And It's Still Raining

According to the weather on my computer here the "rain is stopping soon." We had light rain all day today and, let me tell you, it was chilly and damp. I ended up putting on a hoodie and then a vest over that. I was cold! Last week it was in the high 80s and humid and I wore capris, sandals, and a short sleeved t-shirt. This week I'm in capris, a short sleeved tee, a hoodie, socks, and tennis shoes--and I'm still chilled. It's eight degrees colder in the house than when the a/c is on but I'm not turning on the furnace. Gotta love Wisconsin weather.

This morning these three Goldfinches landed on top of the crooks. I can't decide if they're three of this year's fledglings or they're mature birds that have turned to winter color already. I'm hoping that they're fledglings. I'm just not ready for the winter colors to come quite yet. But I suspect that the Hummingbirds are gone for the year. I refilled the nectar feeder the other day and the level hasn't really changed. I'll leave it up for a few days just in case there are some stragglers.

The pink sedum is really blooming. I wish I could figure out how to paint this but so far I haven't figured it out. Maybe if I try drawing it first...

I went out to lunch with my classmates from St. Agnes Class of '65 and then spent the afternoon starting a second rewrite of Island Dreams, last November's NaNoWriMo manuscript. I got smart and re-saved it with a new name so that I'm not changing the original. It's always better to keep the old stuff just in case.

But first I dragged out my drawing stuff. Today's lesson in the 30 Seconds book was Blocks. I drew the stack of three but then was lured to draw an illustration on the page that doesn't have anything to do with blocks. It's a kind of penguin on an ice floe with a shark in the water. Why can't I figure out fun stuff like this?

Then I drew the bunny and the deer which were on the next page of Drawing Cute. I pulled out a bigger 8" x 10" sketchbook and discovered that it's not as easy to draw things on the bigger page. I'm so used to the smaller 5.5" x 8.5" pages that my critters got a little misshapen when I tried to draw them bigger. Next time I'll be better.

I need to load the tosses into my car and swing by Goodwill later in the week and donate them. Maybe if I have empty boxes I'll be more motivated to find something to toss. This evening all I did was watch Antiques Roadshow on PBS and try to guess whether things went up or down in value. Mostly I guessed wrong.

--Barbara