Missy Diggs

At various times in my life I have wished for the simplicity of a uniform. Coordinating outfits and deciding what to wear every day, sometimes more than once, are just so exhausting, and the results are not usually worth the effort.
However, aside from marching band, candystriping, and various waitressing jobs, I have never been too interested in participating in activities in which a uniform is required. If wearing a marching band uniform every Friday night in Texas doesn’t cure you of the willingness to let others (unknown others, but probably church ladies in the 1960s, judging from the choice of style and fabric) choose your uniform for you, I don’t know what would. Serving drinks at the Playboy mansion? Serving time in Arizona? Serving your country and your church at the same time in Mormon military underwear?

But I have often wanted to have a closet full of comfortable, beautiful, serviceable clothes, appropriate to my lifestyle, so that I could just reach in and pull out any outfit and look and feel right for any occasion. Maybe part of the problem is that my lifestyle is not uniform. The last few years have seen me chasing toddlers over pea graveled playgrounds in windy parks, sloshing through creek water up to my waist, waiting for hours in posh medical lobbies, dancing my ass off at 80s night, and so much more.
Then there’s my body. I’ve been the same height since approximately 1985 but everything else has changed dramatically, and many parts continue to change in surprisingly unpredictable ways. Add to that my unique set of “figure challenges” –long waist, short thick legs, wide rib cage– and dressing myself at all starts to seem like a logic problem from the old GRE.

Then there are my interesting and unique undergarment requirements, which I still don’t quite know how to describe, except to say that it seems to me that if you have to wear medically-necessary undergarments, someone somewhere should make some that you would actually want to wear. And that you could wear clothes over. Without looking like a nun who has escaped from a sanitarium in Germany, circa 1834. But if anyone does make those, I haven’t found them yet.
And so I am constantly experimenting with underwear solutions, which continues to complicate the clothing issue, because as any woman knows, not all underwear works under all clothes.
It’s exhausting. And honestly, even though I love clothes and fashion as a vibrant form of self-expression, I simply don’t want to be bothered with it anymore. I want to grab and go! I want to spend more time living my life than dressing for it! I want my clothes to float down over my body as if I were in a Caress soap ad from 1987!

And if I’m going to be honest, I have to admit that all of this is made even more complex by my unwillingness to pay retail. I mean, if you buy all your clothes at Savers, you’re bound to find something, but it’s probably not going to be a uniform. Unless you want to wear scrubs everyday, which actually is what I predict we will all be wearing in the not so distant future. That, or the unisex Chinese pajama sets of the Cultural Revolution.

So, since I obviously haven’t figured out a clothing uniform that will work for my body, my budget, my medical conditions, and my life, I thought I would start at the bottom. What I need, I think, is a Shoeniform®. You know, two or three pairs of shoes that take me where I need to go in maximum comfort and style, that I can just replace every year or so as needed. I’m spurred on by the fact that when I went to the chiropractor to get repaired after my car crash I learned that my right leg is significantly shorter than my left leg, and now I have to wear a heel lift on the right side to balance myself out. How I survived almost forty years of life, one knee surgery, three years of ballroom dance lessons, and two rounds of physical therapy for knee problems without learning of this discrepancy I’ll never know. But having shoes made with the appropriate heel lift is easier and more comfortable (though more expensive, and did I mention that I never pay retail?) than having to move that plastic insert every time you change shoes. And really, what do I need all these different shoes for anyway?

Living in Austin, the local Shoeniform® is probably this: flip-flops, cowboy boots, workout shoes. Though you do see a lot of this:

And also this:

The closest I have ever come to having a Shoeniform® was when I was pregnant, and I only had one pair of shoes that fit. They were made by Think! and they were kinda like this:

only prettier, cause they were patent leather and had rhinestones, and also more practical cause they had a more sensible sole. They were also the most expensive shoes I’ve ever owned, and I wore them until they fell apart, which took quite a long time, and actually theoretically they would have lasted longer because the company claims that you can get them resoled or whatever but in fact they stopped making the particular style that I loved and so I couldn’t find anyone who could actually resole them.

The only problem I can see with using these shoes as my Shoeniform® again is the price. Oh, and the pea gravel. And the fact that I will still probably be lusting after:

and these:

and these:

Not that they make these for my size (11WW, can you believe it?) or my budget (approximately $25).

I just started playing around with the cute and awesome online word cloud generator at www.wordle.net. It is super fun and neato mosquito.

