An Afternoon at the Library & My January Reading List

I found my monthly reading lists really helpful last year to help myself put aside time to read. When I was younger I never needed to set aside the time, I devoured books at such a rate my mother used to limit how many I was allowed to check out at the time. The limit tended to be what I could carry on my own and despite my over-enthusiasm I never ended up with a library fine! Like a lot of young bookish girls I was quite concerned about blemishes on my "permanent record" so a late book fine seemed nearly as scary as detention or dragons (because like a lot of young bookish girls I also read a lot of books about dragons). Anyway, in the last few years my book-reading has largely fallen by the wayside. But small, achievable monthly goals are handy to get me back into the swing of reading. Sometimes you need a little nudge to return to favorite habits--I could also use a nudge to set some healthy exercise goals for myself, but well, that is a story for another day! Last year I re-read Anne of Green Gables and quickly chased it with the rest of the series (Anne's House of Dreams actually made me tear up but it was beautiful), so I decided to start January on a similar note tackling as much of the Emily of New Moon series by L.M. Montgomery that I can. She's no Anne-girl, but I think I could spend a whole year just read L.M. Montgomery's books and be incandescently happy. Her descriptions of the world and nature, her balance of realism and romanticism is so lovely. Reading her novels is like finding words for things you felt but didn't know how to describe. Even her term for that, kindred spirits, feels without compare. What are you reading lately?  

Off the topic of books and more on to brogues--this dress has been wallowing in my closet for ages. I don't wear a lot of brown (or at least I haven't in the past) so I was really struggling with what to pair it with. A tweed dress calls for a cozier look, but what shirt pairs under a sleeveless but collared dress? Black tights seemed to clash with the dark brown collar so even finding tights or shoes to pair with it were a struggle. Finally I stumbled across these two-tone oxfords by Miss Royal Vintage and the rest of the outfit fell into place--although I'd still like to find a dark brown pair of tights to make this look even cozier. Sheer tights are not ideal in January weather! I got away with it on this day though since I only spent a short period of time outside quick-stepping to the Robinson Library in Armagh. It's a perfect outfit for the library, but really it's also just an outfit I'm finally glad to be able to wear any day at all!