Mixed Feelings (#9)

Last night, we drove out for a fizzy drink and along our route there were dozens of sandhill cranes just hanging out in the fields. I know someone is feeding them, because when we stopped the car, they all started coming over. I have very mixed feelings about that. Very mixed feelings.

I was up in the night, so I sat down to work in the art journal I bought a few days ago at Michaels. I'm calling the journal "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" because I'm giving myself complete permission to create the ugliest things ever in it. And as a secondary requirement, I'm using every single pen, pencil, and marker that I can in it. (So far, I've probably used about 75 or 80 different writing or coloring instruments in it. And those are just the ones in reach. I haven't even broken into my stash of things.) (I may have a problem.)

I did that for a few hours, then I went back to bed. I ended up sleeping in and waking up to Dave's stressing about his mother's health. That is a huge mess right now and today he is down at the hospital with her while she is being checked out. Happy holidays.

So I'm home alone.

Our breakfast this morning was a step above high school. Let's call it a college level breakfast: Leftover pizza, heated up in the toaster oven, coffee, and Toll House chocolate chip cookies (bought as refrigerated dough and cooked in the same toaster oven). Dave remarked that if we had had soda instead of coffee, it would have been a high school breakfast.

After breakfast, Dave went off to the hospital and I went back to bed for a nap. I got up, had two more cookies for lunch, then took a shower and got dressed. Today's lipstick? Bare Mineral GEN NUDE Matte Liquid Lipcolor in the shade Infamous, a mid-toned pinky nude that is definitely not my color. (It was a "reward" from Sephora.) It makes me look like the zombie version of a Hispanic Barbie doll. Not pretty--but pretty dead.

After I was ready (and had toned down the lipstick a bit), I went out for groceries.

The cashier at the co-op said, "You're shopping alone today?"

I bought fruit, milk, bread, yogurt, stuff to make a big pot of chili beans (canned tomatoes, kidney beans, onions, etc.) and some vegetarian sushi from the deli for my own late lunch.

I came home, put everything away, and made a big pot of chili using all the veg in the fridge that had seen better days, including an enormous radish that may have been convinced that it had found its forever home in the crisper drawer. I don't remember when the last time we bought radishes was, but it might have been a few months ago? I don't know. Good thing root vegetables last forever. (It was fine. I ate some of it raw, too.)

After dinner, I sat down to binge watch some Netflix (the last of Man Down, hallelujah!) and texted back and forth with some friends to make plans for dinner this week. (One of them is soon to move to Japan, to live with her husband there, and it may very well be the last time I see her face-to-face for several years.)

It's been a long day at the hospital for Dave; he's still there with his mother. He probably won't be home for several hours yet.