I had it make a word cloud of this blog and it was groovy. I think there’s some way for me to link to it but I can’t figure it out so if I get a chance I’ll ask Mr. B to help me. Otherwise, just go check it out for yourself. It could be interesting to put your writing in just to see what words you use the most. For example, I use “think” more than “know,” “hope” more than “dream,” and “water” more than “vinegar.”

As we get to this most craftiest time of the year, I am busy making lists of crafts I want to do. Of course, I have to add all these new craft ideas to my list from last year… which was added to the list from the year before that…  It’s turtles all the way down.

My biggest priority this year is to get an advent calendar made for the Vivid Girl before December 1. Here are some of the advent calendars I find inspiring:

magnetic advent calendar from love, joleen

Tiny Christmas Tree Advent Calendar from Scribbit

the classic felt tree Advent Calendar, this one from Kaboose.com

this gorgeous advent calendar from Craftster

the adorable Stocking Advent Calendar from Soule Mama

And there are more. Many, many more. In one dream (the one in which I have a differently-themed Christmas tree in every room of the house, natch) I have advent calendars all over the place. Maybe I can make one a year and soon they will definitely add up.

Last week I went through all our books and picked out the best holiday choices. I put them in a basket and stashed them away. I want to make sure I have 24 good holiday books so I can wrap them, put them in the basket, and use them for an advent calendar like this one:

Charlotte Mason Advent Book Box

Of course, I haven’t even gotten started on the Advent Calendar and I am already looking around at other adorable crafts. The Vivid Girl and I got all stocked up on the stuff to make these cinnamon dough glitter birds from Martha Stewart, but the dough recipe didn’t turn out on our first try (too sticky to work with, then the glue started to dry) and we haven’t had time to try again. Looks like there are some good troubleshooting ideas in the comments.

The next thing I want to work on is a wreath for the front door. After lugging around a box of wreath making supplies for years, but never getting the darn thing made, I realize I need to choose a different kind of wreath to make. Something easy and fast. My favorite is the gumdrop wreath from Kiddley via Martha Stewart, but Mr. B (perhaps wisely) is not too excited about all that candy hanging at the Vivid Girl’s eye level. Still, so pretty!

So now I am all about the button wreath. There are so many different possibilities! And it will allow me to dig into my button stash: about 20 years ago I bought two antique jars full of vintage beads from a junk store in Attica, Indiana, and I have been slowly working my way through them ever since. The Vivid Girl, of course, has gotten her hands on them and she is working through them much more quickly! Which means that to make the wreath I see in my mind, I will probably need more buttons. And this is where I may need help, because I have started bidding on buttons on eBay. Oh yes! Wonderful buttons, in beautiful materials and Christmas colors! I hope I will find the time to work on the projects I have in mind for these buttons, because right now I am very excited about them. But it does often seem that I am very excited when I buy the materials, and then… something happens.

Here are some links for buttony inspiration:

Button Wreath from CraftStylish

Button Flower Wreath from In the Treetop

A Button Wreath Tutorial on flickr

the button wreath ornament

Shampoo is probably not the first thing you think of when you hear the word “revolution,” but there is a small —but growing!— movement of people who are giving up shampoo and other hair products for good.

This trend is called “going no ‘poo,” and if you do an Internet search on that phrase you will probably be surprised by how many hits you get, and how many of them are from the last six months or so. I’m telling you, this wave is rising!

I first heard of the concept after my daughter was born, when I was spending a lot of time lurking on the Mothering.com forums. Lots of natural living mamas over there, for sure. I was tempted to try it out myself but in the fog of caring for an infant I think I just forgot about it.

Then, last year, I heard there was a lot of talk about it on the message board for one of the crunchier local parenting groups. Since then, whenever I run into someone I know from that group, I always wonder whether they are using shampoo or not. Usually the kids are pulling us in all directions and I don’t get a chance to ask. But I have my theories.

Right now, after 8 months of chemotherapy, with my new hair about half an inch long and growing, seems like the perfect time to give it a try. Not only because this is the closest I will ever come to starting over with all-new hair (I hope!) but also because now that I have cancer I am even more uncomfortable with some of the ingredients in the “self-care” products we use every day. I know there are usually more natural versions of the products available, for a price, but many of those contain suspicious ingredients too (for example, a “food-grade paraben” listed in a “natural” product is still a paraben; I don’t care if the FDA says it’s okay to eat it). And paying a higher price for a product I actually don’t need doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me anyway.

