The Power of the Sun

We had a partly sunny day yesterday and today was all sunny which made a beautiful curtain of icicles across the front of the house. The only thing that I don't like about it is that the sun melts the icicles which drip on the driveway and then freeze in the night to make it slick. I use a lot of salt to try to not send the postman careening down the driveway when he comes.

I was happy to see that the hyacinths survived the snow cover just fine and even happier to see the daffodil sprouts green and perky poking out of the snow. It's supposed to be partly sunny again tomorrow and get above freezing so I have faith that the snow will melt back again. Until the next snowstorm, that is.

Today's drawing was from Basic Line Drawing class. First there was scallops and then line drawing with a white paint pen on black paper. I realized that I bought a pad of black paper for this one lesson. Oh well, maybe I'll figure out a way to paint on black?

I rewound the Daily Practice lesson from yesterday and took another stab at the protea, this time on a postcard. I feel like I did a better job of copying her brush strokes today. I still really like the colors she used and I'm waiting to get my Michaels order before going on to the next lesson. The India ink and one paintbrush came today, another brush is coming in a couple days, but I don't have a shipping notice of the gouache watercolors yet. I'll be patient. Maybe.

Oh, I was so happy to see this female Cardinal on the platform feeder this morning before the sun loosened the huge cap of snow that was tilting the feeder so far to the side. I was sorry that the snow fell off while I was running errands.

Then I saw my first Robin of the season on the top of the suet cakes feeder but it only stayed for a few seconds before flying away. After that a Downy Woodpecker landed on the suet cakes and moved around so it was in the sunshine. Nice posing, birdie.

In the afternoon I gathered up all of the comments on my last roundtable submission, made some corrections and additions, and got ready to send it to the group. I want to read it one more time before sending it.

Then I mustered up my guts and called a bookstore in Oshkosh that is known to stock local authors and made arrangements to visit them tomorrow. And I called a bookstore in Sturgeon Bay and have arrangements to visit them on Sunday. First I'll drive 45 minutes south and then a few days later drive an hour north but it's the only way to get my books out there. The weather is even supposed to cooperate. Whew. When did I get so brave?

I ran a couple errands out in the sunshine today. It was so bright with all the new snow that I had to wear sunglasses, the glare was killing my eyes. I splurged and bought pretzel rods at ALDI. I'm addicted to pretzels, I think. And I dropped off the taxes to the accountant. *dusts off hands* Hopefully I remembered to include all of the info they need. *fingers crossed*

--Barbara