Funny Face

Dominic and I met for lunch today, so I put a dress on and tried to look nice for a change. My hair is a disaster, though. I haven't had a haircut in over 6 months, so it is very, very long and whatever hairstyle I once had has grown out. There's also no point in styling it for wearing down in the heat and the humidity of an Alabama summer, so in a ponytail it went. I put on perfume, so at least I smelled nice.

Afterwards I went and bought some Lululemon gift cards because one of our credit cards has a quarterly perk of money towards various businesses, including Lululemon. I don't normally buy clothes there, but we are going to close this credit card after Dominic retires (active military don't pay the annual fee, which is why we have it), so we're trying to actually use the perks for a change.

Now I have $100 to spend on Lululemon. Life is weird. While I was already at the outdoor mall, I stopped at Sephora and got the eyebrow makeup I normally order, and then I bought jeans and a shirt from Loft. I think I will spend my entire life trying to find clothes that look nice on me and failing. The older I get and the more my body changes, the more I feel like I will never find a pair of jeans that looks nice on me again, but I am doggedly still trying. Maybe the jeans I bought today will be The Jeans (they will not.)

There's so much to constantly think and worry about, and then every now and then I realize to my dismay I'm still as vain as ever (maybe more so), and I still care about my appearance. It's very annoying. And harrowing as I get older!

A few years ago I realized that other than my wedding ring I had zero fine jewelry, so I started using the occasional small windfalls of money I get from writing to buy myself nice pieces. I've since been able to build a fun little jewelry collection, and it gives my writing money a permanent place to land so that each piece I buy for myself is special. (I also started being more deliberate about asking for fine jewelry as gifts from Dominic, and that's been part of building my collection too.)

I've had good luck with Mejuri, Catbird, and Tini Lux in particular. Mejuri is great for very simple basics. I've bought several gold (and one big silver) stacking rings from this company. Tini Lux is titanium, so not fine jewelry, but I've gotten several earrings from them and I wear them harrrrrd, and they still look great after years of wear. They are also waterproof and good for sensitive ears. And because they're not fine jewelry they're much less expensive. Catbird is the most expensive and thus the hardest for me to buy from, but I bought a gold necklace chain and an engraved gold heart locket four years ago, and I wear it every, single day. I also have a pretty pearl charm that I wear on the chain sometimes.

Other nice jewelry I have are lab-grown diamond studs and a lab-grown diamond infinity band that Dominic got me as an anniversary gift, and they are sooooo nice to the point of being ostentatious. I wear them occasionally, and I'm grateful to have them.

Companies I've tried and wouldn't recommend are Local Eclectic's family gold line. I have a pretty dainty little necklace that's still going strong, but the pair of small gold hoops I bought fell apart after not even that much wear. I also wouldn't recommend Audrey Rose. I bought two rings from them, and one I still have and adore, but one of the stones from the other ring immediately fell out, and their customer service refused to help me, so I'll never buy from them again. The pearl and champagne diamond ring I bought from them is so gorgeous though, and I'm holding my breath hoping that it won't fall apart or break. It's so gosh darn pretty.

Not a great picture, but it's so sparkly and elegant. I love having a pearl ring.

A few weeks ago I got a check from the reading I did at my undergraduate earlier this year. Catbird is having a sale right now, so I bought a necklace that has a ring for charms, and I bought a little emerald charm to go with it. This took up nearly my whole check, but now that I have the charm necklace I can continue to buy more charms every now and then.

This is the necklace I bought. I already have the pearl charm and the emerald charm I bought with the necklace is the same as the charm on the right in this picture. I would love to have one more charm, but that will have to wait for another time.

This is such a long and boring post about jewelry! I suppose because this is my blog and I can blather on as much as I want, the last thing I'll say is that I've learned that--for me--buying demi-fine jewelry (like vermeil) is always a waste of money, except for earrings. I have several sets of Gorjana vermeil earrings that are still going strong years later. I never expose them to water, so it makes sense they're still nice. I just cannot keep vermeil necklaces or rings nice, though. I've tried. I can't do it!

Holy CRAP I just made the best salad. Dominic brought home arugula greens yesterday, and despite my better judgment I'm risking the diarrhea parasite here, but damn this salad was good.

I made salmon with roasted sweet potatoes and steamed green beans last night. Usually three serving sizes is about a half a serving too much for my family. I'm terrible about being scared of leftover fish, so I usually throw it away, but I decided to save a half portion this time for an asian-inspired salad for lunch.

I made a quick sesame dressing and tossed it with arugula, tomatoes, quinoa, pickled onions, and leftover chopped green beans. I would have added cucumber if I had remembered it, and now I'm sad I forgot :(

I flaked salmon over everything and thin thinned out some peanut sauce I made yesterday and put that on top with some sesame seeds.

Slowly healing. I have nerve damage of some kind that has left my finger both simultaneously numb and more sensitive somehow. I think it will get better?

The stupid thing about compulsory screening for low testosterone, other than it is gender-affirming care, is that for aviators the list of medications that they can be on and not be medically disqualified from flying is super restricted. Like, there's about 10 medications total that aviators can take. Testosterone is not one of them, and in fact when my spouse was a commander of a flying squadron, one of his troops took testosterone that he got from some shady source (because getting it prescribed would medically disqualify him from flying) and my spouse tried to get him kicked out of the AF. Aviators who can't fly can't do their jobs. Illegal drug-seeking behavior is frowned upon.

(Obviously this affected/affects trans aviators too, which is unfair. D also experienced this with a trans troop, and that person could no longer fly because they were using legally prescribed hormones. D did not try to kick that person out because they were not illegally drug-seeking medication, but now trans people aren't allowed in the military anyway, so I assume that person had to leave. Which is so stupid. My god, the thing I have hated the most about this administration is their malicious scapegoating of trans people.)

I wonder if the military will revise their medication list for aviators based on this new policy. I don't love the thought of a bunch of aviators juiced on extra testosterone flying around in our skies.

If testosterone stays banned for aviators then my assumption is that affected aviators would not take it, but if they did it would cause issues with readiness. Because they would not be able to fly.

I'm surprised I hadn't connected my outsized reaction to this injury to medical PTSD, but that makes sense, and I feel better about being a baby about four stitches. The last time I was hurt I almost died!

In much nicer news I just found out I've been awarded a week-long writing residency in Door County, Wisconsin next year! This will be my first residency since Vermont Studio Center in 2019. I was awarded a residency in Wyoming in 2023, but I didn't want to leave my then-baby for any length of time, so I declined it.

Managed to have some fun at the lake, despite my injury, but I'm glad we're home.

Normally, when my extended family gets together, we do it at our Pensacola house. We might plan one or, at the most, two events, but mostly we just hang out at home, and the kids play and the adults visit. My sister wanted to meet at the campground/waterpark they like this year, and it was very, very fun for the kids and pretty fun for the adults too, but it was also exhausting for everyone. Then we transitioned to the lake house and my parents and sister's kids came but my sister and brother-in-law didn't, and we just simply didn't have enough adults to manage all the children. Plus, with my injured finger, I just couldn't do as much as I normally would have.

The past six days have been incredibly chaotic. And there is clearly something genetic in my family's makeup that sets up small children to be moderately insane lol, because these three 4-year-olds are a wild bunch. Add my big kid, my 7yo niece, and my baby niece to the mix, and I think every adult lost their shit at least once.