And the people who promote going no ‘poo claim that their hair looks better now than it did when they used products to clean and condition it. Supposedly, the shampoo strips your hair and scalp of natural oils and even bacteria that would otherwise be helping your hair look shiny and full. When those oils are stripped away, your skin produces extra oil to compensate. Then your hair looks greasy and feels dirty and you need to wash it with shampoo again. Conditioner weighs your hair down and keeps it from looking as full and shiny as it would if you had left it alone in the first place.

So they say.

Also, many of the things I’ve read say that there is a transitional period during which your hair will not look awesome, as your body adjusts to the job of taking care of itself naturally. Well, sure, with any new job, there’s a learning curve, I guess. During this period, and possibly beyond, some people like to “wash” their hair with a mixture of baking soda and water, rinse, and then “condition” their hair with apple cider vinegar. Otherwise, people just wash by running warm water through their hair, letting it dry, and brushing it to distribute the natural oils from the roots throughout their hair.

And so I think I will try it. If I’m going to go through a period where my hair does not look awesome, it might as well be now, when my hair’s too short for anyone to be able to tell. When I think of the money I could save by forgoing hair products for the rest of my life, I get pretty excited about what else I could be spending that money on…. like new lipsticks! Or, well, I’ll guess I’ll figure that one out later.

In an effort to stop “overdoing it” so I can hopefully get my surgical drains pulled soon, I have been spending a lot of time lying in bed, reading.

Luckily, I stocked up on novels from the $1 clearance shelf at Half Price Books.

What is so amazing to me whenever I go on reading marathons like this is how each book seems to link into the next. For example, the first book I was reading had a word (I don’t remember it now) that I’d never seen before. That same word appeared again in the second book, which was a totally different style of book, by a different author, set in a different time, everything different. Except that word.

Then I read a book where the main character noticed the chirping of the little pond frogs in the spring, called “peepers.” In the next book, by a different author, set in a different part of the country, guess what? Peepers again.

It goes on and on, this complicated coincidental web of connections. Of course I am the thing in common, the connections are all in my brain, but it’s strange and kind of eerie nonetheless.

For years I have wanted to keep track of the books I read, partly so I can go back and refer to books I particularly liked, partly because I forget everything almost as soon as I read it, and partly just for the sake of keeping track. Last fall someone invited me to join GoodReads, and I was totally hooked. I spent at least an hour every night logging books I’ve read, seeing what my friends had read, checking up on the most popular books, and adding books to my “To Read” list. For finding what to read next, GoodReads beats What Should I Read Next? hands down, even though I love that site too.

Then I got cancer. (Or the cancer I already had made itself known, or whatever.) And suddenly I didn’t want to record the books I was reading anymore. I didn’t want to be like (imagine whiny “Poindexter” type voice) Well, this cancer book is better than that cancer book, blah blah blah. Even though, you know, some cancer books ARE better than others. And while I certainly haven’t read them all (do you know how many cancer books are out there? A LOT!) I have read a slew of them.

But right now I am not reading too much about cancer, unless it happens to get one of the characters in one of books (and it does, of course, sometimes). And I would sort of like to start keeping track of my reading again. I’ve forgotten my GoodReads password, so it will take me some time to figure out how to get back into that.

And there’s just no way I have the energy to do my other favorite book-related activity, BookCrossing, which is awesome but just too many steps for me right now. You sign in, print a label, log your book, and leave it in a public place with a note saying “FREE BOOK!” Then, hopefully, the person who finds the book and takes it home will report it to the web site and–when they’re finished with it–leave it for someone else to find. They call it a “catch and release” program. I found a book at Central Market cafe once and was pretty excited to log it in and see where it ended up. (Lucky for me, it was a book I had been wanting to read!) I also had fun leaving books in odd places (among the cereal boxes at the grocery store, for example) and then checking to see if anybody had found them.

For now, I will probably just take all my finished novels to the hospital and leave them there for other patients. Hopefully they will find their way into the hands of someone else who is not too interested in the mysteries and romance novels that are usually available in the waiting rooms. And hopefully people who read the kind of books I like will keep leaving them in the waiting rooms for me, too.

*Extra credit if you knew that the title of this post was the first line of an Emily Dickinson poem.

**Extra extra credit if you also knew the second line of the poem: “to take you worlds away.”

*** You win the grand prize if you also knew that every Emily Dickinson poem (except maybe one or two) can be sung to the tune of the “Yellow Rose of Texas”. And if you didn’t know that, and knowing it has ruined Emily Dickinson for you forever, then I guess I win the grand prize. Although, actually, I have started to like her more as I get older. As far as the “Yellow Rose of Texas” goes, if you ever want to hear what the bass clarinet part sounds like, let me know. I’ll sing it for ya.

