Ashley Gets Lost

I was not so bad about taking pictures this time, but a few of these photos may or may not have been stolen from the group chat, including this one!

Julia’s house is high up on a hill in Aptera, and the wind made it not an ideal location for the last art night. The lovely Simona offered up her roof instead. She lives by the harbor in Chania and has an absolutely gorgeous view!

The theme this week was “liminal spaces”. Our art host Olya was feeling inspired by the movie Heathers, which we watched as soon as it got too dark to paint. I did not know what that meant, but abandoned eighties mall seemed to fit the bill!

I felt even worse at art this time, but I somehow cared less? Pretty much everyone else pulled absolutely gorgeous ideas out of their heads and put them down on paper while I used a reference photo and somehow ended up with this garbage.

Garbage on the left, obvs. The donut thing on the right is Olya’s and it is beautiful. I was going to crop my toes out, but I’m lazy. So you’re welcome foot people! Also I like how Olya is using her art as a coaster. She should have used mine. It already had a spot of wine on it!

I have so much gratitude in my heart for being accepted into this lovely group of expats and digital nomads. They have made me feel inspired to both dream more and actually do more, which is how I ended up joining a writing group a couple of Fridays ago. We’re working along with the themes of the book “The Artist’s Way”, which I own but is somewhere in a shipping container.

I had never actually seen the movie, and I still haven’t seen the whole thing as Olya’s laptop battery died right at what seemed like a pivotal point towards the end of the movie. Hahahaha! It felt like a real cliff hanger, so I should probably put myself out of my wondering misery soon and watch the last bit.

If you or anyone you know is suffering from a psychotic boyfriend who is killing everyone and making you help disguise the murders as suicides, please reach out to someone for help. Not me. I don’t want him to know my name, but there’s gotta be someone out there to help. Either a scarier psychopath or the police even?

Anyway. Things are going pretty well around here. Our things from America should be here next month. That took way longer than we thought it would! Cat and dog negotiations are going well.

Cong is turning into an absolute menace. No ankles are safe. He can climb to great heights. He is a master of parkour. I have literally seen him run along the back of the couch horizontal to the ground. He will eat your books and bite the dog’s butt. Then he needs to take a three to four hour nap and starts again. I’m gonna make some calls about testicle removal services today.

Also Bowie has not been well for quite a while. First diagnoses was worms, and she perked up after we treated for those. But it was like she turned into an old lady over night. We ended up doing bloodwork, and it turns out she has a blood parasite from the fleas she had for five minutes after we first got here. Poor indoor princess goes outside to poop and ends up with fleas, worms, and a blood parasite. We’re treating her now, and she’s back to her old self again.

I have some weekend adventures to share soon, but I’m going to work on my Greek lessons and sweep the porch. We had some big wind this weekend, and it’s a mess of nature debris out there. I’m currently winning my battle against the evil ant invaders, and I don’t want them to have any snacks or hiding places out there.