Here's a quick summary of what happened during my vacation!
I had a great time, did a bit of everything I wanted to except for reading/gaming. Got a decent amount of rest, enough to keep me going for a while (I hope!). Took good care of all the pets. Enjoyed every single minute of solitude, made sure the house was very clean and tidy for the whole time. I'm truly built for that kind of lifestyle - I like being in control of my surroundings, I barely need any human interaction and I love silence & stillness. What I wouldn't do to be able to live on my own, holy smokes. I doubt this will ever come true, but imagining myself somewhere else is a comforting thing!
First and foremost, I'd make sure my bed would be in the north-facing part of my living space. My current room has a big window on the southeastern side and a balcony door on the southwestern side, so it's perpetually bombarded with sunlight. It feels like living in an oven sometimes. On the other hand, I'm on the opposite side of the house of the most most obnoxious neighbours we have and my room is further from my parents' bedroom than my brother's room... so it has its perks. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't trade those for a slightly lower temperature in the morning. When my dad wasn't around, I slept with my door open and it made a difference: air could circulate freely and my cats could walk in and out whenever they wanted, I'm going to miss that!
Unfortunately, the weather crippled my productivity quite a lot. The forecasts looked promising, but they quickly changed and the temperature jumped back to unbearable degrees in a matter of 2 days. That caused me to feel very unwell for half a day. It's Summer and I knew something like this could happen, but it still made me quite sad. I couldn't paint much because my hands were getting too sweaty just a couple of minutes after washing them. My forehead was virtually dripping with sweat when I was focusing on my brushstrokes. This is one of the things I completely despise about Summer - every movement instantly makes you sweaty. Every task tires you out right away. And there's no effective way to protect yourself from the heat unless you have A/C (we don't have it and I'm sure this isn't going to change).
Mosquitoes returned, not as many as in the previous years, but you can't really go to the forest in the evening anymore. Slugs completely took over, holy crap! I made a horrible discovery on Wednesday - there was a slug in the basement, right next to the cats' litter boxes. I keep wondering how it got there, there is quite a lot of distance between that spot and the nearest opened window. It was freshly dead I think, not moving, but also not dried up; it was covered in its own turds too. I absolutely loathe the idea of my pets coming into contact with slugs as these bastards carry dangerous parasites, toxins and diseases. Swallowing slug poison is a death sentence for big and small animals alike. Thankfully both of my cats look okay, but I'm still terrified of finding more slugs in that room. This is the first time this has ever happened!
But the bottom line is, I still had a nice vacation regardless of the weather. The 7 days without my dad were especially great, he hardly ever leaves the house, so a whole week made a gigantic difference. No snoring, moaning & snorting, no mess, no chaos, no drunken blabbing, no arguing, no prying, no atrocious politics on TV. A significant glimpse into how life could look without this abomination of a human being. Hopefully, one day... you know! As for the Summer, I already survived almost half of it, so one more half to go and I can forget about this dreadful hot weather, slugs and mosquitoes for quite some time again. The things in the museum should slow down when the tourist season is over. I'm ready for Fall. Early to mid-Fall is my second favourite time of the year, right after mid- to late Spring. Looking forward to it!
