My first dresses

I don't remember my first dress, but it was probably a hand-me-down from my sister when she was a baby. But that's okay because baby clothes are meant to be hand-me-downs. What was sad was when I got her hand-me-downs later. Not that I didn't like her clothes, but I am what is traditionally called a "late bloomer", and though me and my sister are about the same height now, she got her height mostly by sixth grade, whereas I didn't start growing until after seventh and continued on until my Junior year of high school, or sometime around then. So with her already two years older, most of her clothes didn't really fit me. So I don't know where I got some of my clothes from.

But I do remember that I have always loved dresses. There was one sun dress I had in pre-school, so I was four, and it was blue with bright balloons on it. The balloons were red and yellow. It was smocked in the front and had straps about 1" thick. I remember this dress particularly because the one time I wore it to class, I got really self-conscious. I think that was the first time I really thought about dressing for modesty. Anyway, sadly I didn't really wear that dress much after that. And every time I looked at it in my closet, it made me sad. And my little sister didn't wear it much.

I also remember this dress my cousin gave me. It was black with a paisley design and a white lace collar. I wore that thing until it was a little too small for me. I thought it was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen when she gave it to me, and I couldn't believe I was so lucky. That was the best hand-me-down ever. I even wore it for a family picture, so it is immortalized on my parents' wall.

Hmmm, dresses. I should wear them more often . . .

My Mother's Dresses

So, I've been spending time at work (see post below) reading Erin's Dress a Day blog (her May 14th post to be exact). And thinking about my own memories of dresses and my mother.



Let's preface this vignette by saying that I love dresses, I always have. Maybe I'll blog about my memories of my first dresses, but not today. I love wearing dresses now. Okay, skirts mostly, but I haven't sewn in awhile. Maybe some day I'll have a sewing room, or something in the realm of furniture so that I won't have to sew on the floor. Right now, my sewing quarters are located in the basement of my old and scary house. I could think of at least three other places in the house I'd rather sew including my disgusting kitchen floor and my claustrophobically small office/library/junk storage room. But the basement is where I will be.



Anyway, on to the vignette. I remember a dress in my mother's closet when I was little that used to intrigue me. It was peach and long and flow-y with lace on the neck. I think the color would have looked wonderful on my mother, and I always wondered why she never wore it. I found out much much later (hey, sometimes I'm slow, remember how it took me 12 years to get the tarapaper joke?) that it was a bridesmaid dress from her little sister's wedding. She wore it shortly after having me. In fact, there is a picture in my scrapbook of me as a baby held by my mother with my older sister sitting next to me with a corsage on her wrist. On second thought, maybe my sister was holding me, and my mother wasn't even in said picture, but then again, there's got to be a picture like that somewhere. The facts in the case remain, however, that it was the bridesmaid's dress, and I was a baby. I put two and two together (about the fact that it was a bridesmaid's dress and the wedding and all) because of that picture (whatever one it is) and the wedding pictures of my aunts wedding that my grandma has hung on the wall of her basement. I saw my mom in the pretty dress and discovered where she got it. The question of why she never wore it still haunted me. I didn't realize at the time that my mom had very few occasions to wear fancy dresses, what with raising us and all. And also, my mom isn't really into the whole dressing up thing like I am, and would have been terribly uncomfortable in the dress out somewhere.



As far as other dresses go, I remember sitting on a pew with my mother at church on Sundays and paying very close attention to her dresses. I liked the patterns that were harder to figure out. I would trace the paisley and try to find the order in the design. I also knew which dresses were her favorites because she wore them a lot. I also remember sitting on her lap and touching the underside of her chin. It was my favorite place to touch because it was so soft, like silk soft. I'm sure my mother thought I was pointing out a double chin she was worried about, but I just liked the texture.



Ohh, childhood.

Guilt v. Boredom

Not to ruin the big stand-off for you, but boredom won. Obviously. Why obviously? because I'm posting. So the boredom at work won. But is guilt just giving up and playing dead?



Well . . . have you ever known guilt to just give up? Has guilt ever stopped fighting a losing battle? Eventually, yes guilt does stop fighting. But it hasn't given up on me yet. "It's just a flesh wound", it keeps yelling, flopping around on the ground on it's stumps.

Actually, I give in a lot of the time because of guilt. It's a very strong motivator for me. However, the absolute lack of things to do this week (I finished every conceivable project I have been saving up for boring days two days ago), I find myself reading a lot of blogs, writing blogs (obviously) and organizing things that don't need to be organized. Hey, I never said I stopped being OCD just because I was bored.

So, looks like you can look forward to posts, yes actually honest-to-goodness posts on my blog for the next few days (hopefully not weeks, please, please, not weeks I'm pulling out eyebrow hairs for crying out loud!). I guess there's good news for someone in all this . . .

Goodbye Sun, I guess I never saw you that much anyway

All opposed to the switch from Daylight Savings Time, please say "aye".

I can't tell you how messed up my body feels now. I wake up and feel like I've overslept and like I should be somewhere already because it's so light outside. And in my personal opinion, there are few things worse in this world than when you wake up late. That initial panic, that feeling of stupidity, the horrible knot in your stomach that says there is absolutely nothing you can do about it now, and the overwhelming desire for a time machine to get back those 2-60 minutes that would make all the difference. There is nothing to compare. So fighting off that feeling every morning is a little much.

Then, there's the sunset. I am all about sunsets, I just like them to happen after I get home from work. I feel like it's so late when I leave and it's completely dark outside. Like somehow I've been punished and had to work late for whatever reason. But no, it's really the right time to leave. I just get to feel punished by the sun. And then I get home and feel like I can't do anything because it's too late. I don't want to start a project and not be able to get through it before I have to go to bed. It cuts down on my productivity considerably.

So goodbye Sun. I'll miss you. I wish I saw you more, but I guess it wouldn't matter because you're too weak for me to enjoy any warmth from you anyway. I never really saw you as it was. But that doesn't mean we didn't have a good relationship. I'll call you sometime . . .