I can't shake the feeling that I passed a milestone today. For the first time, I feel like I am more than halfway moved in, closer to settled than in transition. The best part is that the emotional sense of peace that came with the realization also came with a physical sensation of relaxation. My shoulders are soft, my stomach is calm, and my jaw is unclenched. I don't get this feeling often. If I didn't know better, I'd think I just spent an hour in the hot tub at Bonfire Gardens, sipping on a tall glass of amaretto. But no, I am alcohol-free this evening, and all my good feelings are earned by hard work.
I prioritized all my projects well, putting the hardest ones first. The coat for my daughter took me twice as long as I expected it to, and it required long days of delicate, focused work. As soon as it was done, I dove into unpacking and moving in more. Over the last two days, I painted the main bathroom upstairs. The very first gallon of paint I bought for this house, the week we closed on it, was for that bathroom, but it kept getting pushed down the line. By the time I got back around to it, I was horrified to realize I bought the absolute wrong color. It was supposed to complement the sea foam green sink and tub. What I thought was a perfectly good aqua ended up being straight up blue in that setting. I had to dash off and buy a different, greener color. I feel like I have looped myself. The first room I painted in the first house I ever owned was a minty green, to cover up an awful salmon pink bedroom. For at least ten years, I've wondered, why did I think mint green was right for me? And yet, here I am, in what might be the last house I ever buy, going out of my way to get a paint that looks exactly like mint chocolate chip ice cream (minus the chocolate). And so it doesn't seem like I'm wasting that first gallon of pale aqua blue, I'm thinking maybe it will be used in the downstairs bedroom. It might help it feel less like a basement.
The weather is staying warm, warmer than I was promised. Every time I see highs in the 70s in the long-range forecast, I get excited, and every time they pull them out, I am disappointed. But I have to remind myself, the longer it stays warm and sunny, the more of my tomatoes will ripen. I picked a handful of them today, and had enough for a BLT salad for dinner. (One learns to improvise when one no longer eats sandwiches.) I'm not sure what I will do if they all ripen at once. There are hundreds of tomatoes just perched on the edge of turning red. It has been a decade since we tried to can anything. I'm ready to relearn. It sounds like a wonderful problem to have.
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