Sunflowers

It’s sort of a toss-up to say whether tulips or sunflowers are my very favorites. I do love them both. And neither lend themselves to having bouquets of them around the house. Although I told myself, yesterday, I just had to do something useful like scrub the refrigerator or clean drawers or vacuum or even write a sermon, I found it difficult to keep moving yesterday. I suspect the heat got to me. I turned on the air and that helped some, but I was still uncomfortable. Must have been a great day for the beach-goers!

I did manage to finish my ironing (I had let it go for months), while I watched a couple of movies. So that was at least productive. I re-read a book I love “Scent of Water” while listening to Diane Krall jazz with Mia cuddled on my lap. That was wonderful. I also painted. That finally brings me around to Sunflowers. I did a painting of Sunflowers from a book called “Acrylic Painting for Beginners”.  I found, however,  that I couldn’t stand to follow his suggestions and went off working on my own. I realized that all the practice mixing colors had made it possible for me to do my own color work without following his suggestions. I liked the final result. So much so that I put it in a frame and hung in on the wall. I just happened to have a frame for that size of canvas, so I wanted to see how it looked and then I just stuck it up on the wall. I like it. It’s small, so it wasn’t ambitious, and not all that hard.

In just a while João will arrive home together with his parents who are coming for a visit. A couple of people reacted with horror when they heard I was spending carnival alone. I was looking forward to it, for basically I am an introvert. When, however, everyone was finally gone on Friday morning (João left on Thursday) I had a brief sinking moment of “what will I do with myself?” That didn’t last long. I did whatever I wanted and it was a wonderful respite for me. I just did what I wanted when I wanted. It’s not like I was out of contact with people, as I talked on the cell phone, Skype and other chat groups every single day. But I especially liked my mornings, just sitting out on the veranda, reading and meditating with my cup of coffee. I thought I would do so many things, and the days rushed by while I crawled around. Now suddenly my alone time has evaporated and soon I will have a full house. It’s amazing how we adapt to our circumstances, isn’t it?