Wow!

What a day we had! It was mostly sunny and got up to 75 degrees. SEVENTY FIVE! You'd better bet I had the patio door and a bunch of windows open to air out the house. I went out to fill the birdfeeders and also removed the heater from and cleaned out the birdbath. Now it looks like someplace that a self-respecting bird can get a drink or take a bath instead of a swamp.

I haven't been paying attention so I missed the "little pink fists" stage of the growth of the rhubarb. I was bowled over when I glanced at it today and saw all these green leaves. Not too long before I can make a batch of rhubarb sauce to put over my Greek yogurt. Yum.

First thing this morning before I did anything else (even before I got dressed) I made a batch of Egg Drop Soup. I was happy to find baby bok choy in the grocery on Friday so that went in along with a can of chopped portobello mushrooms and a can of white meat chicken. I know it's a lazy way to do it but it's so easy to chop up the bok choy and then drain the two cans and just chuck them into the pot. I can make a cauldron of soup in less than 30 minutes and that's with having to go downstairs to get cornstarch when the upstairs can runs out. I had some for supper. It's delish. The batch makes two big containers like this so I'm set for supper for about 10 days. Yay!

I took another stab at the watercolor pattern painting. This one's better, I think, except for that one motif on the right edge that was too wet when I painted other parts and it all smooshed together.

I heard a raucous bird call and looked out to see a couple courting pairs of Brown-headed Cowbirds. The males were calling trying to impress the females. They didn't seem all that interested. Cowbirds are the ones that lay their eggs in other birds' nests and then let them raise the Cowbird babies. Terrible.

And I finally caught a Chickadee standing still. I had to take the picture through two layers of double-pane glass so it's not the clearest photo but it's a Chickadee and it was holding still.

Today's Gratitude Journal was an easy one. Sunny and warm and a clean birdbath. What's not to love?

Instead of chasing after "so" in the manuscript this afternoon, I started at the beginning and eliminated a whole raft of dialogue tags. It amazes me how many of them I can get rid of because it's obvious who's talking. Now if it's obvious to readers is another story. I get to send 200 pages to the Novel group facilitator so I'm sure she'll let me know if I've cut out too much.

--Barbara