Sometimes, it takes a fresh eye...

I'm going to a baby shower this afternoon, and I was having trouble figuring out what to wear. The trouble is that we're having one of those San Francisco summers (as in, "There's no winter colder than a..."). So most of my spring colored outfits I would freeze in today, and my weather-appropriate stuff is mostly of more somber hues.

My littlest housemate 1cricketsong, age 9, was watching me try on outfit after outfit, and is not one to be excluded from a bit of "let's choose clothing!" fun. Pretty soon she was diving into my closet and pulling out things that she thought might work. "How about this?" "Nice, but the fabric is too thin." "Or this?" "I haven't got a skirt to match it." "Well, what about this?"

I did a double-take, because I swear I had no memory of having that shirt in my collection. Maybe I found it at a recent off-season clothing swap, or maybe it was from a long ago thrift-store outing - no clue. Somehow it had gotten tossed into the back of my closet and stayed there, forgotten - and now, here it was. It's pretty - beige and brown, long sleeved cotton, with lovely sparkly embroidered beadwork around the neckline.

Even more miraculously, it matched the new skirt that I had happened to just try on - the brown-and-beige one that my mother gave me, that I've had a heck of a time finding matches for. I'd been about to look and see what might sorta-go with it, and here was the little one holding up an exact match.

Tried it on, and the two looked perfect together - and my clunky beige strappy shoes go great with the ensemble. "Well, you've done such a good job - go pick out the jewelry to match" I told her. She'd been asking to pick out the jewelry, too. So she came back with a bronze necklace, long gold dangly earrings, and - to my surprise - some sparkly gold and plum barrettes. "Barrettes?" I said, and her mother deedeebythebay said "Here, let me," and put my hair up in a nice way, and then gave me consultation on what slips would work best. I felt like Cinderella getting all dressed up for the ball.

It's a really good outfit - pretty but not in a flashy way. The right level of warmth for today, and goodness, I think it'll even do as a work outfit. Thanks, 1cricketsong and deedeebythebay!