Three In One

 I saw the Cardinal at the platform feeder this morning so I grabbed the camera to take its picture. Then I noticed that a Downy Woodpecker was perched on top of the tube feeder. AND there was a Nuthatch on the suet pellets. Three birds in one shot! And it was so cold today I was sure any smart birds would stay in their warm nests but maybe no place is warm when it's -3 degrees. It got up to 6 degrees this afternoon in the sunshine, now it's fallen to 0, but they're predicting temps in the 20s and 30s in a few days. Woohoo!

This morning I cooked up two batches of Chicken Breasts Pierre. I decided to make it twice because I've been eating it first because I like it so much so I thought why not make more of it. So I did. Now I have twelve servings of it instead of six. Yum.

 

In the afternoon I cooked up a batch of Lentils & Rice. Unfortunately I turned the heat down too low so that the brown rice wasn't nearly cooked after 45 minutes so I had to turn the heat up and cook it another 30 minutes for it to be edible. I'm not sure how it'll like being frozen so I had one serving for supper tonight and put the rest in the freezer. Time will tell.

While the second batch of Chicken Pierre simmered I hauled out my watercolor things, the big palette with all the colors, to try finding or mixing colors to replicate what I liked in the four photographs I sorted out yesterday. It was an interesting exercise. I noticed that she just mixed colors and then didn't make note of what colors she'd mixed but I knew that I wouldn't remember what I'd used so I made little notes on the pages. I'll probably never use them but better to be safe than sorry.

While the Lentils & Rice were cooking (and cooking) I did another lesson in the Draw Squad book. These figures weren't as fun to draw as some of them are but I drew them like a good girl. DD's Christmas present arrived today--two sizes of sketchbooks! Three of the smaller size and two of the bigger ones. It's a good thing because I'm down to five pages in my last sketchbook. I would have bought more yesterday but I forgot to go to Michaels on my way to the grocery. Now I won't have to buy any for quite a while. Thanks, DD!

After supper I decided to cast on a dishcloth/washcloth. It requires little to no thinking which is a nice palate cleanser after knitting that shawl which had all kinds of thinking involved.

I'm still counting spatulas in the box as the day's toss and I didn't crack open the prompt book in the afternoon. I was too busy cooking and drawing and painting.

--Barbara