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outfit: Rue Stiic Pamela Knit Tee and Shea Knit Pant (runs small, recommend sizing up)| Suzanne Rae velcro sandals (true to size) | Dagne & Dover fanny pack

It’s been a while. How are you?

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For me, it’s been busy but in a good way. I’m about 4 months into working from home with my new outpatient job. The start of any new practice is generally the busiest time because every patient is new to you. But as my schedule is getting full, I’m starting to feel more settled in and the pace of work is gradually getting more manageable. Overall, I’m feeling optimistic and can, for once, see myself staying at my current job long term. I’m feeling really grateful.

In other news, I received my second dose of the Moderna vaccine a couple of weeks ago. Like a lot people, I developed a fever the night after the 2nd dose. My fever was surprisingly high, 102.9 degrees F, and this was after taking Tylenol! I didn’t feel totally back to normal until two days later. But that’s a small price to pay for immunity. All of my physician friends have now been fully vaccinated, and we’re all feeling relieved and more comfortable socializing with each other. It’s been nice to start gathering with some friends again even if it’s only a select group.

Otherwise, I’ve been mostly hunkered down at home, hardly going out except for walks with the dog and the grocery store. Limited to these activities, I’ve virtually replaced carrying handbags with fanny packs. Juggling masks, hand sanitizer and the dog leash, I just can’t be bothered with using my shoulders/arms for carrying a purse. For a while, I was wearing the Baggu fanny pack but noticed that I was letting it get cluttered up with random junk, and because it’s unstructured, half the time it looked lumpy and weighed down. I decided to try one that was smaller and more structured (in the photo). So far so good. The small size forces me to only carry the essentials– wallet, keys, phone, hand sanitizer and poop bags.

As for clothes, I’ve been gravitating towards washable 100% cotton knitwear lately. Our current apartment doesn’t have in-unit laundry. We have access to coin operated machines in a shared area, so it’s a bit harder to launder our clothes. I was using woolite dry cleaning cloths in the dryer when we lived in our old apartment to freshen up cashmere and wool blends. But that just seems like too much trouble with our communal set up. A lot of my cashmeres and wool are just collecting dust because I don’t want to deal with washing them.

100% cotton knitwear though, is surprisingly difficult to find. Seems like everything is cashmere these days. I’m curious about Babaa’s cotton line, but is it because it’s all over Instagram? I want to give it more thought and not be too impulsive about that decision. I picked up this royal blue set at a local shop recently. I love that it’s ribbed and all cotton. The label says it should be dry cleaned, but I feel pretty confident it’ll do fine in the cold/gentle cycle and laid flat to dry.

How about you? Do you avoid certain fabrics because they are too fussy to clean?