Those were the days...

When you're feeling good, you tend to forget the times when you weren't feeling that great. Like after a bout of flu; the first two days afterward you feel great, you appreciate that your body feels great, no nausea, no running nose, no headache just between the eyes, and you've actually slept 8 hours in a row. Then, by the third day you've forgotten how great you're feeling and you're back to the normal humdrum.

I'm doing the same now, but with finances. Yesterday, we were sitting in front of the TV after eating a full dinner and munching various snacks and C asks if we have any chocolate. We don't. Instead I eat some ice cream, but am still thinking "drat", because I'd much rather have had a bit of chocolate together with a cup of tea.

Now 10 years ago, I was a student getting about 400 EUR a month. House rent was 215 EUR, transportation 135 EUR, books on average 45 EUR, which would leave me with 5 EUR a month for food. Of course it's not possible to live for 5 EUR a month, so I cleaned the neighbours house once a week for 6.5 EUR (one hour). This would leave me with 31 EUR for food + the miscellaneous stuff (hair shampoo, toothpaste, panadols). So what can you eat for 31 EUR? Instant chinese noodles are a good option, I could get a box with 30 packages for 8 EUR. Unfortunately if you eat them for more than three days in a row, you'll get an upset stomach. They are also not very filling and they make you stink of garlic. Another way of saving money is food sampling in the grocery stores. In Odense where I lived they had food sampling every Thursday and my friend Flemming and I would go together from one store to the other. It didn't fill me up (I was too polite to take more than one item from each booth). Lastly, sometimes we would actually dissect something edible in our Animal Classification class, and we would cut off the meat first and put it in the fridge, while we rummaged through the brain and entrails. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that a bar of chocolate was a luxury in those days - and that's something worth remembering. Now the only things that stand between me and the chocolate are my weight and the distance to the grocer on the other side of the street. I'm a lucky gal. :)

Sigh...

Spent two hours refining Siofra, waited for about a day and a half, then it got rejected again. This time the anatomy needs work. It's a first anatomy rejection for me. This is of course MUCH worse than an unrefined rejection, especially since it's water colour and difficult to alter. Anyway, below is a smaller version of the painting. I'll probably rework it or at least try to take a better photo of it before I submit it to the other galleries. Someone mentioned that it looked somewhat blurred. However, I probably need to shelve it for a while before working with it again.

C and I did the art quizz. I picked 19 other water colour drawings with female characters and mixed them with mine. The point of this being was that he had to guess which was mine and to see if I had a recognizable style. Apparently I don't. With a loud, gleeful exclamation he pointed to the picture he was 100% sure was mine. Words like "too easy" were uttered...but in fact the painting in question wasn't mine. In the end, he managed to narrow down the search, but still had to be told which one was done by yours truly. I have to admit that it was FUN! Not only to have him guess, but to put my painting next to all the others. I'm already planning the next one, which will...aehm...of course be much better than this one. Although I am rather pleased with how Siofra turned out despite all the rejections. But then I'm always pleased with new work (art and writing) until after a couple of weeks when the glaring mistakes start to appear, slowly, like smell of old cheese left in the fridge.