Last year in September, I left Debby at the grocery store while I ran some other errands. She was still deep into shopping when I got back. I’d been doing a lot of coloring that month, so I grabbed a Halloween-themed cat coloring book I found inside the grocery store and colored in the car while I waited. I think the page (above right) is the only one I colored from it, not even another one in October. I posted the page only on Instagram.
Today, I enjoyed an incredibly productive day, and I think that’s because I’d had eight solid hours of sleep with no interruptions, which is kind of a miracle. Along with three rounds of dog and dog-waste policing I did on the grounds, I dust-mopped the house to get up lots of dog hair, dust, and leaf bits, mopped the library, cleaned both bathrooms, ate all my meals and took all meds as scheduled, washed up the dinner dishes (Debby cooked the meal she shared with us), and most of all, I FINISHED THE CHAPTER that I’ve been working on since the seventeenth century. It needs a reread and no doubt some edits, but now I can move on, and hopefully the next ones for the remainder of this novel will go more quickly. Nothing would make me happier than to have a full draft of Book 7 before New Year’s Day.
To celebrate, I took a break to dig out that 2023 coloring book and color a Halloween page. Tomorrow will be my last skeleton-music-homage photo for the season on Instagram, so I’ll devote Thursday to posting those here before we officially close the Halloween season by sundown (no trick-or-treaters this year).
I learned at a very toddler age that crayons and parked cars in the Arizona desert heat do not hold together. The same with records in the sun on a patio table and a plastic cup that fit perfectly on a lamp’s lightbulb I thought I could use as a lampshade. They all melted spectacularly into goo. But bringing back coloring would make a startling change to doomscrolling, if I could color as beautifully as you do.
Thank you for being kind. The trick, as I’ve learned in Houston’s heat and cars, is colored pencils.
I think I got my glass pumpkin and toadstool ornaments out a couple of days before Hallowe’en this year. Lazy sod!
I have a friend who LOVES Hallowe’en, and I enjoying seeing photos of how she decorates her house in October. She’s had one of the toughest year-plus a few months, and anything that makes her happy makes me happy for her.
I really should make more effort, since it does bring me pleasure. I am going to make more of an effort for Christmas this year. A friend coming to stay just afterwards for New Year, so that is good motivation.