Blogger Cup of Jo (do you read her?) has an ongoing series called “A Week of Outfits” in which she showcases different women and what they wore for a week.

I find these posts equal parts eyerollingly exasperating because:

1) I seriously doubt the women wore all these outfits in one week
2) The clothes are often (though not always) outrageously expensive
3) Is anyone seriously this put-together?

and charmingly addictive because:

1) Wallowing in envy, on occasion, is rather pleasurable.
2) The women’s creativity and confidence are kind of inspiring, in a back-handed, can’t-touch-this sort of way.
3) Wouldn’t it be awesome to be so stylish that I’d get showcased on someone’s blog, can you even imagine?

Hang on a sec.

I have a blog, yes?
I am a woman, yes?
I wear clothes, yes?

 Oh my word, I QUALIFY.

So here you go, my own merry little version of… 

A Week of Outfits: Jennifer Murch (squee!)

(clears throat)

Jennifer, a stay-at-home mother of four, usually never goes anywhere so wearing presentable clothes is kind of hit or miss. However, this summer she’s volunteering with an organization that has An Actual Dress Code which means looking presentable is one of her job requirements. Of course, “presentable” has different connotations for different people — there’s a good chance that many people wouldn’t be caught dead in the chothes she wears. (But then again, she might not be caught dead in the clothes other people are wearing either, so moving on.) To learn about Jennifer’s trick for making the most of her piddly clothing budget, the one piece of clothing that makes her feel put together even when she’s not, a great way to get rid of old clothing (and find “new” ones), and the one item she’ll never wear, read on…

(Oooo, this is fun!!!!)

Tank top: Target, probably; Ratty sports bra: Walmart?; Running shorts: from a grab pile; Flip-flops: considered buying good ones from Zappos but in the end I couldn’t justify the cost and went with these from some store in town…Walmart maybe?

“Because our home here is half private residence and half hostel, I’ve taken to sleeping in actual clothes. It makes going running in the morning easier, too — just swap the black tank for a neon spandex, don’t-I-feel-like-an-athlete shirt, put on sneakers (and socks) and away I go. This is also my uniform — shorts and a tank; I have several of each — for cleaning the house. I often sweep and mop (what with all the dust, this is a near-daily activity) after breakfast so I can have the whole day to enjoy the clean floors, but then I get all hot and sweaty so I have to shower…again. (Here, I average about three showers a day: once after running/cleaning, once around suppertime to cool off, and once before bed. It makes for a lot of laundry!)”

Jeans: hand-me-downs from my mother; black tee: no idea; brown sandals: Supershoes; Camera bag: Xhilaration, stolen (with permission) from my brother; hobo handbag: LeDonne, a requested birthday gift from my husband

“I adore black. It’s the one color I can’t get enough of (well, that and grey, though I suspect grey brings out my burgioning crop of grey hair and should probably be avoided, but I never do). And if I wear all black — in wintertime, oh, sweet wintertime!, my favorite thing to wear is black sweater, black jeans, black belt, black boots — it makes messing up in the matching department nigh well impossible. My favorite black tee of all time came from Costco, the Kirkland brand. It was cotton, fitted, long at the waist, and thick enough that I didn’t need to wear it with an undershirt. Which reminds me, what is it with all the t-shirts being made from such filmy-thin material that you have to wear a second shirt underneath just to not feel naked? Anyway, that t-shirt is nearly in tatters now. I periodically check the Costco shirt tables but no luck so far.”

Shirt: Target; Capri jeans: purchased years ago from some store

“When I was soaking the dishcloths in the sink out back, I splashed the front of that shirt with a bit of bleach. But then I decided the spot of white, dead-center, just looked like I had a piece of lint and since that’s sort of forgiveable, I wear the shirt anyway. As for the capris, they’re too big at the waist, so I have to wear a belt. Which stinks. And I don’t really like capris, but oh well. They’re a step up from jean shorts (modesty-wise re The Dress Code), so there’s that.”

“Some people clutch pearls; I clutch a thermal coffee mug. The band of rubber has long since disappeared, and the slidey-top gets gunked up with bits of dried coffee, but the lid never falls off. Plus, it has a measured pour-in-mouth spout — enough for easy drinking, not so much I burn my upper lip. It’s the little things.”

Shirt: Costco; Pants: clothing swap; Arm candy: my womb

“A couple weeks before we left for Puerto Rico, a friend from church invited a bunch of women to her house for an Earth Day clothing swap. When I arrived, there were mountains of clothes all over the place — skirts in one pile, jeans in another, t-shirts, shoes, jewelry, hats, dresses, maternity, and so on. We tried on clothes any free place we could find (after a bit I stopped running off to the bathroom and just stripped whenever I found something that might fit). I got rid of a bunch of stuff and made off with a nice little new-to-me selection. The pants are way too big for me — the belt makes them bunch up around the waist all fuddy-duddy-like — but they’re airy and feel good against my skin in the heat.”

