It's been a glorious week, featuring a not-so-glorious looking Poppy

I met a psychiatrist on Monday and mentioned that I'm a style blogger. I'm sure he was all "delusions of grandeur" and "psychotic episode," because people, I looked like crap.

That's because I've spent most of the week--which has been absolutely perfect in terms of early fall weather--setting up the sewing and crafts room for my church's annual rummage sale.

Image borrowed from carla-at-home

This is not a crafts blog, and those of you who have been reading for a while will notice that I don't tend to spend a lot of time talking about sewing, quilting, embroidery, or needlepoint. You might be wondering why a glamorous style blogger like me is spending hours pricing packages of rickrack.

OK, I would totally volunteer for the makeup and skincare room, except they don't have one.

But really, the whole thing is Wendy's fault. See, I went to the rummage sale with her last year, and she bought out the sewing room. She walked out of there with something like her 14th sewing machine and several bushels of Liberty fabric, plus reams of seam binding, interfaces, and other sewing effluvia. This year she's too busy having an addition added to her house to volunteer, so somehow--don't ask me how, it's a mystery--I'm doing it instead.

At moments like this, I wonder why, when Jen Lancaster was researching volunteer opportunities, she didn't just follow me around. The way I look at it, volunteer jobs are kudzu, and my time is the southern landscape. They stick to me like burrs. They're as inevitable as white dog hair on a pair of black pants. Jen would have polished off her research in a couple of days.

Speaking of black pants and Jen Lancaster, a bunch of us will be going to a book signing tomorrow to meet Lisa Birnbach, editor of The Official Preppy Handbook and her recent follow-up, True Prep.

I'll be eating lunch with Wendy and Jen and Stacey as well as some other friends of mine that you probably don't know because they're not all over the internet.

The good news is that I've lost 10 pounds since August, and can just get into my favorite black pants. I don't know what else I'm wearing, though. I'm thinking a pink cashmere twinset from Brooks Brothers with an Hermes scarf with pink and green in it. I think that would be preppy enough.

If not, I can always add a string of pearls.

What worked for me this summer, or the Almost-Labor-Day-Blues

As the season draws to a close, I'm thinking about packing away my summer clothes, moving my winter clothes out of storage, doing inventory, and figuring out what I need--and whether what I need has any relationship whatsoever to what I want.

(Usually it doesn't.)

But have I actually started doing it? No, I have not. Not when it's not Labor Day yet. There's time for a few more Mojitos before I have to do all that, right?

So I thought I'd dedicate a few posts to the things I'll regret packing away. And I'll begin with an astonishing item:

White shoes

I don't know what hit me, because fashion experts have been railing against white shoes for years. I can hear the chorus even now: "They only look good on brides!" "They make your feet look huge!" "Only if you're a nurse!" But instead of looking dorky, like a farm machinery salesman from Sandusky, they looked fresh and clean and summery.

I wore the hell out of this pair of Kelsi Dagger Women's Ivy Espadrilles. They looked good with pants, but were particularly nice with dresses and skirts. And the wedged heel made them incredibly comfortable.


The other pair of shoes I'll miss is also white, wedged version of an espadrille--this time in white patent leather from Michael Kors.

Now, I think of espadrilles as very preppy. Thirty years ago, preps wore Jacques Cohen espadrilles. Nowadays you'll find espadrilles being produced by prep favorites like Ralph Lauren and Kate Spade.

But I opened the Zappos box, I couldn't decide whether the big silver MK and all that patent leather didn't so much say "preppy" as "retired Vegas chorine." Seriously. I don't do patent leather. Or logos. I felt edgy! But oh, my goodness, were these comfortable. And I loved them with white jeans.

Ah ... summer.