I have come to really love Saturdays. For one thing, Friday seems to be the only night of the week that I pretty consistently sleep like a log, so even if I wake up at my usual time on Saturday morning, I typically feel well-rested. (And then there are also nights like 2 Fridays ago when I sleep for 11 hours!) It’s just nice not having time commitments or things pulling A. and me in different directions. We haven’t gotten to the point of being super busy in Atlanta yet, though our weeknights are starting to fill up, so we often end up doing random little things together on our Saturdays. It’s usually nothing too out of the ordinary, but it’s together, and it’s done without worry of what else should be getting done. I love it.

This past Saturday I slept until about 8 and woke up feeling awesome. I read some blogs for awhile and did a couple of other random things around the apartment. After A. was up and going, we walked to CVS to buy our last few items for the Operation Christmas Child boxes (update to come!) and then walked a little farther to this hip burger place called Yeah! Burger. All the meat is free range, organic, etc. Lemme tell ya, that was a GOOD burger. On the way home we stopped at Publix to get a few things to prepare for watching a football game with friends later on, and we took a different route home so we could see a part of the neighborhood we hadn’t seen before. The weather was beautiful, and it was so nice to be out together.

When we got home I did some super exciting laundry (which I’m finding to be less and less of a big deal the longer we live here…I’ve got my system down, I think!) and remade the bed. We watched Jeopardy together, and A. mopped the kitchen. In the evening we went over to some friends’ apartment to watch Mississippi State whoop up on Kentucky, and we ate some delicious “tailgate” food even though we weren’t tailgating.

You see? It was nothing large-scale special, but somehow it’s those slow-paced, normal days that I crave during the week when I’m feeling grouchy about work or not on top of things I want to take care of at home. Come Sunday, I always seem to get angsty about the week to come (which is fruitless, I know), but on Saturday, life is fine and the livin’ is easy.

What’s your favorite day of the week? Mine has always varied depending on life circumstances (classes, extracurriculars, etc.), but for now it’s holding steady where it is.

Or, The Case of the Mysterious Shrinking-Expanding Sweater

Last Friday, I stopped to browse around Marshall's and Ross on my way home from work (which is a more frequent occurrence than I might like to admit, since they are so conveniently located). I have had it in the back of my mind for a while that I wanted a black, drapey, open cardigan, and I found the perfect one at Ross, for the perfect price, too! It was thin and almost sheer, with just enough but not too much fabric in the drape, and very soft, to boot. Plus it was the only one I saw on the rack! Needless to say I snatched it up and brought that puppy home (and then proceeded to wear it around the apartment with the tags still on for the next couple of hours, reveling in my shopping success. Don't judge.).

On Saturday, I did like three loads of laundry and also convinced myself to wash the growing pile of things that needed to be washed by hand, including the new sweater. (I always wash new things before I wear them for real.) It said "hand wash cold separately; lay flat to dry," so that's what I proceeded to do. Washing things by hand never ceases to gross me out, because you get to see the sinkful of murky water that has been produced by YOUR beloved clothing, and this sweater was no exception. I carefully spread it out on a towel on the bedroom floor, doing my best to make sure the drapey part wasn't awkwardly wrinkled in any way, and I left it at that.

As I walked by later I thought the sweater looked awfully small, but I figured it was just an optical illusion.

Still later, I walked by and held the small-appearing sweater up to my torso and thought it seemed short, but again convinced myself my eyes were playing tricks on me.

The next morning I contemplated wearing it to church even though the thicker parts were still a bit damp. I put it on and found that the sleeves....were now 3/4 sleeves when they had been full-length!! What?!? I followed the care instructions to a T! What was going on? I grumpily showed it to A. and hung it up on a hanger to dry the rest of the way, thinking gravity might help me out.

Lo and behold, come Monday morning I put the sweater on and it was back to normal. I even wore it to work that day. All I can figure is that something about the fabric made it draw up when it was wet and release back out to normal as it dried.

The sweater is made out of cotton "slub" fabric and looks something like this:

Source

According to a random website I found via a quick Google search (what? being honest here), "One of the early problems with automated carding and spinning processes was the appearance of an incidental section of the yarn that was fuller than the yarn was intended to be." This bit was known as a slub, and its allowable levels in finished products were carefully regulated. It continues, "Over time, however, the concept of yarns containing a high count of slubs as a textural and style alternative began to develop." The so-called slubs are woven right into the fabric, creating a texture/pattern like seen above. And that's what my sweater is made out of! My thought is that maybe the variance in quality of spinning created the shrinking-expanding effect. I'm sure there's a rational explanation. But it was still awfully bizarre to have a sweater fit perfectly upon purchase, shrink to doll size when it was washed, and turn back into a human-sized item of clothing once it dried.

