Night Walking

I just got back from a late night hour-long walk. I am guzzling water, and my legs are making those tiny muscle twitches that remind me of how a car engine makes ticking sounds when it's cooling down. The temperature was nice, but the humidity was brutal. It was so humid a visible mist hung in the air, and there was heat lightning in the distance. The grass was wet, and windows and my glasses were fogged up. It was worth it though. I hardly ever walk alone these days. It's nice to walk with my husband or my best friend, but walking alone is wonderful in its own way.

I love walking late at night like this. The world is a different place by the light of streetlamps and a sliver of a moon passing in and out of clouds. Everything is more mysterious and darkly beautiful. It's a little scary sometimes, too. An unexpected shadow or unexplained noise can easily make my mind jump to zombies or drunken rapists or vampire rabbits. My mind is a little too imaginative. I'm sure this town doesn't have any rapists, and only a few zombies. It does have a lot of drunks, though, so I avoid Main Street where all the bars are. I like to walk near the river. There aren't any roads that specifically run next to the river; it criss-crosses all over town, and you have to make sure the road you're on is one with a bridge or you may end up walking an extra three blocks to get to one. My favorite spot is the park, but I can't walk in the park at night, especially with my dog, lest I get hassled by the fine police force. A small part of the sidewalk is just close enough that I can see the reflections in the water, making everything look a little more romantic and fantastical; and hear the ducks splashing in the water.

Night walking is the perfect time to think. I don't have to exchange niceties with other walkers, I don't have to hold my dog back from trying to join a group of kids playing in their yard, I don't have to worry about what the people driving by think of my not-so-thin physique jiggling along the sidewalk. (Ok, that last one is probably all in my head. I hope.) I can just let my mind wander. Sometimes I try to think up new ideas for projects, sometimes I think about life and financial problems, and sometimes I just let my mind make up stories. The humidity tonight had me thinking about last week's heat wave. My house doesn't have central air, or even any window air conditioners, except one in the bedroom that we only run for a few hours at night to sleep comfortably. The days were mind-meltingly hot. The beauty products in my bathroom melted. I sat on the couch in next to nothing, with two fans blasting on me, and even then I was still sweating, and couldn't work up the energy to work on a single project. It's similar even in the winter. We have heat, of course, but to save on the bill, we keep the temp in between 60 and 64 at the most. The beauty products in my bathroom freeze, and I sit on the couch huddled in blankets, sometimes with a hat and gloves on, too cold to bring my hands out from under the blanket to work on a project. (I know, I know, I should get a Snuggie. lol NOT)

It's weird how something as simple as temperature can dominate your life. When you're uncomfortable, one way or the other, it's all you can think about. Even at work, which is air conditioned, my mind just kept repeating, "I'm so comfy now. I don't want to go home. Too hot. Ugh." Of the two options, though, I think I prefer the cold. I'm not a huge fan of winter, because I hate driving in the snow and I miss green growing things, but it's a lot easier to add layers to get warm. There's only so many layers you can take off to cool down. My favorite seasons are spring and fall. I love it when the temperature is crisp; you could put on a jacket to warm up a little, but you don't really need to. Fingerless gloves are more of a fashion statement than a necessity, but they don't cause you to overheat either.

As a side note, I spent today getting a lot of work done. I've been inspired by Kat Von D's recent twittering to start doing a sketch every day. Any artist should do a lot of sketching anyway, but I've noticed that since starting a business that doesn't require me to draw out my ideas before working on them, I've fallen out of the habit. It's been too long since I've done any painting, and I want to get back into that too, but I should at least be sketching to keep my talents sharp. My first sketch for today turned into a full-color drawing. I just couldn't resist. I'm going to try to keep it to quick pencil sketches after this, though. I'll never commit to a sketch a day if they all end up turning into two-hour detailed projects. Here is my Twitpic feed, where I'll be posting the daily updates.

