When I was growing up, my mom would come home from work, strip off her hose and bra and get comfy in her bathrobe. I never thought anything of it. But when my dad and she got divorced (20 years later, so it’s not like it was a snap decision), the fact that Mom spent a lot of her home time in a bathrobe might have been mentioned once or twice. So I decided that not using my robe as home fashion might be a prudent idea. However… I have going-out clothes and stay-at-home clothes. One set is decidedly more comfortable than the other. Neither is what I’d call fashionable.
I’ve never had a shape to wear fashionable clothes, though when I was working I strove to be neat and professional. I still buy colors that look good on me, whether they are the season’s colors or not. Stylish I may not be, but I wear clothes for function and comfort, and not what the magazines say ae in.
The same goes for hairstyles. Right now, my hair is pretty long because I 
haven’t been to get it cut since COVID struck. Normally, I keep it pretty short, mostly because of ease of care and not because the latest cut says to do so. It’s driving me crazy right now. My pigtails aren’t straight and hair is straggled all over the place. No one would say I was stylish. But then, as long as hubby and I are okay with how I look and what I wear, what do I care?
Are your clothes form or function?
Read the next blog in the blog hop by going here.
Burning Bridges by Anne Krist
One Woman Only
Only a Good Man Will Do
Naval Maneuvers
There was a time, in the long ago, when our only choice was to read “real” books. That is to hold an actual thing bound as a hardback or paperback. We had to hold the book open—sometimes to press it to keep it open—and keep it at the proper reading height. Sometimes those tomes were heavy. Sometimes the binding was such that it took real effort to keep the book open and we creased the spines. If we dropped the book, we lost our place. We couldn’t easily prop it open to read while we ate, or we had to hold the book open one-handed if we wanted to drink a cup of coffee. Those days ended for me when hubby bought me an ebook reader for Christmas. I’ve hardly had a better gift!
books to lug around. Then you need places to put them. Now I can carry the equivalent of those boxes on one Kindle. Granted, actual books won’t run out of power in the middle of a chapter and have to be recharged, but the convenience of my Kindle outweighs the inconvenience.
When Jack and I lived in a small town in Virginia, we routinely drove in and out of Richmond and Charlottesville (50 miles and 35 miles respectively) for grocery shopping, plays, dinner, work, etc. and never gave a thought that we were driving those distances on two-lane country roads WITHOUT A DARN CELL PHONE. In fact, there weren’t any cell phones back then. Sure, the thought of breaking down crossed my mind, but houses weren’t spaced out too far, and I just figured I’d walk to one of them and call for help. Now that I have a cell phone? I can’t drive half a mile from home without panicking if I discover I’ve forgotten the phone. I’ve turned into a phone wuss, and I’m not proud of it.
smart phones were out. “You have the oldest phone of anyone I know,” a friend once told me. I smacked the lid down on the screen and said, “I use my phone for making calls. I don’t need all that stuff that comes on smart phones.” Sigh. Or for the naivete! Of course, as soon as I got a smart phone I set up weather, Google, a news app, and Solitaire. I am picking the phone up a hundred times a day to do something on it that doesn’t involve making a call.
Anyone who’s ever ordered anything from a catalogue knows that once you have, you’ve condemned yourself to a lifetime of a mailbox filled that catalogue’s brethren, forevermore. It only takes one small, single purchase from even the most obscure catalogue and your name goes on every mailing list for all catalogues, big and small. It’s a racket, and you’re the sucker.
retailers pull out all the stops. Tee shirts have cute sayings on them, each page is alight with candles, fairy lights, flashing outdoor lights, flashing indoor lights, and so on. I love all those lights! I love looking at the beautiful sweaters and coats. I love seeing models standing in snow (because A) it’s not real, and B) I don’t have to stand in it) while they show off the latest winter footwear. Gifts, gifts, gifts! They’re so much fun to look at!!
I should qualify that title. I’m for the sunshine, if I can watch it from behind a window. I’m not fussy about where that window is—could be in the house or in the car or a restaurant or… You get the idea. Suffice it to say, like Scarlett, I’ve always been one to watch my complexion. Why? Because I burn in nothing flat. Plus, I’m not much of an outdoors person. Plus 2, sunshine means bugs. Flying bugs, crawling bugs, all kinds of bugs. Nope. Not for me. But I am happy to open the blinds and curtains and “Let the sunshine. Let the sunshine in, the sunshine in!” (Courtesy of the 7th Dimension)
the sunshine, it is during the fall. My favorite season, it always seems as though the sky is bluer, the breezes brisker, and the sun most welcome during the autumn. Maybe because we know winter is coming? At any rate, being outside in September, October, or November is a treat. I’ll take the sunshine then, thanks very much!
It’s a sunshiny day! What do you do?
taking full advantage as well. There have been flocks of white cockatoos screeching their heads off in the eucalyptus trees nearby and rosellas are busy gorging on the nectar in the bottlebrush trees. Its widely believed kookaburras laughing in the middle of the day means more rain on the way, but who knows, they could very well be laughing at us. However, farmers swear a large flock of black cockatoos means serious rain is on the way.
The first TV my mom ever bought cost her $10 a week for a year—money she could barely afford. It had something like a 15-inch screen, a picture tube that had to warm up and disappeared into a pin light when you turned off the set, and rabbit ears on top that routinely had to be adjusted to get the best picture. It was black and white, of course. We picked up CBS, ABC, and NBC, and we had to get up to turn it on, change the channel, or adjust the volume. And we thought it was a miracle! I was about four or five at the time. Thinking back, it now seems ridiculous. Hubby and I have a 48-inch screen that fits flat against the wall, in blazing color and an auto tuner. All we have to do is click a button to turn it on or to change channels. And we have what many consider a “basic” set!
There was rarely any humor, true, but the writing was just so damn good that you got caught up in the show anyway. Plus, whether it was or not, it seemed so realistic. There weren’t romances going on between the men and women—it showed a professionalism that I appreciated. And the cops didn’t always get their men and the lawyers didn’t always win their cases. Each week was a story “torn from the headlines,” and the show made you feel part of the action. Since it went off the air, I’ve watched it over and over in reruns. I can almost repeat the dialogue for some of the episodes, but I don’t care. Good entertainment is good entertainment forever!
Favorite TV show of all time. Why?
There was a time when I never would have considered reading MM romances. Not that I had anything against them, I just never thought of them. Then hubby went out of town for a business meeting and I went along, just to go. We had dinner with one of his colleagues and he asked what I did. I told him I wrote romance—erotic romance. It had only been recently that I’d admitted that to people. Was I ever surprised when he said his sister also wrote erotic romance—of the MM variety. He put us in touch with each other and after exchanging a few emails. she sent me one of the works she’d just finished. Oh. My. God. It was fabulous!!!
romance and not especially on the sex. And her sexy sequences were explicit but without seeming raunchy—which can happen whether writing MM or MF sex scenes.
As a reader what attracts you most to a character?
Winston Graham. Those characters, with their strengths and weaknesses, held millions of people captivated until the final scene.