Monday Musings: What’s New In The Zoo
Happy Monday, ladies. This week’s musings are a bit random…but they often are because it’s real life.
I was thrilled to snag a haircut before we flew back to California. I was a few weeks overdue, and my latest hair shedding was making the extra length look particularly straggly. I’ve scheduled a dermatologist appointment, and I’ll update you once I have some real answers.
I do know stress can be a big contributor to hair loss, and the last two weeks sure haven’t helped. I’ve had unrelated things go wrong in my business, which had me running on adrenaline and caffeine.
A couple of weeks ago, I learned someone went to the trouble of buying a domain almost identical to mine and mirrored my entire site word for word. I filed a DMCA takedown request in several places, and it was removed temporarily. They can appeal. UGH.
Then I discovered my site was being hammered by hundreds of thousands of bots a day, enough to crash it for real readers. And while I was sorting that out, one of my affiliate accounts had a serious security breach.
I hired experts to dig into the backend of everything because that’s way over my pay grade, and the language around it sounds like gobbledygook. Things appear to be getting fixed, and I’m hoping the light at the end of the tunnel is not an oncoming train.
The life of a blogger is not all about new shoes and new lipstick, but I do know both can be excellent medicine 😉.
Before I left for Vancouver, I cleaned out my closet and donated several bags of clothes, so I walked into an organized, tidy wardrobe that felt instantly calm. I don’t duplicate my wardrobe in Vancouver and California because the climates are quite different, and after two and a half months away, I realized the things I’d missed most were my accessories.
It was fun to see them again, almost like seeing old friends. I started pulling open drawers and remembering where I’d bought certain pieces, the places I’d worn them, and the loved ones some had belonged to before me. At one point I looked down and realized I had six rings on!
It was completely over the top, almost maximalist, and I wandered around the house wearing all of them for a few hours. I was surprised by how much joy it gave me. After the last few stressful weeks, it was exactly what I needed.
I’m not sure this has ignited a maximalist streak in me, but I’m beginning to understand why I see so many older women embracing it. There’s something wonderfully unapologetic about taking up more space with what we wear.
We spend so much of our lives worrying about whether something is appropriate, whether it’s too much, whether we’re wearing the wrong thing. Then we reach an age when the world seems to expect us to quietly fade into the background. Some women are having absolutely none of it.
The big jewelry, the bold patterns, the dramatic shapes. They’re hard to ignore. And I think that’s part of the appeal. I love seeing older women refuse to shrink themselves. There is something powerful about taking up space and enjoying it.
So now I’m curious about you. Have you gotten bolder with what you wear as you’ve gotten older, or are you still getting comfortable with the idea of being “too much”?
And what’s the one thing in your closet or jewelry box that makes you feel more like yourself the minute you put it on?
I have a feeling there are some good stories sitting in our jewelry boxes. And now I need to know…what’s the most jewelry you’ve ever worn at once? Six rings suddenly doesn’t seem quite so outrageous to me.
Thanks for being here, ladies, and for making this community such a positive place.