Have you had any experience with weird fabrics? What's your worst apparel washing nightmare scenario?

You know that saying, “Friends are the family you choose for yourself?”

I’ve always thought it was kind of cheesy, but lately it’s been running through my mind. Moving to a new place where I didn’t know anyone (well, save a few souls) has necessarily had me thinking about friendship a lot in the past few months. And in the last week or so it’s struck me even more how valuable good friends are.

Our church is big on community, and one of the ways it fosters that is by having spiritual formation groups that are gender-divided and neighborhood specific. It’s basically a small group, like you might find at a lot of churches, but with very intentional purposes: to foster deep relationships, prayerful conversations, and real discipleship growth. My group met for the first time this past Tuesday, and it was amazing to realize how much my heart has been craving something like that. A group of like-minded people with whom I can open up and be honest. A group of women to call my friends, whatever the basis of our friendship may be. A place to seek and find God. It was a great evening, and Sunday at church it was nice to chat with a few of them and feel like we were standing on some common ground. It’s been tiring since we moved to always feel like I’m having to cover the basics of who I am and make small talk with the few people I know.

But what the group also made me realize is how many wonderful friends I have made in my life and how important it should be to cultivate those relationships. (For whatever reason, cultivate is the word that keeps coming to my mind as I think about this journey: “to promote or improve the growth of by labor and attention.”) I’m all too aware of how easy it is to let people slip away when you don’t see them often, or to convince yourself that Facebook and Twitter communication are good replacements for real conversation. But so what that many of my friends and I are scattered around and no longer have built-in reasons to see each other? So what that I have begun to let communication collapse with some of the people I care most about? So what that as adults, our lives no longer look as similar as they once did? I’m resolving to stop using these as excuses and instead find ways to continue on in relationship. I’ve mentally hand-picked some people who have meant a lot to me and decided to seek them out, regardless of what our relationship has looked like lately.

Last week, I went on a letter writing spree. I pulled out some nice notecards and settled in to tell some people how much I care about them. Letters might not be the most efficient way to communicate these days, but this topic felt weighty enough that I wanted to make it meaningful. I don’t know what kind of response I’ll get to my cards. I don’t know exactly what adult friendships look like, or how best to make them work. I’ll probably need to get over my utter loathing of talking on the phone and put my voice where my blog is. But I always find that when I suck it up and talk to a friend, the sweet comfort it brings overcomes any dislike I may have had. So call me up. Write me a letter. Send me a long email. I choose you.

Are you good at communicating with your friends? What are some ways of keeping in touch that you’ve found work well?

Thanks for all your comments on my cry for fashion help last week! Y’all are braver souls than I when it comes to layering and mixing and matching. I ended up finding a beautifully perfect dress at the thrift store for only $4.00! It was the only remotely appropriate-for-the-occasion dress that I saw there, and it fit me like a glove.

I have some great black patent peep-toe shoes that I got for my rehearsal dinner, and I can throw on a black cardigan if it is chilly. I like that it is modest but not boring. I can’t wait to wear it to my work event, and then get A. to take me out somewhere nice so I have an excuse to wear it again! ;-)

As Flannery O' Connor might say, a good white t-shirt is hard to find. I have one awesome stretchy short-sleeved white tee and one great long-sleeved one. These were long searched-for, but worth the hunt. They are an integral part of my winter wardrobe because I layer them under sweaters and cardigans (which I wear just about every day when it's cold). I have several collared shirts and camisoles that also serve the same purpose, but every winter I find myself wishing I had many more solid white tees. It's crazy how pricey of the most basic wardrobe staples can be, so I haven't taken the plunge yet to buy them.

HOWEVER, I realized yesterday that my husband has about a million of these:

Source

SOLID WHITE T-SHIRTS! My husband and I can share t-shirts size-wise, and some of his are actually a little small for him, which means they are perfect for me! I can't believe it took me so long to realize that I could just borrow from his undershirt drawer to satisfy my layering needs. And since I'm the one who does the laundry, he'll never even necessarily have to know...

What are your winter wardrobe staples? Have you found creative ways to re-purpose clothing?