ABQ: Old Town Chapel

 





















ALBUQUERQUE

Old Town Chapel

Capilla de Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe

The Archdiocese of Santa Fe has an "Our Lady of Guadalupe" church on Griegos road in Albuquerque. Not to be confused with the Guadalupe chapel in Old Town.

I lived in Old Town for quite awhile, starting the late 1990s, before I ever learned about the chapel. It's tucked away quietly behind the Albuquerque Museum to the east, and the Patio Escondido on San Felipe NW to the west. It's not located on a road, per se. Rather, it sits in the back of a patio area to the north of the main plaza and San Felipe church.

The small adobe chapel was built by a nun. It's been rumored to be haunted. However, many buildings in the Old Town Plaza have similar claims.

Until a recent fire, the chapel was cared for and visited by people day and night. It remained open through all seasons. At the entrance was a mural of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Visitors left burning candles and prayers with photos of loved ones.

In the back of the chapel was a more formal shrine to Christ with candles. Along the sides of the chapel were adobe benches and carved wood panels with words.

Read one of the panels:

MY SOUL

HATH DESIRED

THEE IN THE

NIGHT AND WITH

MY SPIRIT WITHIN

ME IN THE MORN

EARLY I WILL

WATCH TO

THEE

STYLE: Shop Own Closet

STYLE

Shop Your Own Closet

The first step to dressing great is to weed out your closet.

Once you have gotten rid of the clothes that no longer work, and you have sorted your clothes down to one season, it's time to go shopping in your own closet. You're going to assemble new outfits from your existing clothes. This may sound easy--but it's actually a lot of work. Be prepared to spend some time.

The trick is to figure out which articles of clothing can be mixed and matched with the rest of the garments in your closet. Any items that are for special occasions only, such as formal wear or bridesmaid dresses, can be set aside. However, don't be too quick to judge. Could that fuchsia gown be paired with a white denim jacket and sandals for a summer dinner out? Or a suit jacket and boots in the winter?

Next, unload your closet. Yes, you've read correctly. Hopefully you have already done the first steps of weeding and sorting by season. All of your remaining clothes, and accessories like scarves, should be taken out of the closet to create outfit combinations.

You may be lucky enough to have a portable garment hanger. But, if not, the bed or the floor can work as well. I set out my clothes in the bedroom, then hang them up outfit by outfit on the shower curtain rod in the bathroom.

The clothes need to be sorted into similar types of fabrics. In most cases, a shiny polyester top isn't going to look good when worn with a natural linen skirt. There are exceptions, say white on white, where the outfit is coordinated by colors. But, in general, outfits look best when paired with similar textures and weights. Think about what goes with what. This is easy for the woman with a closet full of cottons and linens. It will be more challenging for someone who follows a lot of different trends.

There will be some transitional garments that might work with almost everything, such as denim jackets, solid tights, or a classic black tailored blazer.

I find the process of assembling outfits easier if I focus on creating a certain look, instead of trying to figure out every possible combination of clothing I could wear. Having some photos to use as a style inspiration is a big help. For example, when I stopped working in an office, I began to dress very casually. Call it the unemployed look. I realized I needed to figure out a business casual style that wasn't too dressed up. I wasn't going to be walking around in suits. But, at the same time, I was in danger of dressing so informally that I would have trouble procuring local freelance and consulting work. So I needed a new style model.

I browsed online and saved some pictures that were inspiring. They gave me new ideas of how to use my old clothes in a different way. I might add a scarf to a plain shirt to appear a little more polished. Or how to dress in ankle boots in the summer.

One you have general groupings of clothes, the fun begins. Start with an article of clothing that you will use as the base of the look. I like blazers and jackets as the foundation of business casual. Others may like to start with their pants and skirts. The main idea is to pick a category and then work through your clothes in a methodical way.

I started with a purple blazer, then took out every top in my pile, to see what combinations could be created. Each time I found a matching top, I would then go through my pile of skirts and pants to see what worked. I also checked if a scarf might be added. Once I went through every possible combination with my purple blazer, I did the same thing with the next jacket. And so on, until I had worked through every summer jacket or blazer in my closet.

TIP: Keep all the garments in order and go through them methodically each time, so you can keep track of which combinations you've tried. Otherwise, you may get hopelessly confused.

