(Some Literal) Navel Gazing

I've got to admit it: I've been struggling for some time now with blogging. Not really with the why of it, but the how.

Sometime in the past two months -- I'm not sure when exactly it happened -- I stopped reading other blogs regularly so I no longer feel much inspiration to share. Sometimes, it's like I don't even know how to put together a post. But this is probably what happened: I quit sewing temporarily at the start of summer because I needed to make sure the house was always ready for guests during our swim lessons here. Then my regular reading of sewing blogs petered out since I wasn't quite as interested anymore. But because I'm a voracious reader, that reading vacuum was filled by news and political editorials as well as a return to my large TBR piles of genre novels. (And thanks to that, I haven't slept well since June.) I'm not really interested in doing book reviews here, however, nor do I see this as a space to rant and rave on politics.

The end result is that I don't have anything to post about on a regular basis. Sure, you've gotten vacation photos and you know about my Fluevog visits/binges. But nothing regular like when I'd have a sewing project done every couple of weeks. I don't even take outfit photos that much anymore because I don't dress up that much. It's just too hot! (Also, no weddings or new babies this year.) And when I do take photos, it's like I've forgotten how to pose -- not that I ever really knew how, but I used to feel more comfortable in front of the camera.

Now that my kid has started kindergarten, I'd like to get back into sewing a bit. There's so much else to do, though, like going back to my dissertation, volunteering at my kid's classroom, and continuing with yoga. Did I tell you I've been doing yoga for the past month? Just once a week, but so far so good. I do it with friends, which is nice. I stopped singing lessons at the beginning of this month because of the stress of dealing with the fallout of my husband's car accident and of preparing for the beginning of the school year. For me, yoga is way better than singing lessons for de-stressing.

I'm hoping the coming fall season will bring back some inspiration. As a weekly classroom volunteer, I might start wearing some of my dresses to school. My son goes to a uniform-policy school, so all of the teachers wear pretty nice outfits everyday. It would be a good opportunity to dress up. :-)

As for sewing, I have a project that I'd like to start and finish this week. If I manage to complete it, I'll take some pics and blog about it.

Finally, here are a couple of outfits I wore recently.

Romper: Prim I Am via ModCloth | Shoes: TOMS via Zulily

The romper was worn to a ladies' night out; we watched the 1980s film Dirty Dancing -- a little cheesy but truly one of the most romantic movies EVER -- for the local movie theater's Classics Series. I still have that famous last song and dance on the brain, "(I've Had the) Time of My Life." The film depicts the early Sixties with the characters wearing some gorgeous resort wear with a Fifties feel. The high-waisted bottom of my romper was appropriate, but not the loose top, and overall the outfit looks Seventies instead. Oh well. At least I finally wore the romper in public; it's been over a year since I bought it. It's actually quite comfortable, good for lounging around at home, but I'm laughing a little in the photo because I know it looks dorky (and I felt dorky wearing it, plus I didn't like the shoes. Not that comfy. I'm not a TOMS fan, I must say).

Top: Freebird via ModCloth | Skirt: Old Navy | Shoes: Fluevog Amie via Amazon

This brown, beige, and cream outfit is something you may remember from my trip to Hawai'i last October. I wore it again for a kid birthday party in the park, this time with Fluevog flats. It was appropriately loose and comfortable for a warm, humid day in Long Beach. No doubt I was remembering the heat and humidity of Hawai'i when I was putting the outfit together. 100% cotton is always a good choice for that kind of weather.

xo, Gladys