We are approaching the second anniversary of the Rapunzel Chair, a living art project from the fertile mind of my wife and former girlfriend. In a week or so, when we stop feeding the animals hay, Maria says the chair will be finished. Then she will pull another old chair out of the second floor of the barn and begin another fiber chair.

She says she means to keep them, they are all made out of baling string from the hay.

Maria never shops, and almost never shops retail unless it is an absolute last resort. She is very happy shopping in consignment and thrift stores (her new blue boots, purchased at Factory Supply, are a rare exception). On our way to Hampton Beach, she did stop and looked for some new leggings – she loves leggings, and I didn’t know what they were until we got married. The store we stopped at didn’t have any leggings on sale, so Maria wouldn’t buy any.

But hers are getting faded and springing holes. So I went trawling online and found some wild Navajo-designed leggings that I think are in her size (she is a runt, so they must be small.) and are creative and different.

I think she will like them, they are cheap (like her) and she would not ever buy them new for herself.

It was an education for me to trawl through the Amazon reviews and see the comments made about leggings. Women talk so differently and openly about their clothes, and they are hell-bent on helping one another. I’m excited to see if these work.