My life for the past year has been a study in resilience. On Sept 27,2023 I received word that my rent was going up on my apartment in Indianapolis. I had just moved from working for the state of Indiana to working on my art full time. I couldn’t afford this increase so I decided to not renew my lease. The next few months were filled with packing and organizing and trying my best to come up with plans forward. I had plans A to Z. None of them worked out. Thanks to friends and family I didn’t have to sleep in my car or on the street but it was a scary few months filled with moving from place to place. I lived in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Michigan and finally in Maryland during a period of three months. I woke up many a morning having to remind myself of where I was staying. The scariest night was in December when the room I had booked on line turned out to be too sketchy even for me. I had to make the hard choice and use some of the last of my money to stay in a cheap hotel. I survived the night and found a cheap but safe looking place to stay while I worked in Hershey PA. I absolutely loved the school system and the town but couldn’t find housing that I could afford.
Thank goodness for friends. I was gifted the opportunity to house sit in Michigan for the month of January and snuggled in to a warm place to stay while I looked for a job. I had landed a full time position and had found a place to live until the end of the school year. I thought I was going to start a life up in the land of snow and sand. Little did I know that a phone call would change all of that.
Long story short. I move to Maryland to help my middle daughter. We have been living together out here since February. I am happy to have a stable place to sleep tonight and we are working out way around how to move into the future. It has been fun to get to know my grand daughter as she is with us every other weekend and one day a week. She loves to paint and draw so we have an apartment filled with both of our art. It is fun seeing her work with the various media. If I am working on something while she is here she snuggles right in behind me so she can take in everything I am doing.
I am currently working on several projects. I have a long term chicken project where I am exploring a ton of different ways to approach the same subject. The drawing of the hen and eggs is part of that project. Included in that plan is a children’s book about some stories my mom has told me about chickens she had as a little girl. I hope to add a quilt and other components. There is a long list of 100 side projects to keep my busy until I die of old age. There are a couple of other books that are in the works as well as organizing my photos and such. It helps me to have a lot of projects so my mind stays growing instead of spirally into darkness.
I have made it a year and am still alive so we are calling that a win!