And Done

This afternoon I cooked up the last of the Investment Cooking recipes for this bout--BBQ-Glazed Mini Turkey Meatloaves. It's another pretty easy recipe and it makes a lot. The recipe calls for 1 1/4 lbs. of ground turkey but I buy a 3 lb. package and have 2 lbs. left after making Unstuffed Cabbage Rolls, so I just make a batch and a half and end up with nine little pucks of yummy meatloaf AND I had just enough cooked rice left to fill nine little containers to go with them.

While I was washing dishes I saw that the Cardinal was out being its usual bully self on the platform feeder. There was a pair of House Finches trying their darnedest to share with him but he wasn't having any of it. Oh, and the birdbath heater seems to have given up the ghost. The birdbath has been totally frozen overnight the last few nights and just barely thaws when it's gotten into the 40s the last couple days. Naturally I could go buy a new heater but how would I get the old one out of the birdbath glacier, I do not know. And then there's all of the duct tape I use to corral the long cord, so I guess I'll just leave it as is until spring. *sigh*

Oh, I really like the way my "contour play" Daily Practice turned out today. I think it looks especially watercolor-y. My no-peeking attempt was pretty much just a scribble but the loose sketch and then watercolor over it pleases me not end. There's a packet of pictures that you print off when you sign up for the class and this one is of a rock outcropping in Big Sur. I only hope that I'm as happy with tomorrow's real painting of the same subject.

Then because I was feeling so artistic I segued right into Intermediate Watercolor which is by the same teacher as the Beginning Watercolor course I took, not the Daily Practice one. (You can tell by the difference in styles.) Today we painted leaves. I'm still not crazy about the bigger round brushes that I have so I ordered a couple more. They should come by the end of the week and I can try these leaves again and maybe be happier with them.

Once all the cooking dishes were washed and in the dish drainer I got out 10-Steps Drawing: Flowers and drew an Iris. It turned out pretty well. This is the same artist as the Nature book so I'm comfortable with her instructions.

After supper I cast on another Toe Cap in some scrap yarn. I turned up a bag of little leftover balls of yarn that I can use to make toe caps in assorted colors.

This morning after exercising and showering I went down to Zambaldi and picked up a couple boxes of food pantry donations from Saturday's meatball cookoff to take to Paul's Pantry for them. Save them a trip. I figure if I can't work in the taproom the least I can do is run an errand or watch the small people when needed. It was a beautiful sunny day, got up to 45 degrees, so it was nice to be out and about for a little while. Tomorrow it's supposed to get up to near 50 degrees but rain. Lordy, what crazy weather this is for February in Wisconsin.

--Barbara