The other project I hinted at is coming along pretty well so far. When I said my house was filling up with glitter, I meant it. I found glitter on the dog's nose that didn't want to come off. I still want to do some more work before I show you, though. In the meantime, here's another fun treasury I'm included in, all about Trilobites! Who says Trilobite is extinct?????

Listening to: Jill Tracy (great night-walking music)
Pic: Day 1's sketch

Wisconsin Weather and Gardening Adventures

A day like this calls for piping hot tea first thing in the morning.

Wisconsin can't seem to make up its mind on the weather, which is not at all unusual for Wisconsin, I suppose. Last month we had an amazingly warm week. Flowers bloomed, people put away their winter coats; it was lovely. Then we spent a week being rained, snowed, and hailed on. Really, weather? Fine, it's April, sometimes things like that happen. The next couple weeks were actually quite springlike. The weather was cool, but not unbearably so, and we had warmer days. It rained, but no more snow and hail. Then last week we apparently jumped into summer a bit early. The humidity was terrible, but it was followed by some pretty epic storms with thunder that rattled the windows. (The storms are my favorite part of summer, by the way.) This week, we are apparently back to cold again. The temperature wouldn't be so bad by itself if it weren't for the icy, strong winds.

Getting any gardening done has been next to impossible. The nicest days always seem to be when I'm working, especially when I'm working a long shift. I have flowers planted in my front garden, and I even did some weeding, which for me is impressive. Usually the weeds and the flowers grow next to each other all season long. In the backyard, I did a bit of weeding and planting in the flowerbeds, and my husband and I installed some new bushes around the patio. We even went to the city's free yard site and collected a few bags of mulch to put around the bushes. I still need to tackle weeding and mulching the blueberry bushes, but the rest of the flowerbeds look quite professional right now. The poor vegetable garden, on the other hand, looks atrocious. I haven't been able to find a nice day that my husband and I are both actually home to till up the vegetable garden and re-fence it. Thus, no vegetables have been planted back there yet. I have some rhubarb growing from last season, and some seedling veggies from the farmer's market on the front porch just waiting to go in the ground, but no time to actually get them back there.

Last year, I will freely admit, I didn't put any time or effort into gardening and just let whatever happen happen. Surprisingly, I did get a few blueberries from the bushes, but the birds had free reign of most of them. I also had a few perennials sprout on their own and take care of themselves pretty well. I even had pumpkins in the veggie garden. They must have sprouted from the rotted Halloween pumpkins we put back there the autumn before. This year I intend to put as much effort into gardening as I tried to the first year I lived in this house. The first year, I planted tomatoes and herbs and pumpkins and gourds and flowers and peas and so many other things.... and almost nothing came to fruition. Perhaps that's why I was so lackadaisical last summer. Why bother, I said. But even without bothering, I did manage to have some results, so if I actually put in some effort this year, maybe my results will be even better now that I've learned a little.

Today is windy and chilly, but also sunny. I have a lot on my to-do list. I have to start getting ready for the first craft fair of the season coming up this Saturday. That means packing up my tote full of displays, taking inventory of everything I've made and/or sold since the last craft fair in November, pricing everything and getting it onto cards to hang on the displays, organizing everything into more totes without crushing anything, deciding what to bring and what to leave behind, and packing an emergency fix-it kit. Don't get me wrong; I LOVE doing craft fairs. They are my bread and butter all summer long, and it's really rewarding when you have a good fair where your items sell at a decent pace, or even better, sell like hotcakes. But the effort is exhausting sometimes. I only have a couple days off this week to use to get ready. Whenever I look outside, though, despite the chilly wind, the sun beckons to me. Nature is what I take my inspiration from. I can't resist the chance to go outside and revel in it.

I think I'll try to do a little of both today. I'll work inside and see if the wind calms down, and if it stays sunny out, and maybe I'll spend a couple hours outside before I come back in to finish the task at hand. I suppose I'd better finish my tea and get to work.

Listening to: Rasputina's latest album, Great American Gingerbread
Pics: Some of my flowers :)