Let’s say that in one week you are scheduled to have major surgery, surgery that will alter your physical appearance and leave you scarred for the rest of your life.

And let’s say that when you asked your surgeon if she had any pictures she could show you, of other people who had had the surgery, she totally shocked you by saying, “No, not really. I don’t have anything like that.”

And let’s say that all the books you have been able to find on the subject are either focused on how plastic surgery can make everything look almost normal again, or on how artistic lighting, photography, and PhotoShop can shift the focus of a photograph to make everything look all dreamy and almost normal.

Then let’s say you decide to go to flickr and search on the name of the surgery, and you find all kinds of totally straightforward and undoctored photographs showing all kinds of people before and after the surgery you are about to have. I am unbelievably grateful to the women (mostly) and men who have bravely posted pictures of their scars, their drains, their bandages, their stitches, their tattoos, and their specially designed garments to this public photo sharing site so that people like me can see what we are really in for.

And I would like to take a moment to draw attention to Rebel1in8, or Rhea Belle clothing, for her beautiful designs that allow women to dress in a way that flatters their new figures, without pushing the oh-so-common expectation that “post-mastectomy” garments are those that have pockets in the chest for you to put a prosthetic breast into (not that there’s anything wrong with that; it’s just not for everybody). I find her work incredibly inspiring and hope to embrace her world view as I learn to dress my new body too.

And the ability to find important information that is somehow missing from more traditional venues, that is one of the many many reasons that I heart the internet as much as I do.

…. or maybe even if you do not.

Here is a blog I like to catch up on when I am feeling blue:

The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks

It always makes me laugh, but of course I was an editor in a previous life.

And here is a short film you can “Watch It Now” on Netflix, about fact checkers and featuring Bill Murray:

FCU: Fact Checkers Unit

Mr. B laughed, and he is not an editor. So you may want to check it out.

I had reason to be looking at the social security administration web site and was reminded that every year on Mother’s Day they release the list of the most popular baby names of the previous year. I love this list! (Okay, I get that there are some people who don’t think this is what government should be spending their time and money on, but I figure that it can’t cost that much to do —relative to, say, defense spending— and the amount of joy it brings is probably saving us money somewhere else. Really. I believe that.)

The list of top ten girls’ names continues the old-fashioned trend we’ve been seeing for a few years, and really sounds a lot like the list of friends Alice comes up with after she’s tumbled down the rabbit-hole:

And she began thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age as herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of them.

Well, Alice is a bit distracted, and I guess she only really comes up with “Ada” and “Mabel” which are not actually on the top ten but which I am sure are not too far below, as we have met two or three girls with each name in the last few years. Anyway, they have that same ring to them. I enjoy seeing girls the same age as the Vivid Girl and imagining that Alice knew girls with all the same names. We even know an Alice or two.

Here is a new name that I have not yet encountered:

One of the most popular names for girls (rising this year to number 31) is Nevaeh, which is “Heaven” spelled backwards.  The variant Neveah came in this year at number 891 and Heaven is number 263.

But I am very curious about what other “spelled backwards” names there might be on the list.

I also love how you can find the lists of top names for your state, or track the history of a particular name, or find popular names for twins at this site.

But I still think the Baby Name Voyager is the best baby name site EVAH. It goes with the Baby Name Wizard book, but the web site has such cool interactive features that it makes books seem very boring. (However, I have friends who used the book and picked a super-cool baby name, so I’m not saying anything against the book. As far as I know, the book totally rocks as well.)

I found both of these sites very useful when I was pregnant, and generating lists of baby names was a top priority. I still find them useful as ways to “waste time online”… or when I am engaging in one of my favorite activities, Trying to Name Other People’s Babies. Most of my friends who have been expecting babies in the last few years have received (unsolicited) lists of possible names from me. I don’t think anyone has actually taken my suggestions yet, though. Hmmmm… I guess I’ll just have to keep trying!

Meanwhile, at our house, the babies who have been getting named lately are dolls, and the names are given by our very own baby. The newest member of our household is a stuffed squirrel named Thundercloud Hazelnut Snowy. Most of the baby dolls have had, and kept, their names for years. My favorites are Baby Darling, Baby Macaroni, and of course, Bruce.