Flicker!

I don't know what made me turn my head to look out the patio door this morning but I was amazed to see a Flicker among the Mourning Doves prospecting through the grass and edge of the patio. Flickers never come this close to the house so it's a rare thing to see it so near. I think Flickers are a member of the woodpecker family but I've only ever seen them feeding on the ground. But then I don't have a tree for them to be on either.

When I pulled out 20 Ways to Draw a Jellyfish this morning I was attracted to the little doodles on the cover of the book so I just picked a few and doodled them myself. I'm not much of a doodler, I'm much more deliberate of a drawer, but I couldn't resist drawing the crabby looking seagull again. That and the surprised looking seahorse are today's favorites.

This afternoon I spent reading the exclusively 1st person POV manuscript, taking out little bits that don't fit the POV. I've only reread 95 pages out of 300 but so far I don't love it. It seems to lack depth. I'll keep reading. Maybe it gets better. Or maybe it's me.

Before supper I paged to the next exercise in the watercolor book and it was brushwork, getting familiar with how the dagger brush that she recommends responds. The bristles of the brush are squeezed pretty flat and cut at a sharp angle so they're challenging to make do what I want them to do although I love the brush for making thin lines with the pointy tip.

Today's big excitement was contacting my audiobook narrator and getting my last two book projects onto her schedule and uploaded. I'm excited that she's utilizing a voice coach so that Iggy sounds right. She asked lots of questions. I think I picked the right narrator. It's going to be months before they're all done but the first steps have been taken. Eeee! I'm sitting here typing and grinning.

I looked out at my front yard this afternoon trying to gauge if I need to mow and realized that all of the little utility flags are gone. I wonder when they came and picked them all up. The last construction company just drove off and left them so these guys were better at cleaning up after themselves.

--Barbara