Cowgirl Slippers

Hat, scarf & strappy white top: Target   
Hue jeggings:  DB Discount         Boho fingerless gloves:  Molly b 
Vertigo jacket & Bruno Magli shoes: Nordstroms            


In addition to working, I'm laboring over a few passionate projects.  I'm planning my 70th birthday party.  Evites are out to friends & family.  As most of you know, I love the beach, daily run there with my dog, Rio.  I am so excited that we will be having the celebration at the Berkeley Yacht Club, on the water with decks over the water.  But it meant limiting attendance to 120, the legal limit at the  Yacht Club.  I was inspired to have this celebration of our lives from being part of my dear friend Roberta’s passing.  At the Memorial and sitting Shiva for Roberta countless people shared their memories of her with our family. And I was so sad and sorry that she was not present to hear the wonderful stories, to share in the laughter, embarrassment & tears.  So to celebrate my 70^th, I am inviting my favorite family & friends, to come together and share thoughts, feelings, interactions, experiences, events, occasions and/or stories. Those memories, junctures &/or times that are the defining moments, the telling tales of our relationship. I have an MC for the roast/toast & a friend coming in from NYC to sing.  It will be interesting & entertaining.  Wish you could all join me!  But you can listen to the Outrageous Older Woman music at www dot lizzelvin dot com.

Perspective

Thank you fellow bloggers for inspiring me today. My frivolity had fizzled; I have been feeling blah since the death of my dear soul sister.  I haven't been posting very often and hadn't looked at your wonderful blogs for a month.  Tonight I visited my favorite bloggers and voila! my spirits lifted; I got ideas & feel motivated.  You re-ignited my appreciation for the value of fashion & adornment.  I had sunk into an old feeling pattern that devalued frivolity, being frivolous had less worth than "serious" stuff; it isn't as respectable as "important" matters; it is too shallow to spend time on when there are so much weightier issues at hand.  Your posts reminded of the value of amusement, beauty & ingenuity in life; that fashion/adornment represents much deeper & broader issues of joy, play, self-confidence, self-respect, self-worth and creativity. Life must be balanced to be lived well.  A healthy dose of frivolity is just as important as any intellectual or scientific pursuit.  Everything in proper measure. Thanks again fellow bloggers!

Baby Blue

Rio dog is calming down now that he's almost 3.  As a Great Dane/Black Lab he levitates with enthusiasm.  And the more well-trained he is the more I love him.

I love the detail pattern on the back of this jacket.

Climbing

Even though my birthday isn't until May, today I was 8 years old (again).  After a year away from climbing I was back on the wall.  It was a buildup from the August surgery repair of massive rotator cuff damage then physical therapy & exercises from September through February and thenyoga in February. I was exhilarated to be climbing again.  Thanks to my new climbing partner, Bridget who also snapped this photo on my iPhone 4S.

Olive

For the last few years I have been wearing straight legged pants.  They tuck easily into boots, are comfortable and have a slimming effect.   But I love this olive green outfit with the flared leg.

Gray felt fedora: Target. Ann Taylor olive sweater & Bebe olive cords: thrifted from Sola Lucy. Gray Blondo boots: Walk Shop.

 There is curiosity about the string, bead bracelet  I have been wearing for almost a year now.  It was made for me by a Quechua Indian woman in the Amazon Village of  Machakuyaku when I visited for a week last April in Ecuador.  Below is her bracelet creation process.

 Her husband strips a length of bark from a tree. She softens it up by rubbing it on the rafter of her main room.  Once supple, she seperates the bark to reveal strings.  

She then prepares a branch, stripping it's outer layer so she can lay the string on the surface and scrape away the leafy green.  

Once the string is freed she coils and washes it.

 Then she hangs it out to dry in the sun.
 In the meantime her husband makes holes in the seeds that are used as beads in the bracelet.

 When the string is dry and bead prepared, she weaves and knots the strands of string and threads the beads and knots the twine around the beads. 

 

She tied the bracelet on my wrist and it has not come off in 11 months.  The larger red bead broke and fell off, but the brown beads stay nestled in their beds.  I am amazed at the durability of the string and the knots.

Cuba: dressed by G-d

The indigenous plants, trees, cacti and flowers (flora) of Cuba are breathtaking - natures gift of beauty.