a peek inside the fishbowl

It’s Monday and I’m having trouble coming making the adjustment after our jam-packed weekend. The highlight of which was a glorious ski along the SJAM Winter Trail from Westboro Beach to Mill Street Brew Pub. I think it’s 14K. Mark and I have never skied so far and I’m so pleased we did it. I tell ya, it really helps to have a goal (read: a veggie burger and a pint) as well as pretty views along the way.

Would you look at these tracks:

It was very hard to leave the rest stop pictured in this next photo. Whoever thought to put a bunch of Muskoka chairs around a fire pit out here is a genius. (It’s near Remic Rapids by the way, and operates on weekends.) Not pictured: the fat bike rental station. Cool eh?

I am pretty sure I could angels singing when we arrived at Mill Street Brew Pub. I was SO DONE.

Also worth noting, the impromptu ski parking:

My veggie burger never tasted so good:

With thoughts turning toward the trip home I was a tiny bit worried about the pint of beer I ordered. There is only one outhouse along the entire SJAM (unless you count the Canadian War Museum). Would I have to pee en route home? Turns out I had nothing to worry about because I just sweated everything out. (If that’s TMI, I apologize.)

Full belly, fresh air, sunshine, gorgeous views… all in the company of my best guy. It doesn’t get much better than this:

And yes, I wore The Dress.

I knew it was a little bit crazy, but I wanted to illustrate that it can be done. I have no regrets. You can see it under my coat there.

So today is Day 17 of The Dress and I’ve been thinking more about the cost per wear. Does it ever figure into your clothing purchases? It’s something I talk about in the book about our Shopping Embargo. I’m a big fan. And I am pleased the cost per wear of this dress, which was a fair price to begin with, gets lower every day.

Consider this: If I buy a classic black cardigan for $100 and wear it 100 times, the cost-per-wear is $1.00. If I buy a dress on sale for $75 and wear it out twice, the cost-per-wear is $37.50. The black cardigan – even though it was more expensive to begin with – is the better value. My dress was $120 and if I wear it 30 times I’ll get the cost-per-wear down to $4. I’d call that a win.

Current status: picking up a new tee at the @TwissAndWeber #InternationalWomensDay fundraiser auction and art show. @DFSOttawa #IWD2019 pic.twitter.com/mHjuFv5oCV

— andrea tomkins (@missfish) March 8, 2019

• Family-friendly things to do in Westboro Village over March Break, westborovillage.com
• Unvaccinated Oregon boy almost died from tetanus and racked up US$1 million hospital stay, ottawacitizen.com
• The People Who Eat the Same Lunch Every Day, theatlantic.com
• Some ‘snitch-line’ tips on teaching about same-sex marriage are flagged as professional misconduct, cbc.ca
• I jazzed up Canadian history by rewriting it as fan fiction, theglobeandmail.com

On the nightstand: A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship and Survival in World War Two

Day 13 of #1dress30days! I swear there’s a dress under all of these layers. pic.twitter.com/RIa7hNYKqb

— andrea tomkins (@missfish) March 7, 2019

I was at a book launch downtown last night and reactions to my 1Dress challenge varied from “what the heck” to “WOW you rock.” I felt I was appropriately dressed and had zero regrets or bouts of regret or shyness about it.

Someone asked me on Twitter if I was bored of The Dress yet. Surprisingly I am not! In fact, I am enjoying the predictability of it. This might sound dull, but it’s actually quite liberating to wear the same thing every day, in a way, because I’m released from the “oh no, what am I going to wear today” question. Related: I have the same breakfast every day and do the same workout every day, which makes my morning routine a total no brainer. I like to think that this frees up my brain cells for other things.

Misty brought up an interesting point in her comment on my previous post about the 1Dress challenge: germs. Now, if I worked in a doctor’s office, hospital, school, or other setting in which there are a lot of people walking around every day I might give germs more consideration but as I mentioned before, I work from home most of the time, so germs aren’t exactly top of mind.

Interestingly, the maker of the dress, Tangente, left a comment on one of my Instagram posts about the challenge. They wrote: “Thanks so much for choosing my dress for your challenge. I’m also in strong agreement that people wash their clothes too often.” I am glad they agree with me!

The other day I took my mother to the doctor. She lives in the Peterborough area and I go there and back in one day. It makes for a lot of driving but I’m happy to do it.

Washing the dress after I got home that night was a bit of a question mark, especially since I had washed it the night before. My mother is a chain smoker (thankfully, not in the car) so there was that too, in addition to any germs I might have sat in at the doctor’s office. So what’s a gal to do?

When I was in university and my friends and I came from bars and clubs reeking of cigarette smoke (back in the day when smoking was allowed in these establishments!) I’d simply take my clothes off at home and leave them outside. This was especially useful for hard-to-wash items like coats and jackets. By morning the smell was always gone. So that’s what I did the other night. I hung my dress outside until I went to bed. I figured it would kill some bacteria as well. When I brought it back indoors it smelled as fresh as before, if not better.

So what about the question of killing bacteria? Well, I found this story about it online. It seems as though putting clothing in a freezer only renders the bacteria dormant, but then Rachel McQueen, a professor of human ecology at the University of Alberta, who is quoted, says “airing your jeans outdoors in the sunlight would be a more effective method of getting rid of odors and a lot of bacteria.” Something to think about!

Here’s another interesting bit: One of McQueen’s students wore his jeans for 15 months straight without a single wash and then tested the level of bacteria on them. The unwashed jeans carried nearly the same amount of bacteria as those same pants after they had been washed and then worn for 13 days.

As for me, I’m just on my way out the door for an International Women’s Day event. The dress is getting seen and my cost-per-wear is going down every day. I’m pretty excited about that.