“Several years ago, fed up with bras that never quite fit, I finally made a trip to Victoria’s Secret to get measured. I was so impressed with how wonderfully the bras fit, that I bought three ($!$!$!, gulp). But it was so worth it. For the first time in my life I had a bra that didn’t move around whenever I did. Just putting one on made me feel put together, secure and comfortable in my own skin. Even if my other clothes didn’t fit perfectly (and they rarely do), at least the bra did. That evening, elated and pumped over my new-found booby confidence, I resolved that I would take my girls for a fitting when they turned eighteen. There is no reason for them to go as long as I did without a good bra.”

Dress: Gift and Thrift

“When our agency gave us smartphones for our work, I was a little worried that I might get hooked and suddenly develop a pressing need to have one of my very own when I returned home. Turns out — hallelujah — I can’t wait to be done with the silly thing. It’s such a time suck (example, the other night I actually spent time trying to make my own emojis), I’ve never quite figured out how to navigate it, and I absolutely hate always being available to everyone. I’m tethered to the computer enough as it is — no need to weigh myself down with one more thing. (My husband, however, is totally sold on it. Though I admit it does make sense for him to have one, what with his work and all. So I guess we didn’t escape completely unscathed….)”

“The agency we’re working for doesn’t allow sleeveless shirts (or shorts shorter than knee-length) so when I go out I have to wear another shirt over top this dress. Without the sweater, I look five-months pregnant. With the sweater, I look like a cardboard box with legs.

“I wore these sandals to a meeting at FEMA headquarters. At the door, the guard took one look at me and said, Flip-flops aren’t allowed. These aren’t flip-flops, I said. Those aren’t flip-flops, the women I was with echoed. The guard hedged, eying my feet warily, before finally waving me in, whew. I guess my agency isn’t the only one who takes their dresscode seriously? (The next time I went to the FEMA headquarters, I wore heels.)”

Pants: that clothing swap I mentioned; Shirt: haven’t a clue, sorry; Sandals (i.e., my “heels”): Gift and Thrift; Hair tie (on wrist): Target 

“Are bell-bottoms in again? I can never keep the fashion straight — skinny jeans, low-waisted jeans, high-waisted jeans (which I’ll never wear, mark my words), and just a couple weeks ago I saw a teenager with the tight-rolled jeans, eek! — and really, I don’t care all that much. The pants were free, durable, slimming, and, aside from being far too big in the waist, comfortable.

“It’s way too hot to wear jewelry here, but I often sport a spare black hair tie on my wrist. I usually start out the day with my hair down but then the wind whips it into my eyes and it clings to my face sweat (which is unbelievably annoying, almost panic inducing) and up the hair goes.”

“Even though most everything I wear is either purchased at a run-of-the-mill store or thrifted or gifted, I do, on occasion (too frequently on occasion, my husband would say) shell out the big bucks: one hundred dollars for a pair of boots, a 60-dollar pair of leggings (gasp), Eddie Bauer jeans (they fit the best and last forever). However, with a budget of 125 dollars per month for a family of six, big-ticket items of that sort are few and far between (not far enough between, my husband would say).

“My trick? Ignore my children’s rags and tatters until it’s no longer morally feasible (it helps that homeschooling and country-living somewhat remove us from social expectations), and then, under the guise of turning them into responsible adults, declare them in charge of acquiring their own clothing once they turn sixteen.

“Responsibility is good, I tell them, and this is true! (But it’s also true that if they buy their own clothes then I’ll have more money to spend on me.)”

Shout-out to my kids for (begrudgingly) taking the photos!

This same time, years previous: my beef obsession, glazed lemon zucchini cake, a new friend, corn crepecakes, the quotidian (8.6.12), why I am recuperating, all things ‘reenie.

Lately I’ve been having persistent, crushing feelings of being trapped. Sometimes these feelings are so intense that I’m nearly frantic with panic, like when I was in the final stages of labor, desperate to escape my body, to claw my way out of my skin, but couldn’t.

This trapped feeling stems from a number of factors, I think, but the biggest one is — drumroll, please — the heat. It turns my thoughts dark, it does. I think about India and the melting roads. I think about the ever-expanding desert and the shrinking rain forests and the oceans full of trash. My mother tells me about how air conditioning is just compounding the climate change problems — it’s a vicious cycle, she says: It gets hotter, we use more AC, it gets even hotter. Facebook doesn’t help. Everytime I scroll through, I see photos of wildfires and read reports of world-wide record-breaking temps and watch videos of children crying because it’s too hot. We’re being cooked alive, all of us. The suffering is just beginning.

