Unsupervised

I worried a bit that I might actually be lonely, once I was faced with a dark night in a quiet house, but I am a house cat of a human being. To mark my territory, I washed all the bedding to get rid of the smells of other humans, hung them out in the sun to dry, remade all the beds, and tidied the rooms so they looked the way I liked. I bought groceries just for me - lox, capers, tomatoes, light nut milk, salad greens, sugar-free creamer - and planned my meals for the day with my calorie-tracker app. 

When you finally have time to do things, you want to do everything all at once, and I finally settled on a routine: writing for an hour every morning*, painting until lunch while the light is good, chores and projects until dinner, and drawing/planning for the next day in the evening while watching a tv show. I go to bed happy and sore, have bad dreams about going back home, and wake up glad to be alone in my own bed. I don't suppose the dreams will get any better, the closer to going back I get, but at least I don't have to think about that during the day.

On Wednesday, I painted the living room a color I like. Yesterday, I used the old bucket of stain in the pantry to re-paint the porch. I have one more regular payday left before I go on half-pay, and I'll put a bit aside to paint the dining room and hallway, and maybe the kitchen, since I'm saving on gas and grocery money right now. The coordinating paint chips are all laid out and labeled on the table, ready to go while nobody is around to talk me into more sensible colors. 

 

shut up, I love it, I'll change the curtains later

 

 Next year I'll paint the porch a Jelly Bean Row kind of color, but this is what I had, and at least it's ready for winter now.

 

I'm painting flowers, and primed some small boards for little landscape studies. I've got lino-cut panels to carve, once I've drawn a design. It feels like summer break as a kid, I'm excited for each day, and each part of the day. I miss my kids, and I look forward to seeing my cats, but this is the most I've felt like myself in ages. 

 

*A couple years ago I started writing a book, and it was flying out of my fingers for months before my flash drive was stolen by a library hobo. I haven't been able to get started on it again, because I know I can't rewrite everything the way it was, and so many of the plot details are lost to me now. I did a lot of research before starting the first draft, and all of that went with the flash drive. Instead of re-researching all of it, I put on a Ken Follet audio book (World Without End), because that is a man who will read you every bit of research he's ever done, with a good story to go with it. And it's 45 fucking hours long, so I can paint in the mornings and learn about medieval feudal systems and church hierarchy for the next week and a half. I've only written a couple pages so far, but I'm hoping the block will crack if I keep hammering at it.