How are you going to remember which outfits work together? Stop and take a photo of each outfit combination. I like to hang the outfits on my shower curtain rod to use the white as a background. I use my cellphone for pictures, so it's easy for me to scroll through the outfits in the morning when I get dressed.

Sounds like a lot of work? Right. But it will save you tons of time digging through your closet in the morning. Not to mention you will find all kinds of new outfit combinations that you never would have considered before.

If you have an enormous amount of time, you could try each outfit on and have a friend take a photo. Not every combination will work when you try it on. However, I find it easier to photo every reasonable combination, then delete the photo later if the outfit doesn't look good.

While this process is time consuming, it's an excellent way to find dozens of new outfits from the existing garments in your closet.

STYLE: Cheap Thrills

STYLE

Cheap Thrills

Inexpensive accessories are fun. While I advocate buying high quality basic garments to create the foundation of a wardrobe, I'm equally a fan of trying out cheap and trendy accessories.

Large, sparkly earrings, extremely bright or loud scarves, over sized plastic rings and strange socks are just a few of the items that can give your outfits a wonderful kick.

I've had cheap plastic earrings that received compliments for years. I have been amazed by some of my friends' artistic creations with jewelry, unusual belts or offbeat thrift store finds. Head to toe coverage in cheapness doesn't look good. But one funky item on an outfit is a touch of whimsy.

Best of all, if you haven't spent much money on your outlandish or trendy items, there is no regret in coming to your senses the next day and getting rid of it.

GARDEN: Raspberries

GARDEN

Raspberries

I've had fairly good luck with my backyard raspberry bush. Quite by accident, I planted the bush on the north side of my house along my turtle garden. In some parts of the country the bushes can be invasive. In Albuquerque, we're just lucky to get them to grow.

The plant is rather clever and has sent up runners under my compost pile, so that I don't need to add compost myself. It also tends to send shoots anywhere in the turtle garden that gets regularly watered.

Last year when we got a lot of smoke for weeks on end from forest fires, it was rather unhappy and didn't grow much. The bush definitely prefers rain over being watered from the tap. But overall, it's done quite well.


Information about growing raspberries in New Mexico.

STYLE: Money Best Spent

STYLE

Money Best Spent

Most of us live on a limited style budget. The best investment, for the money, is spending extra on those things which you'll wear every day--a professional hair cut, professional coloring (if needed), eye glasses, everyday purses or briefcase, and shoes.

Invest in high quality and you're half way there to looking good everyday, without even having to stop and think about it.

ABQ: 1915 Postcard

ALBUQUERQUE

Postcard from 1915

Odd Fellow Building

This is a Henry C Trost building, Lodge #284. Wikipedia lists the building from 1916, although the postcard is listed as ca. 1915. It was postmarked in 1917. The building has since been demolished.

The order runs a campground 3 miles south of Torreon, NM. An Odd Fellow organization is still listed as being an active nonprofit in Albuquerque.

Odd Fellows were known to have cemeteries. A Google search linked them to the now defunct Santa Barbara Cemetery, located Downtown on the south side of Central Ave., between Third and Fourth streets. The site is now occupied by buildings.


Wikipedia has a list of Odd Fellow buildings on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). The site also includes Odd Fellow cemetaries with their architectural styles.

History of Odd Fellow cemetaries in Santa Fe.


Wikipedia lists the organizations as: 

Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF), also known as the Three Link Fraternity, is a global altruistic and benevolent fraternal organization derived from the similar British Oddfellows service organizations which came into being during the 18th century, at a time when altruistic and charitable acts were far less common. In the U.S., it is a Mutual Benefit Corporation (U.S. IRS tax code 501(c)(8)).

STYLE: Clothing Upgrades

STYLE

Clothing Upgrades

Usually garments right off the rack never look quite right. One easy fix to make clothing appear better quality is to upgrade the buttons. Plastic and cheap buttons can be switched to something much better, making the entire outfit appear to be of higher quality. It can also update an older item.

You can achieve a more custom look with your clothing by having garments altered to fit your unique body type by a seamstress or tailor. This is particularly helpful as our bodies age and change. A classic dress may still be in style, but no longer fit well a decade later.