21 Day Challenge: Day 1

Here is my first outfit for the 21 Day Challenge. This is definitely going to be a learning experience. I've never read fashion blogs before, and I really don't enjoy shopping. For me clothes are pretty utilitarian. It's going to be interesting to try to think about them a little more creatively and step out of my usual comfort zone. I wouldn't say that I really did that here, but I have never worn these three pieces all together before.

Since I haven't bought clothes anywhere besides a thrift store in over a year, I don't know how helpful it is to share sources for my clothes, but that seems to be part of the deal. Here's the info, for what it's worth. My sweater is a hand-me-down from a friend, tag says Valerie Stevens. Top is from Old Navy, 10+ years ago. Skirt is from Target, 5+ years ago. I bought the shoes at Shoe Carnival 8 years ago (the summer I got married). I'm not sure what brand they are. Earrings were a gift.

One thing I've learned already is I feel completely awkward getting my picture taken for this. I'm so impressed with you bloggers who do this regularly, and have such lovely photos. Mine was taken in the Home Depot parking lot. A good reflection of my life lately. :)

The white eyelet skirt is what I will remix. It's pretty versatile, and I figure I might as well wear it now; summer will be gone before we know it. The top is kind of a gingham seersucker, and the sweater is trimmed in bugle beads. That's about all I have to say about my clothing, except that I wore blue today for the Dormition. I try to wear blue for the feasts of the Theotokos.

Joyous feast to my normal readers! I don't have the energy for two separate posts, so here is our church's new Dormition icon.

Transfiguration

Our parish has commissioned a set of festal icons from iconographer Dennis Bell, and we received three new ones this week. One of them was the Transfiguration, so not only did we have the blessing of the first fruits today, we had the blessing of the new icon. You can see it's still wet with holy water. I wish you could see it in person, instead of my poor effort with my cell phone camera. It's quite beautiful. I wanted to display it larger so that you could see some of the details. I had to edit the html of my blog template to change the margins, so please let me know if that's resulted in any weird formatting for you.

I also took some pictures during the blessing of the icon, but later when I was taking the picture of the icon itself, I wondered why the camera just wouldn't seem to focus. Then I realized the lens was smudged. That explains why my pictures have been so blurry this week! I wish I could pretend my picture of first fruits below is intentionally blurry for artistic reasons.  Ah, well. Sometimes I think I might enjoy getting a nice camera and learning photography, but for now I'll see if I can improve things simply by keeping the lens clean.

 

Tomatoes are the fruit of the vine for this Indiana girl, and the yellow tomato is literally the first fruit from that plant. I picked these this morning before liturgy. We sliced them up and ate them afterward, along with the grapes and other fruits which people had brought. It was lovely.  I hope you have had (or will have) a lovely feast day as well .

Joyous feast!

Sunday of Orthodoxy

 We venerate your most pure image, O Good One, and ask forgiveness of our transgressions, O Christ our God. Of Your goodwill, You were pleased to ascend the Cross in the flesh and deliver your people from bondage to the enemy. Therefore with thankfulness we cry aloud unto you: You have filled all with joy, O Savior, for You did come to save the world.