Lean in close and speak to me low. Tell me things you want me to know...
Well, this month has been hectic as all get-out. But it's almost Thanksgiving, and school is somehow slowing ever-so-slightly down, and I somehow have had time in the past day or two to actually get some stuff accomplished in the whole "settling in" process. Things still aren't as I want them to be, but they're much closer than they were a few days ago. It's nice. I'm falling back in love with my new apartment. Months of messy and cluttered and not-quite-unpacked had made it lose it's appeal for a while. But I'm starting to get my stuff almost up to the level of cuteness inherent to the apartment (the beautiful fireplace, nice woodwork, and cut-glass doorknobs). It's not even close to perfect, but I'm optimistic about it being pretty damn close to perfect by my birthday. Today I got towels and curtains and things that can replaced the mismatched hodgepodge of crap that I've been using. And my mom swears she'll have my couch done by my birthday, to match my beautiful chair. Yay.
My sister and her family are coming back into town tomorrow. They're staying a week for Thanksgiving. Damn, I'm stoked for Thanksgiving. We're actually celebrating it on the day, this year. We haven't done that in years.
Just two weeks left in the quarter. Less than 2 weeks till my birthday. I'm not currently panicked about any of my final projects, though my art ed paper is a little intimidating. I've discovered, over my last few painting projects, that I'm kind of falling in love with painting. And I'm starting to get pretty decent at it. This quarter has definitely gotten me hooked on another art form. Today I tried painting a face for the first time. My own, in a mirror. Julie says the painting looks like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. I think it looks like me, though. At least more recognizably me than I ever expected to be able to do on a first attempt. Oil paint is very forgiving, and easy to fix mistakes in. I really like that about it. My last painting was my best one yet. It was a night-scene of a weathered old wooden shed on my grandparents' farm. It's the first painting I'm actually kind of proud of. I might hang it in my living room. And even the painting before that, which was a still-life with cupcakes and orange grapes and all sorts of bottles and pitchers, was something I might hang up in my house. I think I always assumed I'd suck at painting, because I can't watercolor for crap and drawing isn't one of my strong suits, but now I'm really excited about painting whatever the hell I want when this quarter is over. I have a whole stack of blank canvases, just waiting to be filled with something I love.
Now to figure out just what I'm going to do for my birthday. Suggestions?