on Burrard for helping me make it (no, sadly, I reap absolutely no benefit from saying that, but they deserve a nod even if I don’t get a discount).

Worth mentioning, perhaps, to those of you following my journey to grey hair, this photo shows a length approaching what I initially hoped for when I decided to chop and see what colour my hair had really gotten to. And that colour (which shows much more grey in different light) is all mine, except for highlights which were added two trims, or about three months, ago — the plan is to add new highlights six weeks from now.

And while I’m sharing Selfies, here’s a (yes, way too dark) photo of an OOTD I wore and liked recently (the floaty silk All Saints dress — seen here worn with bare legs and boots — worn over my white jeans with grey-denim loafers) enough to have tried sketching it.

This was a fun new project for me, and I thought I’d share it with you and let you see the photographic version for comparison.  It’s pretty clear I don’t have a future in fashion illustration, but I’m not sure you can tell how much fun it was to doodle this onto the page. . .While I’m waiting for the laundry to dry, I’m going to load up another post with some of the sketching and painting I’ve been playing at on my break.

Confession that won’t surprise you: I’m supposed to be taking a blogging break, but I’ve been reading your comments and it’s so tough not to join the conversation. Regarding the Anne Berest quotation on the influence of friends vs. that of lovers or spouses, for example. . . I’ll save my thoughts for a quick post after my break, but . . . I do wish the quotation hadn’t leaned in such a gendered and binary direction (what about my lesbian readers, for example? Surely, there are at least a few here, unless my online community is quite different from my IRL one).  And what about male friends? And does the writer’s relative youth  and relationship/marital status (she’s 34 at time of writing, and not too long out of a break-up with the father of her child) mean that her opinion may change drastically with time? Or is it patronising (matronising?) of me to suggest?

See what I mean? It’s hard for me to take this break, and popping back home to empty the luggage and pack again was risky. What’s that? Someone’s filled my new case for me and is pushing me toward the door? You’re insisting I leave, that I take the full break I promised myself? But, but, but . . . No, I know you’re right, I’ll be a better blogger after some downtime, and really, I’m not far away, and I’ll be back before too long. Before I go again, though, can I just say that Susan Burpee’s comment on my last post put a huge smile on my vacationing face: “Mater’s blog,” she said, “the place where everything and everyone intersect.” The best compliment, right?! Thanks Sue! And no wonder I’m in a hurry to get back here. . . 😉

I’m gone now, though, but you can keep chatting — the front porch is all yours. I’ve got posts scheduled to pop up over the next while until I’m back, and it’s pretty obvious I’m reading all your comments, although I’m going to continue to resist responding to them during the break. See you soon.

Yikes! I’m back again, but just pretend I’m not here EXCEPT that you need to know about Elizabeth’s marvellous post over at Welsh Hills Again: The Year of Being Sixty-Two. It’s beautifully written, captures much of what so many of us are thinking or going through, and the conversation building up there is promising to be very rich.