Making My Brain Hurt Again

Some people are adrenaline junkies and search out every new adventure. Some people spend all day on social media looking for that next dopamine hit. I have decided that I am addicted to making my brain hurt. I am forever looking for something challenging to try next. The husband often asks me why I spend so much time on frustrating activities like fitting and making my own clothing. I do it because it’s difficult.

I have no idea if there is a clinical diagnosis for this condition, but there you go. This is also why my bedtime reading material consists of trashy romance novels. By the end of the day, my brain just wants to relax with fluff, although I’m usually editing in my head as I read.

Yesterday was painting class. Four students met in Sunnie’s yard at 9 am. We set up our easels and decided what to paint. Last year, I did a landscape. This year, I chose the small cabin that serves as Sunnie’s painting studio:

Painting is hard, y’all. I am mostly happy with this, though. Lindalee, our teacher, told me I need to have more grace for myself. She’s right. I shouldn’t demand perfection from myself in a one-day painting class. I really need to do this more than once a year, too.

I found it fascinating that four different painters could have four different styles and yet all were beautiful. I am (slowly) recognizing what I like and just have to trust myself. I don’t know all the “rules” but that may be a good thing.

[Do you see that little whitish blip in the upper right-hand corner of the painting? I’m not sure what I was doing there, but I decided to leave it. I told the husband that was wildfire smoke. 😬]

What an enjoyable day, despite the 90+ degree heat. Cooler weather returns tomorrow. Seattle is getting a rare-for-August atmospheric river late this week and it looks like we may get the remnants of that.

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I fed chickens when I got home, then finished the blueberry top:

I may make one more woven top. The time is almost here, though, to begin thinking about making cool-weather clothes. I have a stack of patterns I am itching to try.

This has been a busy week and I haven’t been here much. The poor husband is getting whatever I can cobble together for dinner. Zucchini is waiting to get made into zucchini bread.

We are consigning to the BMW to the same equipment seller that has the husband’s 2022 work truck. The husband and I will drive it up there tomorrow. I am sad that The Diva is going away, but I haven’t driven it since I got the Jeep. As much as I loved that car, I feel safer in the Jeep with all the idiot drivers out there. If BMW ever resumed production of a diesel station wagon, though, I might change my mind.