Oh, Man, Is It Windy!

Last night whenever I got up to go to the bathroom (twice) I could hear the wind whipping around the house and all day the wind was just crazy strong. It was trash pickup day and I noticed that the neighbors' trash bins all blew over once they were emptied. I wasn't going to go outside because it was 27 degrees and made much colder by the strong wind but then I realized when I took my shower this morning that my shower curtain was stained and mildewed and I was tired of it so I went to Bed Bath and Beyond for a new one. They sure don't have much to choose from but I got the plainest, non-solid, white curtain that I could find. And it was on sale. Whoop!

I baked the WW Cheesecake with a Brownie Crust today. I couldn't believe that something like that could be so few points (1 for the crust and 1 for the cheesecake top) so I ran the recipes through the create function on the WW website and, yep, that's the right points total per serving. I was supposed to make it in a 9" pie plate or a springform pan but when I poured the brownie crust into that size pie plate (I don't have a springform pan) it looked like it was almost full so there would be no room for the cheesecake part so I poured it into a 9" square pan. Much better. Once it was baked and cooled I was supposed to let it sit in the fridge for 12 hours to let the flavors mature but I confess that I just went and cut it into sections and ate one. It was lovely and tasted like cheesecake without a speck of cheese in it. You use a small box of Jello Sugar Free Cheesecake flavor pudding, eggs, vanilla, sweetener, and Greek yogurt for the filling and it is awesome. I can't wait to serve it to my guests tomorrow night to see what they say.

Today was the last day of NaNoWriMo and I had the smallest word count of the month today but still went just over the minimum. All in all I hit 54,301 words. The novel's not done, I'm not even sure if what I have qualifies as a novel, but I'll keep working on it and see what turns up.

In Sketching the next page was these two wine glasses with ties on. They were easy to draw.

Next in How To Draw People was this ballerina. She has a smaller companion but I ran out of page so I'm drawing them one at a time.

The daily art page said to turn these paint splodges into birds. That was fun to take brush pens and add beaks, feet, and feathers to the little paint marks and turn them into birdies.

 

Oh, birds. I looked out to see this quartet of Starlings squabbling over the suet pellets. Then I looked at the grass and there had to be at least 50 Starlings all over the back yard. Naturally as soon as I got the camera into position to take their picture they all flew off but it was the most birds I think I've ever seen in the yard.

More Christmas prezzies came today. One of these days I should start wrapping so I don't have to do it all in one day closer to THE day.

Tomorrow I have to clean the house, at least vacuum and clean the bathroom, I'm having guests. Oh, and empty the dishwasher too. Then I have to go to Zambaldi to get beer for refreshments. I wonder how beer and cheesecake go together. We'll find out.

--Barbara