Style Choices and the Grim Reaper

It may just be a hangover from our recent Halloween festivities, but I've been feeling more than a little grim this week about how I look. Especially in photos. Although the numbers on the scale remain constant, I feel fat. 

And ancient. 

I hate my hair and my face. 

I even hate my first name. 

We all have days, weeks or just moments like this, and the grimness is transitory (we hope), and often followed by a better, more optimistic week.

As I mused in a comment to someone on one of the blogs, somewhere, it's only been recently that I've realized that many of the favorite clothes that live in my closet today will still be there the day after I'm dead.  Ick!

Barring being run over by a very big truck, or being struck by lightning, or succumbing to a quick and deadly failure of a critical organ, I'm not likely to croak  very soon. I'm in pretty good health so far as I know, so I'll probably live for a quite a while yet, but none of us come out of this alive. I don't mean to be a complete downer here, but it's a fact. (Except for Dan, according to him. He intends to live forever, and I devoutly wish him success with this project.) 

Assuming I predecease Mr. Immortal, he'll have to clean out the closets at some point. Knowing his attention to all issues of sustainability, he'll recycle it out into the world, somehow.

So, at a certain age, I think we all have to honestly assess just what the hell we're saving all the good stuff for!

All of you vintage collectors have to be aware of the wonder of the vibe that's sometime left behind by past owners of your new-to-you garments; mysterious and full of an intriguing and contradictory sense of potential. Selfish cow that I am, I don't want to risk feeling like I missed a lot of the potential fun my favorite garments suggest to me while I actually own them. I want to have worn out and be completely finished with my best stuff when I move on to any other plane of existence.

So, I am making a concentrated effort to pull out and wear my favorite things much more often. Not just the costlier closet inhabitants, and my mother's good jewelry, but the fun stuff ... like the recently excavated $9.00 tutu, or costume jewelry that I bought just because of how much fun it looked to be at the time.

I have recently unearthed two chambray shirts that I really like so much that I've taken the time to properly shorten for better proportion. But,  as many of you know, I'm slow to to adopt new style ideas without first completely over-thinking them. I've been fussing around with ways to wear them where I don't look like a farm hand or an elderly teenager. In the spirit of living-it-up just a little, I've combined them here with some unrepentantly fake sparklies. I love the way this looks on young women, and don't much care if it looks jejune on me. I really needed to have some fun with casual wear this week, and piled on the trends ( ... 'scuse me. Style ideas.)

Blue chambray, my favorite deep red skinnies, my sparkly gold pumps that I don't get to wear nearly as often as I like, and bronze chains, 

rhinestones and pointy things.

Detail ... with me weirdly reflected in

one of the round stones on top!  The reflection

looks like a tiny little matador with a mustache.

A still casual, but slightly fancier charcoal-ish chambray shirt ...

silver chains, baubles and rhinestone necklaces.  Individually fun, but 

much more fun together.  Also, my favorite black coated jeans and 

shoes with a pewter cap-toe pumps that I just adore.

Again, detail. The top necklace needs an extender ... 

I'd prefer to wear this with an open collar.

So, I'm feeling better about everything.  I have two, new go-to outfits for days that bring even a tiny case of the blues. 

 The other thing I figured out is that if I only add things to my wardrobe that I completely adore, and keep on doing it, I might live a very, very long time, and gorgeously ... I'll need the time for all the fun I intend to have playing in my closet!

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Linking up with the Peplumed Beauty Elena at her 

Monday Bloom

 and at The Sleek and Chic Seeker's
Tres Chic Style Bits #3
(Hope she lets me ... we don't know each other yet!)

Late Breaking Update  11/18/2013: 
I'm joining Patti at her fabulous Visible Monday ! Come over and see what we're all up to!


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Have a great week, all!  Thanks for reading, and feel free to let me know what you think about what I wrote, or anything you want me to hear!