#295 Lovey Dovey Lilac Leaves 4/7/20

I had today off.  When I took the promotion at work last year, I was finger wagged from both my boss and my husband to "keep it at 40 hours!"  It is my first job that is not paid "hourly".  So previously, if the work demanded it, I would be paid over-time rates.  In healthcare, you need to keep it staffed safely and if coworkers were sick or on FMLA, you might be asked to work over - but you were rewarded with a nicer paycheck.  Well, that all ended with the new job and with (first) the software transition, (second) too many new instruments, and (third) the pandemic I now work crazy hours without the benefit of a nicer paycheck (as does my boss now too).  I start to get bitter every once in a while, as I feel like I have the lowest hourly rate of all my coworkers with unreasonable expectations of what a single person can handle in a day.  But then I get over it, or at least stop dwelling on it.  I took today off, to try and make up for some of the crazy weeks that have just passed.  I thought I would paint all day, but instead I tackled a few other projects.  I did get in one painting though.  One of my other projects was to clean up the two hydrangea bushes behind the garage.  Next to the hydrangeas is a forlorn looking lilac bush.  While our house was being built back in '93, we were living in my grandparent's house (it was empty, they had both passed away and it was stipulated in their will that their heirs had to wait a year before selling it).  They all thought Dave and I would buy it, but it was just too far of a drive for Dave who was working at Ft. McNair in D.C.  When our house was built, it was void of vegetation....and I was picking up plants everywhere.  Nana had a purple lilac next to the wash-house and a white lilac next to the water pump.  I pulled up some shoots near the edge of each and put them in the dirt behind the garage.  The purple one perished, but the white one took root.  Even now, 27 years later, it lives on - but it always seems to be just hanging on.  Joe describes it as a landscaping piece for a house of horrors - part alive and pathetic and part dead.  Each year I think I'm going to prune it back to nothing, and then I forget.  But while I was messing with the hydrangeas (which are very healthy), I spotted these two leaves on the lilac bush, grabbed my camera, and decided this was my painting subject of the day.  Nana and Grandpop, who lived together without talking to one another, recreated with a second chance in fresh dirt, finally come through with the lovey dovey leaves - which required one of them to break a bit, something apparently neither of them were willing to do in life.  My painting of such a sight: not that great.  But when I look at it from a distance, it looks interesting....so I'm thinking I won't paint over it (which was my first inclination upon finishing it).  Now that I see it here in the photographs, I'm thinking it deserves to be painted over.  We'll see.