Winner of the chicken dinner

This fight was different. This time I am not buying a computer to write a book or fixing up the studio to comfort myself - I need to move ahead with my goals.

Life goals:

a cabin in the woods

publish a novel

paint what I want, when I want, and not worry about marketing/sales

be an involved member of the local art community 

be a kind and loving grandma who bakes way too much 

get a dog

revisit old places/catch up with old friends

never pay someone to push me out of an airplane 

I might only be able to afford a piece of shit off-grid shack in the middle of nowhere, but it would be my piece of shit shack  - just me, my dog, my trained raccoons, and all the bears I can eat. 

- - -

So that was how things were going when we went to the art show reception to collect my honorable mention, and we saw red dots next to both my paintings. Nobody else's had them, so I had to double-check that red dots still meant "sold" and not "disqualified, gtfo" or something, but yes! They sold! That felt like a grand prize to me, and I let myself enjoy a little quiet gloating for a couple of minutes. Ha, take that, baby judge. People still like classical realism.

And you know what? It's just enough money to book a plane ticket to see a guy about a cabin. 

(*cough* or pay the dentist)

the man took some pictures of me making weird faces as a show of effort, which I do actually appreciate

I don't like talking about things that haven't happened yet, in case they fall through, but I am stating my intentions here so it's harder to back out. It's this or hiking the Appalachian Trail to annoy Brooke, and this is less work.

Edited to add the winners from the show, for those as curious as I was: