Last week, Stephen and I completed our first European house sit. It was a lovely family with a well-mannered dalmatian that we took for walks in a beautiful park. We unpacked our bags for the first time in weeks, showered regularly, washed all of our clothes, ate 3 hot meals a day, rested our feet, and put no packs on our shoulders. It was a much appreciated rest.

During this time, I pushed myself to explore my creativity again.

I’ve been carrying my crochet hook, but I have not bought any yarn. The lady of the house knits, and let me use her yarn. I made a lovely infinity scarf with charcoal gray yarn and a bright pink. I loved how it turned out!

During the week, I also stretched myself by doing some watercolors:

I chose mostly easy scenes, with the exception of the tea time which turned out to be my favorite. I’ve had just about zero experience watercoloring, so it was good for my brain to engage in a new art.

For months, now, I have been putting in all sorts of stimuli. Everyday I am meeting new people, seeing new things, going new places. At the house sit, we were mostly still. We left the house once a day, to walk the dog, and we didn’t meet anyone after we were introduced to our hosts. We mostly sat on their comfy couch and rested, while I exercised my creativity.

I had originally hoped to get some writing done, but I honestly didn’t. I didn’t work on it at all. At first I was disappointed, but then our hosts came back bearing (unexpected and generous) gifts. Stephen was given a rugby cap (he has decided he likes rugby), and I was given 2 notebooks.

We thanked our hosts and took the train back to London. We walked across from the station and into a cafe, and I opened my new notebook.

Words poured out of me quite suddenly and in earnest. I wrote pages and pages of material that I instantly liked. It was as if I had been composing it for weeks and only just now got it onto paper. It was beautiful and comforting. I haven’t written like that in a long time, mostly because I’ve been so focused on other things.

I had been disappointed in myself for not writing more during the house sit, but now I see I made the right choice. I gave my mind time to process, gave the dust a chance to settle a bit. In my time of rest, and in pushing myself toward other creative outlets, I reignited the desire to write and create. I’ve actually written nearly every day since.

November has a lot of house sits, and I’m excited to see what comes of them. I have a lot of ideas I am excited about, and things seem to be moving in a positive, forward direction. I have a couple of pieces I’ve been working on that I intend to post/publish for free somewhere on the internet. I will of course link it when it’s up.

I am flooded with potential, and I can’t wait to see what happens next. There are a lot of things in the works!