Have You Missed the First button Hole?

Coming from My Collins Desk Top calendar on Feb.18th is this observant quote from Goethe. “Once you have missed the first button hole, you’ll never manage to button up.”
Again a very simple observation from everyday life, but one with a profound implication to many things other than clothing with buttons, isn’t it?
Yes there are some things that even if you start out wrong, you can correct along the way if you have the time etc. But there are many, many more things in life, as well as with clothing, where, we don’t have that luxury; and if we start out wrong, then we will always finish up wrong every time and the only way to fix it, is to start all over again at the beginning, and literally, begin again, hopefully this time getting it all right, right from the start.
So it makes a lot of sense to spend a little more time and care at the beginning and get it right first up doesn’t it? Rather than to both start and finish wrong and waste all the time and effort.
So today and not just with your Clothing, what do you need to spend a little more time and care with, just to make sure you both start and finish with all your buttons in the right order and place?

Cardigan, Vest or Windcheater?

In my, “Me? Trendy,” article recently, I used interchangeably the words, Cardigan, Vest and Windcheater. Now you may be wondering which is correct.

I honestly don’t know. I was happy to generically call them Windcheaters, which is what I bought them as. However I had felt compelled to also refer to them as a Cardigan, so as to describe it more accurately verbally. Or so I thought!

At the same time, while I would never have called it a vest myself, I can see how others saw it that way. So at the end of this discussion, I don’t know the correct name for them. All I know is that they achieved the purpose I bought them for. To keep me warm from the Wind.

Instead of asking which is correct, it may be more instructive to ask, does it really matter what we call them?

Yes and no. On the one hand it doesn’t matter what you call it as long as it achieves the purpose that you bought it for.

On the other, it does help when talking about something if you are all on the same wave length. It did not help me to find it again by asking about a wind cheater, when my sister was thinking of a Cardigan.

Yes we did eventually work out that we were both talking about the same thing, but time and effort was wasted in doing so. This time, no real damage or delay was inflicted by/on us talking/thinking at cross purposes to each other, but that is not always so.

So we need to be careful when we are talking with others that we are all on the same wavelength and that when we use a word we also need to be sure that others understand it in the same way as we do or they and we can sometimes be completely misled.

What about you? Are you careful in what you say? Are you always hearing what the other person is actually saying, or do you only “hear” through your own understanding of the words said?

For your own sake, as well as others, be aware of what you are really saying: Walter

Me? Trendy?

Me and Trendy, especially related to clothes, is a real oxymoron. Me and comfortable clothes, is more accurate, even if everyone else thinks them daggy! Comfortable, not trendy, is my scene.

Real Australian men are supposed to wear Jumpers, not Cardigans. But me, I have always been a cardigan type person. Being a bit of a cold fish, I found Cardigans more accessible as you can still wear them, undone, and be cool, yet not cold, like I would if I had a jumper on and had taken it off. As Zippers came more and more into fashion, I much preferred them over buttons.

Since our return from O/S I have acquired a liking for those el-cheepo Windcheaters made of some warm but light material, which are also relatively quite cheap too.

My father on the other hand was a jumper man nearly all of his grown years. Right up to a couple of months before his passing. Before then I had visited him in the Hospital one day and he was sitting dressed in a chair by his bed and although reasonably warm, he was complaining of being cold. At that time I had on a light, tight warm jumper, which I knew he would never be able to get his arms into. Then I remembered that I had one of these windcheaters in the car, so I went and got that and put it on him, and later left it with him. A couple of weeks later I enquired of my youngest sister where the windcheater was. When she worked out that I was asking about what she called a cardigan with a zip, she told me that he loved it because it was easier for him to get on and off.

With that thought in mind and his 86^th Birthday, we went out and bought him a new one of his own and at the same time bought him a sleeveless one too. I have never really been a fan of sleeveless jumpers and such; but as I am a real cold fish, I thought I would buy one of these zippered windcheaters for myself and wear it under the normal one when it was really cold and over a jumper, when it was only so so. Over the course of 3 days, both of my daughters independently remarked on how trendy I looked in my new vest.

This prompted the following thoughts. Firstly that there is hope for every one at some stage or another. Even though it has taken some 55 years, even daggy old me, has finely been called trendy.

Secondly I find it incredible that something as simple as one piece of clothing can change people’s opinions so easily.

Thirdly at how cheaply this change can be. In my case, these particular items of clothes were marked down to $7.95 or two for $12.

This got me to further thinking. Firstly, as to how easily someone else’s words can effect your/our mental well-bearing. And likewise how ours can affect theirs!

Secondly, at how often, we can effect a person’s well being, with some thing very simple and basic to everyday life.

And thirdly, at how often this can also be so inexpensive for us to do.

Is there some simple, easy inexpensive thing that you can do, to improve the life of others, even if you never get called trendy by doing it?