Here, the heat dominates our lives, interrupts our sleep, sucks our energy, kills our appetites.

Exhibit One: My older son sleeps in the air conditioned trailer with the volunteers when he can. My husband’s spent the last two nights sleeping on the couch. I wake every couple hours all night long,

Exhibit Two: None of us are hungry anymore. My husband’s breakfasts have gotten progressively, worrisomely, smaller — he’s down to a small scoop of granola with some cheerios on top, and some mornings he can’t even finish that. I eat because the clock says I should, or for entertainment’s sake (it still tastes good), but rarely because I’m actually hungry.

And then, because I wasn’t hungry in the first place, I feel bloated, which, in turn, makes me feel even more uncomfortable. (Weirdly enough, no one’s losing weight, humph.)

Exhibit Three: Driving around town in an air conditioned van, I get bold. When I get back to the house I’ll teach myself to make Puerto Rican rice with sofrito and bacon, I think. Or, I’ll experiment with café colao, or, How about I bake a coffee cake to take over to the volunteer trailer! Or, Oo-ooh, I know! Pepperoni rolls!!! But then I pull into the garage, step out of the van, and the heat hits. The air is like blood — thick, sticky, hot — and suddenly all my great ideas are gone, nowhere to be found.

And then, as though all this wasn’t enough, I (stupidly) get sunburned.

Now the world really is on fire. My skin is actually burned. THE WORLD IS ENDING.

Actually, two nights in a row I dream about the end of the world. I wake up disturbed, hot, and in pain. I can’t kick the distinct feeling that the nightmare is real. We are doomed.

Now, to be clear, it’s not THAT hot. The pavement is still stuck to the roads. The fields only occasionally burst into flames. There are no children crying about the heat around here, only adults (clears throat).

To keep perspective, I remind myself that I’m not wrapped in a corset and bonnet, and I’m not selling bottled water on a street corner. Heck, I’m not even working on a roof like my husband and older kids. Truly, truly, in the big scheme of things, this is nothing.

Still, I am going slightly crazy, so it’s not completely nothing.

Heatwaves happen in Virginia, of course, and they give me weather-induced panic attacks there, too (because this is how I roll, apparently), but back home, the temperature fluctuations are bigger. Here, there is no real break. It’s just day after day after day of heat without end amen.

There are two other things that contribute to my feeling of being trapped. First, I’m just now figuring out, at the ripe, old age of 40-something, that city living is not my cup of tea.

Drowning in concrete, highways, and metal bars, removed from shade trees and open fields and grass under my bare feet and the garden (that I love to hate), I find myself slipping into the role of passive consumer. Since we’re not set up here for the at-home growing, producing, and making (that is, of course, boring and dull and tiresome in its own right, but boy, do I ever miss it something fierce right now), in order to have fun, we either need to go out (and spend money) or do something with people. Any solitary, at-home projects have to take place in the (hot) indoors which, in turn, only intensifies the feeling of being trapped. (Which is kind of a lose-lose situation for those of us who are active introverts, cue tiny violin.)

Second, for these four months, we are all — all six of us — focused on the same project, and even though it’s super special to get work together like this, after awhile the monofocus does grow a bit wearisome. The lack of diversity in our daily activities — because we have, for the most part, shelved our personal interests, projects, and goals — depletes our collective energy.

The kids are rolling with it.

The older two, especially, are quite ready to once again drive cars and muck out stalls and earn money and see friends and take classes, yet they continue to wake at six (cheerfully!) and put in day after day after day of hard labor in the blazing sun. Champs, they are.

I hesitated to write about this part of our work — the emotional and physical toll it’s taking on us — lest I come across as whiny (I am) or pathetic (perhaps, sigh). Maybe it’d be best for me to just suck it up and say nothing at all?

Thing is, talking about the hard stuff often strips it of its power. And wouldn’t you know, just writing this out, I feel better — a little lighter, a little freer, a little stronger, whoo-hoo!

Or maybe I just feel that way because today is overcast and a balmy 92 degrees?

Who knows. Either way, it’s an improvement. I’ll take it.

P.S. While writing this, my younger son came out of his room to proudly report that he’d figured out a way to have two fans blowing on his top bunk: there’s the one that he’s dangled by a rope in front of the window, and now he’s placed another one — a standing fan — on top of the bedside table.

The struggle is real, people. REAL.

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (8.1.16), kiss the moon, kiss the sun, babies and boobs, a birthday present, dam good blackberry pie.