A Self-Indulgent Posting

I've caught the end of Desperate Housewives. Good time to mention: SPOILER ALERT.

It's the end in which Lynette finds out she's beaten cancer. She has this moment of total realization all that which she's escaped when she's in the back yard, soaking in the starry-starry night and the evergreen air and she glances down to see a dead rodent. Here she is, clean, alive, and it's very, very dead. Sounds overwrought but the portrayal of utter reduction that follows was pretty harsh.

And the end tag was, whatever doesn't kill us just makes us stronger. I'm going through this rather idyllic time where my troubles are just difficulties, and everything that faces me is overcomeable. If that's a word. Should be.

I've just been thinking of late how I wish that "wow, I survived, I'm blessed" sense I had after surviving what I had no right to survive, that PTS bliss, could come back for awhile. I can use that utter gratitude of loving to be alive and seeing the best of everything. It's something I'm fighting to resurrect of late. It was a change in attitude. With work, I think I can get there. I'm making progress, but sometimes more is more, you know?

I've been thinking of that of late and it was nice to see a dramatic representation of it. One of the nice things about TV. The big moments are such predictable plots that you can be sure your particular drama will get the primetime treatment somewhere somehow every TV season. Ha.

But I was also thinking earlier how this gratitude I have is starting to manifest in other ways. I have decided this Christmas that I will blow select prints up to 16x20 for holiday gifts, and frame them beautifully, for friends... and for myself. It'll be the first time I've ever concretely shown that I think my photography is work shelling a few bucks out on. It's hard to admit to liking my own work. It feels arrogant. But it also feels a little bit good. :) It'll feel cool to pronounce each print worthy of $80 treatment. It feels self-indulgent in a good way. I can't wait to see my stuff lookin' professional on my wall.

I'm planning to use two new prints as a reason to redecorate the living room. My new works will be the centrepiece of a new style of living room. I hope to buy a new couch next year before my back goes out permanently. Holy crooked support, Batman. And when I do, clean industrial lines to contrast all my big wooden antiques. Leather and metal versus wood. Sleek. But new art? My stuff framed all fancy-pants? This'll feel cool. Very. Going to buy a bunch of new frames and really embrace the feeling a bit... you know, that of being grown-up and sophisticated. I have a new colour palette of paints for the flat, exotic stuff like lavender and saffron and cranberry and aqua. I want to be surrounded by vibrance and passion and optimism. I figure bigger, bolder colours, 24/7 would be a great way to inspire myself to be bigger, bolder, and full of colour too.

I still need to pare more from my life. I think I will start stripping my bookshelves a bit. To store or to donate, that is the question. I need my place to feel less claustrophobic, and that means ditching more of the clutter.

I like that the winter's upon me and I might have more time for "projects" around the home. I do love to be handy. Oh, the fun of it all. I'm thinking of painting my lime green kitchen a sunny saffron yellow. How's that for change? And soon, too.