What's the Deal?

Fashion plate, I am not.

The rare concession I make to step out of this blue jeans and tee shirt lifestyle of mine comes in two flavors: the temple or Sunday church meetings.

But what happened today was beyond all reason. Either that or I have secretly turned into the troll beneath the bridge in the story of "The Three Billy Goat's Gruff" and just didn't notice (it IS one of my favorite childhood stories... but I digress).

Honestly, I'm hoping for the "beyond all reason" part.

Truth be told, I'd rather listen to a speech by Vince Lombardi than learn how to do tatting (well, I mean, who wouldn't) and I'm not a big fan of the crafty, scrapbooky, curlicued girly things that make other female hearts go aflutter. Of course, most of them can't pick off the runner at second base either.

But on temple days and Sundays, I do more than the 5 minute lick and a promise shower routine and actually take the time to be presentable to the Lord. It is HIS house, after all and I am the guest seeking His presence. While He may have a moments' pause identifying me in my dressed up uniform of the day, I don't want Him to give me the cold shoulder because I look more like the gardener than the princess. He is worth the effort.

For the last few Sundays, due to the nasty cold and my low tolerance for becoming a human iceberg, I have worn my warmest skirt. It happens to be black velour. I like it and my butt doesn't become a permanent fixture attached to a metal folding chair while at the meetings. I have been told black is a universal color that matches everything. Evidently, it matches everything but ME.

I have a vast array of shirts to wear. The pink one (which is a pain to iron), the purple one with the vest, the purple one without the vest, the blue one and a couple of undershirt type colored tops that go with a summery green shirt or underneath any of the above for a splash of color.  Okay, vast may have been a slight overstatement, but I do have dress shirts that are not emblazoned with the faces of the men and women of country. Just not a Lane Bryant's worth.

On other people, that combo of color with basic black appears to be fashionable.
Apparently it doesn't appear the same way on me. Who knew? There must be a secret handshake that brings it all together, but no one has showed me or I was getting a fudgesicle at the time.

Today, I broadened my wardrobe because the temperatures were above freezing and it seemed like a good day to venture into other clothing in my closet. I slipped into my brown skirt, a brown multicolored lined sweater thingy and a light tan blazer. It was warm enough to keep me from certain hypothermia and I thought it looked reasonable enough to pass muster.

To the eyes of other people however, I  must have looked substantially different because I had like a gazillion people tell me how much they liked my outfit and that is suited me well. Hmmmm. Let's ponder that.

The insecure part of me wonders... if today was such an improvement to them does this mean what I think it does? Really, I can only see a couple of options.

(1) I must have taken extraordinary time and skill to make myself presentable today (time of which I remain blissfully unaware and the alleged skilled improvement in style which I will never be able to repeat!)

OR

(2) The rest of the time I look like a Goodwill dumpster refugee who still got it wrong and they are too nice to say so.

Should there happen to be other options, I'm broadminded enough to entertain them.

My concern here is that since I happen to direct the music right up front each week for sacrament service, I am inflicting a visual tableau of fashion tragedy on the entire congregation! No wonder I get smiles from them when I direct!!

I like to hope in my tiny bruised heart of ego that the congregants are smiling because the music brings them happiness. But I have to wonder sometimes...

Maybe they aren't smiling because they are 'feeling the Spirit'!! They are smiling because they are thinking "you're ugly and your Momma dresses you funny!" Holy cow... and half a goat!

Then again, they may be smiling because they are thinking "I'll be the saleslady that got that outfit together won a prize for moving merchandise that was gathering dust for years!".

Truthfully, I like to feel confident when I dress for special moments out. I want people to think I have the brains to pull together something that won't blind the masses and render them temporarily helpless in paroxysms of laughter behind their hymnbooks.

It is my secret ambition to please my husband and make him, for at least a brief moment, remember that I can dress nicely and want to see him smile at me in that way that still makes me blush to my toes. Now, I am reduced to drivel wondering just why anyone lets me out of the house without a complete white glove test to ensure that I am preview ready for the public eye.

The paranoid part of my psyche is concerned... the devil may care part of my psyche keeps double dog daring me to wear blue floral pajamas to church with orange sox. Surely there is a happy medium... isn't there? Today, I have serious reservations regarding where that dividing line exists.

Never having thought of myself as the kind of woman who attracted attention for being dressed in some type of particularly outstanding fashion sense or bedecked in jaw dropping attire, I cleverly assumed that looking 'nice' was going along well. Apparently, my version of nice is one notch above wearing a concert T-shirt to church.

Oh wait... I've done that. Crap.

I look at women who are well put together physically and wardrobe-wise and kind of envy the smooth sophistication they exude. It's a literal wave of confident and charismatic flow. They walk with grace into a room and men's heads turn in their direction because they are the embodiment of what it is to be a woman.

If a man's head turns in my direction, it's generally because I know the overtime score to the game and can accurately describe the post pattern or Hail Mary pass that won the game. I kinda like that.

Then there are the other days that it would be nice to have that confidence that says "I am woman, hear me roar!" where I would know with absolute assurance that I was well turned out and there wasn't a barbecue stain on my blouse somewhere that was really the showstopping attention getter.

I kindly thanked the host of people who complimented my attire today. I truly appreciated their compliments and I hope my thanks to them wasn't off-putting due to inexperience at fielding them. It might have gone better if it had been a frozen rope to center... I'm just saying.

It's nice to be noticed, but I now have to wonder WHY I was?

If every week is such a train wreck of fabric disaster, isn't there one single person who loves me enough to say "girl, you look like a hot mess"? Or are they simply too ashamed to try? Perhaps they HAVE tried and simply gave up because I am a hopeless waste of information. I may have a line on what the snickering behind hymnbooks is about now...

It's an odd sort of deal. I want to look nice, but I'm not sure I can take the pressure of living up to the expectations of those who think they are in for a repeat next Sunday.

A girl can only take so much!!

Man, those pajamas are looking better and better all the time.